Is this a reasonable price for a christening cake?

[Sofiegiraffe]

Asking because I genuinely have no idea about these things, I've never ordered a bespoke cake before.

I've been quoted £70 as a minimum price for an 8 inch one tiered cake that serves 25 people.

Does this sound about average?

I sent this as an example to 2 different cake makers. One quoted me £95 and the other (the one in my OP who said £70 minimum) quoted £160!! Why such a huge difference, does anyone know? Is the first one under charging? Or is the second over charging?!

That cake is an example I found online by the way - my child's name isn't Madison

@WouldIBeATwat yes! proper butter and I only ever use free range eggs.
300g butter £1.91
300g sugar £0.41
Flour £0.15
6 eggs £1.05
Jam approx £0.20
Icing (500g) £1.49
Frosting (half a pot) £1
That comes to £6.20, plus food colouring and a cake board which I already had and some bits of coloured icing left over from a previous bake. That made a sizeable (7"?) square madeira cake, that's more ingredients than I'd use for a 7" round one.

This is why I only make birthday cakes for family, as a gift.

My standard is tall chocolate cake either buttercreamed, ganached or covered in fondant and decorated depending on who it is for.

For the children I used to make decorations which take time to make, there are lots of instruction videos on YouTube showing how to do these.

These things take time, just crumb-coating and making space in your normal kitchen fridge is a pain in the arse, especially when they are tall.

For a Christening cake I think it is nice to splurge and have a pretty cake. If you are good at cake making/decorating there are loads of ideas on Pinterest.

Most people are absolutely clueless about cake costs because ‘you can just get one from Tesco’s’ 🤨

£160 is far more accurate, I wouldn’t do 2 tiers for less than £120.

@Excited101

Most people are absolutely clueless about cake costs because ‘you can just get one from Tesco’s’ 🤨

£160 is far more accurate, I wouldn’t do 2 tiers for less than £120.

That's interesting. I wonder why I've had a £95 quote. I mean, she's been in business for years and I've seen her FB and Instagram page, some lovely impressive cakes. We are obviously going with her as it's a significant price difference. But I just wondered why such a discrepancy 🤔

@shouldistop

Costco cakes are vile (imo)

This ^^

Can’t understand anyone who buys them other than to feet 20,000 people with no care for what it tastes like.

It’s hard to say, she may be just doing it for the fun and not trying to make much money, or she might be a bit crap/using cheap ingredients. But it wouldn’t be worth my time to charge that.

That's interesting. I wonder why I've had a £95 quote

I guess she's just happy to make a small profit , while the cake at £160 is more realistically priced to make an actual wage. Possibly the standard may not be as good for the cheaper cake (cheaper ingredients, lower skill level?) but it's more likely that she just doesn't work out her costings very well, or is happy to put in several hours work for peanuts.

Where I live there are a lot of hobby bakers not even covering ingredients. It’s not worth trying to compete.

the best thing you can go on is pictures of actual cakes they have made and if possible reviews of taste.
The quality of decoration I see varies dramatically - been to lots of birthday, christening and wedding parties... Ask 2 people to make the same cake and you will get very different cakes - for example on yours - the quality of how the bootees look and the cubes could be very different. The colours will depend on if they are making from scratch or buying in some ready made sugar paste...
I have to admit that sometimes a persons skill maybe more the decoration than the baking - they are very different skills. If you had them in front of you at the same time you would probably notice the difference between a butter cake, with quality flavourings versus a cheap one with marg and synthetic flavourings. But in isolation on its own its hard to compare the taste of a cake.
Also pricing - is what the market will take - cake making is notorious for people undercharging the value of what they do because they 'love it' or 'already paid for the equipment'

The Costco cakes are awful. So sickly sweet.
More for people that want a cake but don't want to pay a lot of money.
For a christening I would want a decent cake. Ours cost around £75 I think. I was very happy with it.

@HunterGatherer so true

Yeah I get the message about Costco cakes... 😂

We are going with the design I posted by the person charging £95 (as opposed to £160!)

