How much to pay a friend to make a Birthday cake??

[Pipercloe]

My friends son, who is 16 bakes lovely cakes.

I asked if he would mind baking one for DH birthday.

He is excited to make the cake, but I have no idea how much I should pay for this, I have no clue how much even the ingredients would cost for a cake. I’m on a bit of a budget currently, so don’t want to pay lots but also don’t want to under pay.

What is a reasonable price? 😬

I don't bake as often as I'd like because the price of ingredients & electric is too expensive.

No, it’s made by a worker in a country that has minimum wage legislation.

I made 100 cupcakes for a school event a few weeks ago and ingredients alone cost me £40. Butter is extortionately expensive now.
For that size cake I’d expect to pay mates rates of £80-100.

£20 for doing shopping, spend time doing the the cake and also using kitchen/water/oven.
He won't have many pennies left.

But he might not either like OP have realised the real cost of the project.

Sorry yes I mean a 3 layer cake, with some butter cream icing, chocolate accessories and fondant accessories

But he is not a worker. He is a friend.
As shit as it is, no one ever pays NMW for their friends making anything handmade, ever.

She'll barely get anything for £50.

It's normal to do around my family and friends.

If you want to budget, just ask him to make and ice the cake and forget all the acccessories.

So be it. Cupcakes it is

You’re right, but does the fact that so many people take the piss somehow magically make it ok?

MN always really struggles with this one, it is a left of centre site, so big on workers rights, unions etc. Until that worker is handmaking an item seen as a luxury, then it’s a case of bunging somebody £20 for at least 2 days of work and it’s perfectly ok.

OP a 3 tier cake, ingredients, fondant, modelling & decorating, along with baking is very labour intensive.
You'd be looking at £150ish from any competent baker including their time.
People fail to understand tgat the cost of ingredients, time & skill required costs. The quality you'll receive will far outweigh the generic supermarket ones.

I was trying to get out of making cupcakes for an event the other day and attempted to outsource the issue 😂 I was quoted £72 for 24 vanilla cupcakes with buttercream and sprinkles.

@Vettrianofan ingredients are expensive, and baking takes a lot of time. £120 for a custom cake is pretty reasonable.

I think he is planning on a 3 tier cake, with lots of chocolate accessories and some fondant accessories.
I can't imagine the ingredients would cost that much, but I don’t know

You're wrong. The ingredients for a three tier cake plus accessories etc would be about £80, maybe more.

You need to give him £150.
And that would be cheap.

For a three layer cake made by a 16 old mature baler I would give around £30 on top of the ingredients

It's quite an expensive cake.

What is your budget tbh?

A kid of a friend doing it because he wants to and is excited by the project is not the same as hiring a proper professional. I'd expect to pay a proper professional a fortune for a handmade cake, but then I'd be choosing the design and refusing to pay if it wasn't good enough quality.

I do some craft stuff and when I offer to do it at cost price for a friend (because it is a project I'm interested in) I'm quite serious. I'd never work properly for free, but indulging my hobby while helping out a friend is a different matter entirely.

OP, I'd give him a budget - around £20 for ingredients and then let him choose what type of cake he can do for that. If you can afford to I'd give him another £20 as a thank you afterwards.

I'm a hobby baker. To make a simple 8 inch one tier (3 layers of cake, but only one tier), it costs me:

Board and box - £5.99
Cake toppers -£7-11 depending on the design request from my local supplier
Food colourings - approx £3 each

Ingredients:

5 blocks of butter (3 for the cake, 2 for buttercream) - £10
12 eggs - £2.79
Flour - 79p
Caster sugar - £1.49
4 x icing sugar - £3.60
Jam - £1

Average cost of around £37 for my basic cakes. Without considering my time spent shopping for ingredients, searching for designs, time baking, decorating and utility costs.

These are for basic vanilla sponges with one food colouring. If people ask for things like a chocolate cake, there's the cost of cocoa for the cake, Nutella for the buttercream, chocolates for decorating which adds on around another £6-8.

If he is making multiple tiers as you say, I suspect it'll cost him quite a bit to make.

This is on you, you asked him to make this and you are wrong when you imagine ingredients will not be expensive, where do you get cheap butter sugar and eggs from these days as I would love to know? He will also possibly buy a cake drum and box and certainly cake boards if it's tiered, and decor such as colourings, fondant, sprinkles etc are not cheap either and if he's making a flavoured tier or two those additional ingredients may add up. If you dont want to pay for the ingredients you'll need to be clear to him what you were hoping to spend, but a homemade cake will not be as cheap as a super market cake and thats before you've given him anything for his time and effort. People seem to think cakes cost nothing to make but it's really not the case

if money is tight and he is excited to make it, then add 10-20
to the cost of the ingredients and call it good. You will be underpaying him, but it sounds like he doesn’t expect to be paid.

you had me panicking at 3 tiers. That means dowels and boards. Then the sheer volume of butter, eggs, vanilla, and chocolate needed in that much cake would be very expensive.

people rave about my cakes. The reason they are so good is because I use good ingredients, like real butter and real vanilla extract. It would be much cheaper to buy one because most store bought cakes use margarine and imitation vanilla.

Honestly - if he's a friend and wants the practice, he may genuinely not be bothered about receiving a wage for his time.

My sister and I both enjoy baking & make things to a high standard (friends regularly assume we've bought from professional bakers) and I'd be mortally if I'd offered to do something and was offered more than the ingredient cost.

I appreciate I'm in a privileged position to be able to afford to give time in that way but i do find it sad how no one gives anything any more. When i was child, baby clothes, school uniform or toys were passed on for free, not sold, people who enjoyed baking often made a fancy cake for a birthday/wedding or retirement at no charge, friends helped out with odd jobs on the house for nothing. I know for many times are harder but for many they aren't and i feel people are less generous than they were.

Sit down with him and ask him how much the ingredients will cost.

Then ask him how many hours he will spend making the cake and icing and decorating it.

Then pay him fairly.

I can't imagine a shop charging less than £300 for a three tier cake.

In that case, I would tell him your budget is £50 and he can make what he fancies, if he wants to make something more extravagant, but thats your budget for ingredients.

And then if it turns out very fancy see if you can bung him a few quid on top for his time.

I know people have said it's wrong not to pay him for his time, but I don't quite agree here. If he wants to practice some design elements that are newer to him, he either:

• does them for a client who asks for them and is paying more than you to reflect that, but then he has massive stress of taking on something he is not confident about doing perfectly when a client is paying good money for it.
• makes a hobby cake just for him which is very expensive because no-one is paying him anything for any of the time or ingredients that he is using.
• does them for you, knowing that he will make some money, certainly enough to cover ingredients and electric maybe, but actually then can play with the design and know that you won't feel out of pocket if it doesn't come out looking just as you wanted, because you gave him free reign!

I think the cost of ingredients + £20 should be about right, so likely around £30 - £40 ish. No need to go over the top. It will be uncomfortable for everyone if you go paying him the going rate for a professional cake.