AIBU to be disappointed in this cake…

[Notwhatiimagined]

I picked up dds cake today and it was not what I expected.

Would you be happy with this cake? I’ve attached two pics below, one was the pic I sent to the cake maker of what I wanted (a family dog) and the other picture is of the cake.

Also his head is made of Rice Krispies as apparently heads are hard to do. I wasn’t aware that it wouldn’t be all sponge.

It’s from a proper cake shop, not someone who does it as a hobby.

What do you all think?

[HailAdrian]

£110 is an insane amount to spend on a kid's birthday cake. How the other half live.

[DobbleBobble]

Do you work making cakes? Seems like you could really undercut the market here

[GlomOfNit]

[quote Harmonypuss]@GlomOfNit

(I suppose) charging £110 for a few hours' work and the ingredients is fair enough.

As I (and probably many others) have previously pointed out, this type of cake takes a damn sight more than 'a few' hours, you're looking at more like 9-12hrs from start to finish. Even at NMW you're looking at £100+ in labour without ingredients, powering the oven, dowels, ribbons, cake board and box, etc.

I've spoken to my son who (several years ago) made the cakes I showed up-thread and he said that he'd be charging upwards of £150 for something similar these days, probably more since boards, boxes, (food grade) dowels, sugar paste, etc, are difficult to get due to driver shortages and the cost of gas/electric having just gone through the roof.

Oh yes, you also have to take into account the quality of the ingredients used. My son never uses margarine or butter substitutes, always free range eggs, top quality butter, sugar paste, chocolate, etc. These can make a difference if a much as £7-10 on a 10" cake.

(Sugar paste for those who aren't professional cake bakers/decorators is commonly thought to be fondant icing).[/quote]
Oh for heavens sake, I know what sugarpaste is and that it's different to fondant!

I will admit that if you wanted one of those rather creepy 'realistic' sculpted cakes, ok it's more than a few hours' work. But a cake shop is (hardly ever) going to spend several hours on a cake. They couldn't afford to. This one is pretty poor for that amount of money and no, I don't think this dog took several hours - just piped rosettes of buttercream for the fur (like an American birthday cake, they seem to like that look on celebration cakes) and why are the paw pads on the TOPS of the paws??

[YearsSinceISawYou]

Posters are saying a birthday cake like the one in the OP would take at least 12 hours.12 hours seems a long time for a professional baker to make one cake.

That would mean that they could only make about 3 cakes a week and nothing else. Surely they would close inside a month.

That can't be right for someone who knows what they're doing. In this case, it is one sponge body, 5 rice krispie parts and some quite basic piping.

I'm not a professional baker but I don't think I'd spend 12 hours solid on that-starting at 9 in the morning and finishing at 9 at night.

[Gwrach]

It's times like this I am thankful, I've never raised the expectation above a caterpillar cake for DS's birthday 😂

£110 for a random cartoon white dog. No thanks.

[Beastieboys]

@TellySavalashairbrush

TBH I don't think it's the best. Can I ask how much did you pay for it? I think anymore than £25 and I would have been disappointed.

Seriously????? Probably a couple of hours work AND the price of the ingredients and you think its worth less than£25.....tight or what?

[NELLIESINTHEKNOW]

I am not a professional by any means. I @started selling my cakes, brownies etc because everyone kept saying i should so i thought id give it a go.
I do think 110 is a lot of money.

[Ilovesandwiches]

That’s very true

[budgiegirl]

But, apparently every cake maker we've encountered is voluntarily working for a loss. Even those successfully in business for 10+yrs. Because it's impossible to make anything decent for those prices...

I really don't know why you are so determined that you are correct and eveyone else is wrong. I can tell you , without any shade of a doubt, that anyone charging the prices you have paid for the cakes you have bought has been working below minimum wage. It's simple maths.

Now, there are people who are prepared to work for peanuts, and that's fine. But if a cake maker wants to run a profitable business, they will not charge the prices you have paid. As I said, I have come across lots of people in the 20 years I have been in this business that charge a cheap rate, but they don't last. Or they do the cakes a sideline, not a main business. But I can tell you this, they are not making a decent living out of making a 3 tier cake for £70. It's impossible.

[Harmonypuss]

@LoisLane66

head made of rice krispies as buttercream (yuk) which can't even be sliced

I've not read all 39 pages of this thread but if the op's cake was made like this then the person who produced it clearly had no idea about using rice crispies and its no wonder they appeared to be stale and couldn't be cut because the buttercream would make them soggy.
Using rice crispies for modelling in cakes you mix them with melted marshmallows, they can then be moulded whilst they're still slightly warm, they set as they cool so will retain their shape and can be carved if necessary.

