to ask how much you would pay for homemade Christmas cake

[TheHopefulBaker]

I am looking into ways to easily earn a bit of extra cash. I make a christmas cake every year just for myself and family as I love doing it, so I'll be putting in the money and time regardless. Every year I get feedback that my Christmas cake is lovely and I should sell them.

I'm wondering if it would be worth it to invest a bit more time and effort to make a few more, and maybe make a bit of money. I was thinking I could take them along to my local car boot sale in October and November.

I'm just wondering how much to ask. I usually make medium round cakes and decorate them with marzipan and royal icing. Then add a few simple decorations on top. Nothing fancy.

I'll try add a photo of last year's

How much do you think people would pay for a cake like this at a car boot sale?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Christmas cakes take a lot of effort to make and good ingredients are expensive. I don't think you would make a profit on them, as supermarkets have decent ones that they can mass produce cheaply. I am sure your cake is much, much nicer, and nothing beats homemade, but lots of people don't particularly like Christmas cake, so often they buy them just for show, or just for the sake of it. You would probably make more profit on a cheap log style cake that looks lovely but is inexpensive to produce. Personally i would not buy a cake at a car boot sale, no matter how good it looked/tasted. Sorry.

I did a few boot sales some time ago and found people didn’t want to spend money and would haggle over 20 pence. I think you would do better if you got a stand at a local Christmas market.

My other thought was the recipe I used to use was the best fruit cake I ever had but worked out quite expensive. Much more than a shop bought cake. If that’s the same for your recipe you might need to have samples on your stall so people could judge if it’s worth their money.

Even if you don’t add anything to the cost for your time, you will need to factor in the price of your pitch, samples, petrol, parking, packaging.

I think that would all work out to be an expensive cake when other Christmas purchases are more important to people especially right now when most people are cutting back.

To actually answer your question I would only spend £10

People want something for nothing at car boot sales. Sorry but this does not sound like a good money spinning idea.

The cost for ingredients for my Christmas cake easily is north of £30. That’s for really lovely fruit/brandy/butter/icing.

I’d be reluctant to buy from someone who wasn’t established as you can’t guarantee the quality of the ingredients or the bake. Your cakes look like a lot of love has gone into them but to make a decent profit I doubt that a car boot is the right place.

Try selling without icing, cheaper and more attractive

You would be better selling individual slices of the cake because no one can see what it looks like inside.

My DD at age 17 did a Leiths cookery cert at school. Her Christmas cake won the prize and, sorry, but it was way better than the photos here. Other DDs did beautiful decoration too. The cake pictured is very basic! It’s not very special and mine and DDs are far superior!

How big are those cakes? I'd say from looking at the photo I'd pay up to £30 as homemade cakes aren't cheap to make, you've got to factor in time, ingredients, fuel, decorations etc.
I love a car boot sale but if you're looking at selling cakes at them I don't think homemade cakes will get the prices they deserve at them, you'll get people wanting them for a fiver or less!
Not really the audience for them.

We made a wedding cake (as a gift) for a friend once, other guests who we vaguely knew asked if we could make theirs. When we said no, they offered to pay £200. The ingredients alone were £150, without the time & stress on top.

I doubt you could sell at a price that would be worth the time & hassle (and risk of being left with a lot of Xmas cake).

Could you make little individual ones they’d probably be easier to sell ? Might look nice with just one little decoration on

Nothing, sorry.

You would need to charge a considerable amount to make any kind of profit. You would also need to register with Environmental Health and get all your food hygiene certification before you could sell.

OP I am sure your cakes are yummy but I think especially Christmas cakes are very hard to make a profit on, as others say. The basic ingredients are so £££ compared to, say, cupcakes. Dried fruit, brandy, butter, nuts, icing and marzipan… mounts up. Plus they need cooking for ages.

I agree that the way might be to offer very small ones that can be given as gifts or would suit one person (often even in a family only one person likes it) which could be beautifully decorated with fondant icing – but even then I would only make them to order. Car boot is a nightmare. You probs need to do a hygiene cert as a minimum. I honestly cannot see you making any money from this. You could give the cakes as gifts tho.

I wouldn't buy a cake from a car boot sale.

No offence but I don't know if you have cats you let on your counters etc.

Post a picture then.

I wouldn’t. I make my own homemade Christmas cake, but if I didn’t I would buy a nice one at M&S and pay no more than a tenner.

With the cost of ingredients and your time per hour it won’t be profitable for you to charge less than £10-£20 per cake unless you make huge quantities at scale. People won’t pay that for fruit cake nowadays when it’s so cheap at the supermarket.

I appreciate you want to make extra money but this won’t do that and very few would buy them.

Oooh get you 🤣

OP I wouldn’t buy a cake from a car boot sale! I make my own

Combining other posters’ ideas, I think you should make small ones with ribbons and a box for friends and family to give as gifts. Put the ingredients on the box. Then you could take orders/payment upfront and these are the people telling you that you should sell them anyway. I wouldn’t buy a cake from a car boot unless it was from a proper cake making business, coffee truck etc.

The truth about baking these days op is it is more expensive than bought items which are costed to scale.

On top of that, Christmas cakes are particularly expensive in terms of ingredients, and I'm sure yours are so lovely because you don't skimp on the ingredients.

I think your cakes have an aesthetic that many people WOULD prefer over a smooth-skinned factory cake from a major supermarket, and I actually think you might tap into that aesthetic even more by leaving off the decorations entirely and using something simpler - just an edible/marzipan holly sprig or similar perhaps?

But the real issue will be the complications of marketing them and ensuring you meet all the requirements re hygiene etc, depending on where you wish to sell them.

I would start by asking friends and family who would like one bespoked for them. No alcohol for DM? A snowman decoration for the GC? I think you would get around some of the allergen etc issues etc that way, and would probably be tapping into your most receptive audience. Alternatively, could you bake them for local cafes and let them deal with the allergen etc side of things? They might pay you more for a cake as they sell per slice.

It's sad that the world veers toward factory made these days, but for all those reasons, it does.

🙄

I also agree with PPs that people are just being polite.
There are lots of options around for a cake whatever your budget is plus you can make one as a family activity with kids so I don’t think you stand a chance.
And I personally would never ever buy cake at a car boot sale.

I don't like Xmas cake so I wouldn't be buying it, but if your actual cake tastes nice people will buy it. Your decoration looks very drab though, I'm sure you can jazz up your figures and make it look really good too.

I don’t think it’ll be a runner.

You’d probably pay more for ingredients than they’d sell for.

And it’s not quick and easy money - making a Christmas cake takes ages and you’ll end up getting pence if anything for your time.

Selling home made cakes only really works for charity when the maker is donating their time and the ingredients to the cause in question.

Shops have huge economies of scale, machines to make the cakes and can guarantee the hygiene!

Yeah come on @OhDear111! Show us how it's done and what a "far superior" cake looks like!

I think op's cake looks far more delicious than those supermarket things.

People at a car boot will want to pay a fiver max. It will cost far too much to make to make a decent profit. I make cakes for family and they take hours of my time. I do it because I love my family. If someone was going to pay me I would want at least 70 quid but people just don’t like paying that for cake. You can get lovely ones at Waitrose for a fraction of that price.

I think it will turn out really expensive for you to make, and with the time and effort, you'll end up making a loss for the price you'll be able to sell them for. Add on the issues if you accidentally give someone food poisoning (you never know!) -I'd stick to making them at home for friends and family. I know a lot of working bakers giving up recently as they just don't make a profit anymore.