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? 😬

OP corrected herself, it's a three layer cake.

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

Don't you have any of these in?

I re-use dowels, boards and boxes, its very wasteful to buy things to only use once. I don't really buy cake toppers, on the occasion i do if they are inedible ones i often find people offer them back.

A set of wilton gel colours costs around £20 but ive used the same set for loads of cakes - cost per cake would be barely £1.

I've made quite a few big cakes recently & i could do 3 tiers for around £40- £45 of ingredients. Ive had all my pans, piping bags & nozzles, fondant cutters & tools etc for donkeys years and would consider those a sunk cost.

Er. No.

And give up the idea of a 3 layer cake butter cream icing, chocolate accessories and fondant accessories

Settle for what can be done for £50 all inclusive.

If only 3 layers, one tier, for a decent diameter £20 would cover ingredients.

Pay for the ingredients then bung him £40-50. He will be absolutely delighted with that.

The HSE will likely prosecute you if somebody falls ill after eating one of your cakes.

You reuse boards, dowels and boxes, are you serious???

Depends how big but it cost him 20-30 in ingredients....you be shocked.

I'm glad you said that. That's minging.

Ask him to price up the ingredients and then pay him £20 on top of that.

The HSE will likely prosecute you if somebody falls ill after eating one of your cakes.

You reuse boards, dowels and boxes, are you serious???

Not if you are not selling cakes. I only make gifts for friends. I cover boards for re-use, use plastic dowels & boxes which can be sterilized. Haven't you ever seen a cake tin or plastic cake box? Have you heard of the environment?

I made 120 cupcakes with buttercream rose and a simple buttercream iced small 6 or 7” cake for a wedding for friends. All proper butter, free range organic eggs from my hens (which I cost at £2/6). I said I would charge for ingredients and cupcake cases only which was £60. They gave me £100 and a bottle which was lovely but unexpected. If it’s just two of you, you don’t need a big cake that will go to waste (but cake does freeze).

Kind of proves the old saying though, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

And E.coli too apparently.

I'm glad you said that. That's minging

Gosh. You need to get out more
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/3339606-can-you-reuse-cake-boards#:~:text=Absolutely!,just%20recover%20in%20fresh%20tinfoil.

When I make cakes, they're generally to give to people, mostly for children's parties, so I don't typically wait until the end to ask for the board and box back. Also, the boxes are cardboard so if the parents put the cake back in the box once it's been cut, the buttercream smears the side. And I don't have space to store them so can't benefit from buying in bulk at a lower price unfortunately.

Do you have a link to reusable ones you could recommend? I'd be interested in getting some for when the cakes are for family and I can take it back.

The colours, I did get Wilton ones in the beginning but they're pretty poor quality and not very vibrant, so I now buy Colour Mill, ProGel or Sugarflair in the colours I need for cakes. I obviously keep hold of those and if I get another cake in the same colour, I can save a few pounds there.

The rest of my tools, I agree are a sunk cost, but I've not found a way to cut down my costs on ingredients yet without being able to bulk buy. I find butter is the biggest hit money-wise. I did try baking spread in the sponges before but found it was too greasy. Maybe I need to try a different brand.

We spent about £20 on ingredients for my daughters small two tier birthday cake but some of the ingredients are things that we only used a bit of and will use in other things. Personally I would offer £50 if he’s learning and tell him to keep whatever he doesn’t spend on ingredients.

Might be reuseable.
My friend does cakes as a side hustle (pays tax /has an education) and a lot of her stuff is reuseable and we hand things like boxes back after the party.

I do cakes and have just sent for some ingredients and a cake board online. A mix of moulding icing in more than one colour and royal icing for some cupcakes. Came to £12. That’s before any butter for the cake and buttercream filling, basic icing sugar, flour, eggs and sugar. As pp said butter can easily be another £6. I have various food colourings but if I needed a specific colour I’d have to buy more. I think the last one I did cost around 25 quid and that was one tier. If I had to cost my time at minimum wage the time would have been over 100. That was making sugar paste characters and sugar flowers days in advance. Baking the cake, stacking the layers, crumb coat, base fondant layer, detail fondant and then sticking on the characters and sugar flowers. I only do them as a labour of love for family only and just charge for ingredients, a neighbour got wind of the fact that I did them and I just had to advise getting a supermarket one as they were looking agog at just the ingredients

I mean this kindly, but you need to take your food hygiene certification and have an inspection from the HSE as a matter of urgency.

Food safely legislation applies if cakes will be consumed by a large number if people, not just if people are paying you. So, cakes for friends, or charity events are absolutely covered.

Covering boards for reuse is a huge food hygiene risk, just grim.

I think giving him a fixed budget will be a good exercise for him in working out how much he is spending, how much he'd potentially make, how to work within a budget.

If he wants to try out fancy techniques, its not really OK to do that at some well meaning friends expense.

A 16 year old practicing his skills I would pay ingredients and an extra £20

Boxes (paper/cardboard) can never be sterilised, so can’t be reused.

Obviously she doesn't use paper and cardboard

Apologies, I missed the point on the cake toppers. I do keep a stock of cheap "happy birthday" toppers if I'm making a simple cake, but generally when friends ask me to make cakes, it's with a specific theme in mind so the toppers I get can't really be re-used as they're personalised, and often stuck to the cake and I'd not feel comfortable re-using something I couldn't thoroughly clean for a future cake. Plus, the likelihood of doing the same cake twice is low.

It could be a mutual learning moment perhaps?

Thinking time, shopping time, prep time, design and decoration time, fuel for cooking, time water and ingredients for cleaning up. Consultancy/conversation time. Ingredient cost. Uniqueness of product. What the convenience or pleasure of the service is worth to the client.

He might become an apprentice or artisan Baker or pastry chef...this is a chance to think it through.