Buttercream really isn't suitable for modelling structures like heads.

[SecretKeeper1]

I made a proper themed cake once. ONCE. Even with help from a friend who’d made them before it took over 4 hours and cost £50 -£60 in ingredients and I swear I will never do it again. I was fucking heartbroken when my masterpiece got cut into pieces and eaten. S

[Niccibingo]

Give me a colin catapiller anyday and spend the remaining £100 on other stuff

[ImustLearn2Cook]

@Notwhatiimagined I know someone who makes and decorates cakes for a hobby and she could do better than that cake. It is a cute looking cake, but not worth what you paid. Sorry you got ripped off Lesson learned, never buy another cake from them.

[sue20]

I think it’s cute but not unreasonable to expect a more imaginative rendition of the photo. It’s a bit basic even within cake sculpting standards. Was there not a conversation given how much money involved? Guess also depends on DD age.

[sue20]

@budgiegirl

But, apparently every cake maker we've encountered is voluntarily working for a loss. Even those successfully in business for 10+yrs. Because it's impossible to make anything decent for those prices...

I really don't know why you are so determined that you are correct and eveyone else is wrong. I can tell you , without any shade of a doubt, that anyone charging the prices you have paid for the cakes you have bought has been working below minimum wage. It's simple maths.

Now, there are people who are prepared to work for peanuts, and that's fine. But if a cake maker wants to run a profitable business, they will not charge the prices you have paid. As I said, I have come across lots of people in the 20 years I have been in this business that charge a cheap rate, but they don't last. Or they do the cakes a sideline, not a main business. But I can tell you this, they are not making a decent living out of making a 3 tier cake for £70. It's impossible.

Surely though that isn’t the point. If it’s not possible to make a cake or anything come to that at a proper wage then it’s an issue of whether the product can be reasonably seen as a profitable business. Sad but that’s how the market works. The cake has to be a decent thing. Not the customer’s responsibility to fund the wages regardless of results.

[GoodEnough1]

Sorry I would vote but can’t make out which one is the cake and which is the photo …

[Petlover9]

@HailAdrian

£110 is an insane amount to spend on a kid's birthday cake. How the other half live.

I was thinking that too, I could eat (would HAVE to) for 3 weeks on that money

[stevalnamechanger]

@PineappleTart

Were you expecting something like this?

This is hideous lol

[Explosivefarts]

@GoodEnough1

Sorry I would vote but can’t make out which one is the cake and which is the photo …

I’m dying that is hilarious

[FrenchBulldogsareFab]

Lesson learned. Avoid this deep trauma next year and bake a couple of big Victoria sponge cakes with some premium jam yourself. Home made devoured and expensive iced cake ignored in my experience. You could even cut and serve yourself or hand over to caterers if you can't be bothered.

[HoppingPavlova]

Cake was cut. The legs were rice krispies as was the head. The rice krispies tasted stale! The cake was ok but very sweet. The party people who cut up some of the cake for the kids came to me as they were cutting it and told me the cake was weird inside and did i want to have a look at it before it was served out.There was definitely more rice krispie than cake.

Hmmmm, okay. You do know you don’t eat the rice crispy parts right? I’ve organised a few professionally sculpted cakes for special events and they are one of the most expensive aspects of the event at times.

When you meet with the cake artist initially you go over the brief and they work on the number of people the cake is for in order to determine overall size. That means only a small part of the sculpture is often the cake but the cake portion should serve out the required number of portions agreed in the brief up front. So, in this case it sounds like the body was the cake with head and limbs being sculptured additions to the cake. Sculptured additions are usually made of the rice crispy, that’s standard. That should have been made clear when you collected the cake - what part was the edible part to be cut/served and if not you should have asked!

Are you saying the cake body did not serve 30? If not, and this was your instruction for the cake, then I don’t think this is good enough. If you served up the rice crispy bits to guests that’s just plain weird and they would have thought you had gone mad.

[bluebellYellow]

Lesson learned. Personally I think the cake would have looked better without the tongue showing. Unless that is what you requested.

I didn't know that you're not supposed to eat the rice crispy bits. I would have been disappointed if only certain parts were edible.

[DontGiveAFlyingFig]

I've been lurking in and out of this thread so not read it entirely but the phrase 'saw you coming' sprung to mind.

[Lovaduck74]

@Walkingalot

You could buy a dog for that much - couldn't eat it though! Ridiculous price to pay for a generic dog cake. It's the same colour as your dog, that's it! I'd be very disappointed.

No, you couldn't buy a dog for that much!

[muttley68]

It's a lovely cake. For £4 you could have bought a photo cake topper of the actual dog and stuck it on any old cake