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!

From a car boot sale? Presumably with none of the required permits, licensing, inspections done, nothing. Make some extras and give them to friends as a xmas gift

@TheatricalLife But DD wasn’t selling her cake! Leiths has high standards!

Easily, easily a fiver and probably a tenner for one op. And I also think the idea of small ones is nice.

Lots of people have talked about the appearance of the cake and I think some people automatically assume a hard, smooth fondant icing is somehow best. It does look professional if done well, but I actually dislike eating it - lots of people in my family pull it off and just eat the cake as it is hard going and sickly. I much MUCH prefer a soft peaked royal icing and there will be others who do too. It looks delicious.

That Meg Rivers cake is six inches (so really small) and sells for £48. That sounds about right tbh.

The £10 one from M&S people mention is a small cake bar with icing only on the top. Say 5-6 small slices. But if that's what ppl want then it's fine for sure. I don't think people are looking for a really big Chr cake so much.

All baking is so ££ now – I made a batch of brownies for a work sale the other week and as it happened, I needed to buy everything except the sugar; ingredients (for about 20 smallish brownies) came to £12. So if I were selling them, I would have had to price them at £1 just to cover costs of ingredients and electric; to actually make money it would be £2-£2.50 each. Not sure anyone would pay that for a two-inch square brownie.

ETA I see the OP has posted again – yes if you sell at a car boot you will need to jump through the hoops mentioned. Honestly I cannot see how selling a Chr cake, even a small one, for a fiver would come close to covering costs. And you do have costs, even if you have already bought the fruit etc.

I make our family Christmas Cake, admittedly it’s big, but it costs a LOT to make, the ingredients all add up, all the fruit, I add glacé cherries, the marzipan is expensive, butter, eggs, brandy…

Cost this up properly.

I hate xmas cake and make a chocolate one.
I wouldn’t buy cake at a car boot from someone I don’t know.
Are you hygiene registered?

You need to be registered if you sell food for your own profit unless you apply for a small business exemption. The other exception is for charity (so those MacMillan coffee mornings, for example) and fundraising events.

Every year I have lots of mixture left over and usually end up making a mountain of Christmas cake buns that we just eat throughout the season, so I thought this year I'd use the left over mixture to make three or four extra small cakes and see how they sell...I just wondered what price to put on them. I was thinking £5 so the fact the majority have suggested £10 seems pleasantly surprising, considering I wouldn't be spending any extra time or money

You can't do that @TheHopefulBaker - you would need to register with the council first and get your kitchen approved before you can sell food for profit.

Absolutely the same here. Mine cost £40ish in ingredients alone.

If its any help I sold several 6inch square cakes plain iced for £7 each. for a charity. Also sold several smaller slicespriced by weight again plain iced. These went really well from £3 .

I think with the price of the ingredients in a fruit cake, you wouldn't be able to charge enough to make a decent profit, it wouldn't be worth the time and effort. I've done car boots and cake sales and what tends to sell well are small cakes like rock cakes, brownies, flapjacks and cupcakes. I've also done shortbread rounds, various flavours like chocolate chip or cherry & almond. Loaf cakes sell well, chocolate, lemon drizzle etc and Victoria sponge type cakes which can be sold by the slice. My bestsellers were coffee and walnut and St Clements (orange and lemon).

Cost up carefully so that you know what it costs you to make each cake and then add on a reasonable amount for profit.

To sell you will need to register with the local council and have an inspection of your premises. It’s a simple enough process but not worth taking the risk of selling without being registered! You’ll also need public liability insurance!

To clear up some of the misinformation on this thread...

In order to sell cakes (or any other food item) made in your domestic kitchen, you are legally supposed to register as a food business, 28 days before you start trading.
Registering means informing your local council (usually by filling in a very basic online form). It is FREE to register, and they cannot refuse your registration.

