To think this isn't great for £55?

[SilverPicnicHead89]

We ordered 20 cupcakes from a local cake shop for my child's 6th birthday to give to her friends at the end of the day at school. Paid when ordering (no images available or book to choose from and the staff member serving just told us to go online to look at examples on their social media profile, but we were in a queue and didn't even have WiFi). Picked them up today. I'm not going to complain and I'm sure they're going to taste nice but at £55 for 20 of these, were my expectations not reasonable?

I would be a bit annoyed if my kid came walking out of school with a random cupcake, not packaged or anything. How are we meant to transport it home? Would they just eat it straight away and then prob not eat their dinner? It’s just faff. A little bag of sweets or chocolate Malteser bunny much preferred! And £55 on an after school handout is mad.

They don't look great for the money. Op, you could have bought 20 of the colourful supermarket cup cakes for a fraction of the price and they would have probably looked nicer. It's done now, just don't order from them again.

Yeah they are really not all that.

I'd just make them next time. Cupcakes are very simple and you could even use a box mix for low effort

we're not from the area and cupcakes on birthdays seems to be a "thing" around us, we did it because it seems to be normal around here (to hand out cakes or a sliced up one on birthdays at the end of the school day).

(hit post too soon - i.e. we wanted our child to fit in)

They're a bit uninspired. The finish isn't great but what gets me is that they seem completely lacking in any pizzazz or inspiration. Just a bit bland. You'd expect a shop that does this as their trade to be able to produce something with a little bit of "wow!" about it for £55. Those are just bland.

They’re 6 years old. I’d have just bought the Tesco cupcakes that look pretty similar tbh

I think they are fine. It's just the cup cake with the 6 on the looks a bit messy

Yeah, you can’t have yours be the only one not participating, I know, but don’t feel you need to match budgets.

Like PPs said, nations are just as popular and less hassle, mess & expense.

Pre sliced Colin caterpillars used to be a fairly common choice at our school until they banned the whole thing. I think teachers secretly appreciate the lower mess options.

These

Nations? HARIBO.

I think they’re fine. Handmade to order and hand finished, less than £3 per cake.

Supermarket cakes will be much cheaper, but very manufactured, mass produced and full of preservatives and other crap. You can’t really compare.
Hand made are a million times nicer.

I paid £70 for 36 a few years ago and felt very underwhelmed too.
Because it was nursery they had to be free from everything so I assumed that’s what bumped the price up
Overall I think cupcakes are quite underwhelming come to think of it, I’ve never thought a cupcake is amazing and luxurious

£2.75 a cupcake is not good value..if they had been individually packaged maybe it would have been better and very fancy. These are something you could make yourself.

I agree with this. It's around an hour's work in total. Under half an hour to mix and bake a batch of fairy cakes, cool, then get some ready made frosting and a piping set, pipe neatly and decorate with some sprinkles and cool sweets.

They won't taste as nice as professionally baked cupcakes, but ime kids aren't nearly as fussed about that as what they look like, unlike adults, and many kids prefer the taste of cheap supermarket icing to, say, posh Italian buttercream anyway.

That sounds normal retail price for a cupcake. It’s why I never order my dc a birthday cake from a proper cake maker. They’re £££. I agree that yes you probably could have made similar for like £15. But you went for convenience. I spend like £10 on cake mix and decorations, and make some buttercream, get some piping bags and whack a cake together for mine because I’m cheap.

haahahahahahahahahaha
No.

Butter alone would be £7 at commercial rate for those cupcakes and icing, at the very least. This is 2025, not 2016. Sugar, flour, butter and eggs have all gone up enormously. As has the (unsubsidised) energy costs for a bakery.

For the end of the day at school? It’s a mini bag of Haribo or one of those cheap plain supermarket fairy cakes around here!

Local cake makers seem to charge around that for similar cakes based on local pages, but no one buys those for school!

I have bought these in the past for one of my DC who have a term time birthday which fell during a weekday and took these into school. Kids were all happy. Cheap and cheerful. Job done.

You live and learn OP.

The problem with stuff like this is just because it might be cost £3 of someone’s labour and materials doesn’t mean it’s worth £3 to me. The effort expended on it is not worth the result.

I’m not sure if you can complain but I would just buy some from the supermarket next time.

Very true. I’m sure the children wouldn’t care either!

Just an fyi those are mini cupcakes, which are super tiny, which is why it is priced like that. If you get the normal sized lola cupcakes they would be more (probably same as what you paid or more).

Have you checked with the teacher though?
Nothing worse than having cakes for everyone and handing them out and then having to dig into the spare box of sweets to find something for the allergy children who miss out on cake (unless these cakes have taken this into account).

I think they look fine and you are nuts for spending that much money on cake