Thanks everyone for your input.

I used to have a cake making business, and yes that sounds about right. If you think about it, ingredients for the sponge and buttercream alone would come to about £5 (butter, eggs, caster sugar, icing sugar, vanilla essence, flour, jam) plus another £4-5 if using good quality sugarpaste to decorate (the board is usually iced as well as the cake), plus food colourings. Maybe sugar flowers? Then you have board plus ribbon another £3, box £1-2. About £15 so far? Electricity to cook, overheads like insurance, a proportion of all the equipment you need to buy to run a business like that. So already nearly at £20. Then it takes a good 5 hours to mix, bake and decorate the cake, assuming you want to be paid £10 an hour it’s easy to see how it costs £70.

Yes it sounds right. People have explained the cost in previous threads and it sounded reasonable

The person charging £160 values her time properly.

Steps involved

Bake two cakes
Trim the cakes
Tort the cakes
Layer with cream and level
Chill
Crumb coat
Chill
Buttercream
Fondant covering including smoothing
Leave to set
Make fondant ribbons and apply
Make fondant decorations
Assemble

It’s hours of work. Once you deduct the cost of ingredients (about £40 ish I’d guess) you’re left with £120.

Most bakers won’t have lots on the go so I’m one is limited.

This is why I no longer bake for anyone other than family.

@DIYandEatCake

I used to have a cake making business, and yes that sounds about right. If you think about it, ingredients for the sponge and buttercream alone would come to about £5 (butter, eggs, caster sugar, icing sugar, vanilla essence, flour, jam) plus another £4-5 if using good quality sugarpaste to decorate (the board is usually iced as well as the cake), plus food colourings. Maybe sugar flowers? Then you have board plus ribbon another £3, box £1-2. About £15 so far? Electricity to cook, overheads like insurance, a proportion of all the equipment you need to buy to run a business like that. So already nearly at £20. Then it takes a good 5 hours to mix, bake and decorate the cake, assuming you want to be paid £10 an hour it’s easy to see how it costs £70.

This is why I do not make cakes commercially. I will make cakes for charity events or friends/family etc but normally the general public do not have a clue as to what goes into making a "proper" cake. The planning of a design, buying ingredients (though I tend to have most in stock), the extras you use (edible glue, ribbons, sugarpaste, colours, nozzles, sprays, flavourings etc) and the equipment come to so much for than "a fiver".

Then you add in your time, lovingly spending hours in a environment that has been inspected by the council etc for cleanliness for less than minimum wage - I can understand why people don't do it for a living. It must be soul destroying. It takes talent, and undoubtedly expensive training courses.

I never understand the attitude when people want something that they could never hope to achieve themselves and want to utilise the best culinary and artistic skills from someone but they are not willing to pay for it. Totally bizarre. Then again, a lot of those people would be happy with a Costco cake.. But to me that is like saying "you don't need to spend £200 on a good pair of quality leather shoes that'll last you years, just go to primark and get a pair for £10" then wonder why they leave their feet reeking of rotten cheese and falling apart within weeks.

@SpeckledlyHen

I do hope none of your last post was aimed at me. I don't want something for nothing and I value the person's time. I asked a genuine question in good faith. I make no judgement either way - I'm simply trying to understand the significant price variation I've been presented with.

In a similar vein, I'm a therapist - if I quoted someone £100 for an hour consultation, and they received a quote from another therapist for £50, they'd want to know why the difference in what we are both offering, surely? If expect someone to query this, too, if they didn't know the field very well.

@Sofiegiraffe - god no! not you at all. More the people who were saying you can go to Costco or make a cake for a £5 - you totally get what is involved. Sorry if you thought that I was aiming it at you, I just get really miffed when people pile on with "I can get a cake from Aldi for a tenner" - its like comparing apples with oranges..

£70 sounds cheap! I had a local cake maker (professional business) make me a 2 layer cake with a blue crystal geode cross for son’s first communion. It looked stunning and tasted delicious. No way would it have fed 25 though. We had to cancel the celebration dinner, so it was worth every penny.