Once you've registered, somebody from the council'ss environmental health dept may visit your home to make sure your premises are suitable from a food safety point of view....

meaning:
that you can store food safely (including refrigeration for items that need it and a system for ensuring this is at the correct temperature);
that you have adequate work space to handle the food safely;
you have hot and cold running water;
that you have facilities to wash equipment and a separate place to wash your hands;
that there isn't a toilet opening directly into the food preparation area;
that you can store/ dispose of waste properly;
that you have sufficient lighting, proper drainage & ventilation;
that you don't have a pest problem (and have protection in place)

...and that you have a system in place to manage food safety risks, and prevent cross-contamination.

They will also want to check that whatever you're selling is labelled accurately (with any allergens listed) so that people know exactly what they're getting.

They will expect you (and anyone else working in your food business) to have done a food hygiene training course - which is a good idea anyway - and may also expect you to have a health & safety policy, and a fire risk assessment, for your premises.

I don't know what the rules are around putting brandy or any other alcohol in cakes as the bakery I worked in didn't do this - maybe someone else does?

You can register via this link: https://register.food.gov.uk/new

Honestly, no one is buying car boot cake.

Pay a tenner to have a table at a Christmas craft fair in a local village hall. Get your level 2 food hygiene (£12 online) and print that certificate out and have it stood in a frame. Present the cakes naicely and charge £15. You'll sell 20. At a loss, but you'll sell 20.

Op I think your cake is beautiful! It’s hard to make a good looking cake and this is certainly better than one I could make myself.

What a spiteful little post.

I make Christmas cakes every year, they are really expensive cakes to make, I make them as gifts, there is no way I'd get that money back, once you consider the expense of the ingredients (considerable!), electricity to cook, feeding (alcohol), then decorating...
I love Christmas cake, I make a few as gifts but I wouldn't be able to make any money from it

Fair enough. I did do the hygiene certificate when I was working in a commercial kitchen. But thought this low key thing might be exempt.

The hygiene cert level 2 is really easy and I think you can do it online.

One issue might be if OP's kitchen isn't up to professional standards? Might they do an inspection? That might be a stumbling block for a bog standard domestic kitchen.

£40-50 would barely cover the cost of ingredients on a Christmas cake that size, not to mind labour, profit and electricity

I know right!

You'd hope her DD's cakes were professional looking seeing as she's paying many thousands to attend a fancy cookery school. How smug.

Anyone's cakes would look perfect if you throw money and training at it.

You can be exempted as a small business but you have to apply to be if that makes sense, you can't just set up and assume you'll get the exemption.

I'm not sure re. domestic kitchen and inspections though.

OP, lots of advice re hygiene etc, I'd say if you can do a nice one for a tenner....do....if you do, I'd say keep the icing very very simple and elegant, like.well rolled out fondant, and use a star cut out to make a simple pattern. This will at least appeal more and maybe you could sell decoration kits as an incentive for people to do with the kids? Just my thoughts. Thinking I could do this too at school Christmas fayre now tbh!!!!

I’ve just put my online food order in for next Friday - I’ve ordered the ingredients to make a Christmas Cake - over £30 for that alone and that’s nearly solely own brand ingredients (except treacle - had to be Tate & Lyle). Apart from some eggs and the treacle oh and flour, everything will be used so will basically only make one cake

to be worth my time and money, to sell commercially I’d be looking at selling for £70+. It takes 5 hours to bake - that’s a lot of electricity. No one is going to pay £70 at a car boot for a Christmas cake plus you’d need to get a hygiene certificate - no idea if that costs money

im making it as my daughter has a dairy allergy and the free from Christmas Cakes taste like sawdust otherwise, whatever tops the taste test that year (Aldi or Waitrose - I care not) would go in the trolly! It’s not cost effective to make it

I suppose you don’t have any evidence to support this do you?
And anyway how the hell would you know what the OPs cake tastes like and that your daughters cake actually tasted better…..You Numpty 🤷‍♀️

You can do Leiths at school! Not cookery school.

At least no plastic animals or trees! Obviously no one likes modern cakes! Luckily we do!