wedding cakes

[nannycook]

Help, i've got a wedding cake to make next year, 150 to feed, all sponge, albeit different flavours, decorated in sugarpaste, i'm thinking, 14, 12, and a 10inch round, i have no idea what to charge, and she wants a smallish fruit cake in royal icing to please mum i think, i need so much help as never made a cake that size before ( the 14inch terrifies me) TIA.

I would price the ingredients and sugar paste and ask for that as a deposit so that you lose only your time if she cancels. Have you seen The Mat? Haven't got one but they look good. Sugar paste splits, you clart it back together and rub it with a warm hand or a ball of sugar paste!

The MAT isnt as good as I envisaged but very helpful. You def need a big table.

Surely you can work on figures of a 20cm/9" cake. I would think around £300 + depending on the amount of work. I have the M&S booklet here and 3 tiers are around £250. It depends ont he quality of ingredients as people like masie fantasie would sell at £1000. Depends on the region your in and what people expect, I paid £450 for a chocolate gateaux in loads of chocolate back in 2004.

I have never done a big fruit cake but this one on BBC good food always attracts me.www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4575/wedding-cake--light-fruit-cake

The cake doesnt have to feed so many you can have an additional cutting cake in the kitchen, still decorated but not on show and this would allow for a taller more elegant cake like the trends at the moment. 22cm top tier is too big I would be thinking 7 - 10cm top tier otherwise it will look huge. www.maisiefantaisie.co.uk/frill-wedding-cake.html

If you have to deliver it and set it up dont forget you need to add time and travel.

I would spend a hour or so googling wedding cakes to get a ball park.

Just dont underprice!!!! If I was going it I would be looking min £350 mark as its the time that needs to be allowed for.

Thanks bacon, so you think maybe a, 12,10 and 8inch, then also make a big one for the kitchen to cut? but she also wants, or rather her mum does a small fruit cake, arrrgh, very scared now.

I think a 14, 12 and 10" would look a bit short and squat personally. Does she 'only' want a three tier? I would also suggest a cutting cake for the kitchen to make up the portions, as a tiered cake to feed that many would be very heavy.

As for how much to charge... you need to work out the cost of ingredients, then how long you think it will take you, including researching, cleaning up etc and then if it's say, 20 hours and £10 an hour, charge £200 for your time, plus ingredients.

I also wouldn't pay any attention to M&S prices. They are mass produced cakes of poor quality and not bespoke. You wouldn't pay the same for an off the peg dress as a bespoke one, would you, so why a cake?! You can see the difference between an M&S cake and a well made one here: www.patacake-parties.com/page8/page8.html

Yeah midori i agree with you, had a rethink about the size and suggested to her a smaller more elegant sized cake,i.e 12, 10 , and possibly an 8 inch, with a cake for cutting up in the kitchen like bacon said, she does still also want a flipping fruit cake god knows why, keep mum happy i think and she wants it in royal icing which i haven't done before, so really its 4 cakes in all.

Good luck! My mum uses renshaws regal ice ready to roll royal icing if that's any help? Also, you should b able to make the fruitcake a good month in advance, particularly if you are injecting it every few days with brandy allowing it to mature.

I did a wedding cake for my brother. It was a 12", 9" and 6" plus another 10" for keeping (future Christening cake or something). The separate cake and the 12" were fruit/marzipan/royal icing and the 9" and 6" were sponge/fondant.

The ingredients didn't cost too much but the time it took to do was ridiculous (I was a royal icing novice before this as well).

Do you know what decorations they want? That will be a factor on the price as well due to time/special equipment.

I agree with £350 for what you've described but this could go up or down a bit depending on how much detail work there is to do.

but having had a nosy at your profile I'm teaching you to suck eggs so I'll shhhh and just say that 12", 9" and 6" didn't look squat.

Nanny - If you hire a 3" deep tin and do 12,10,8 with a 6" royal iced fruit you will have a pretty impressive cake. Then do a square cutting cake for the kitchen. Will a 14" tin fit in your oven? I have a double width oven and know that a 14 would never have fitted in my single, also I struggles with getting the inside cooked before the outside go dry and crispy. The 4 tier Love cake on my profile s 10,8,6,4 and was pretty impressive height wise especially on a pretty stand.

If you would like to use it, I have a costing sheet for sponge and fruit cakes. Very simple to use, and costs up to a 12" round. Inbox me an email addy if you want it, and I'll forward it to you.

Well you can make and royal ice a fruit cake quite a bit in advance, and you'd need to anyway due to the time involved between royal icing coats. it's obviously a time consuming and potentially difficult thing to do well, so although you'll have time to practice, do make sure you price it up well enough.

Blueberry, lovely cake. As usual!

Thanks blueberry, after abit of digging about i've had to rethink the size as dont think it would look very elegant, so i'm thinking maybe, a 12,9 and 6 and obviously quite a big 12 inch for the kitchen, plus the dreaded royal iced fruit cake, which probaly an 8inch, do you think all those would be enough for 150 people?

Thanks slim, that would a great help, although i'm not sure how to inbox you with my my email address, god i'm such a dipstick.

Thank Midori :)

If you do a square for the kitchen you will get more slices out of it than a round cake and it is easier for the staff to deal with. Look here for portion guides.

To message Slim - look along the line with her name and there is a message a poster button, click and it will take you to the pm page.

Thanks blueberry, just looked at that portion size but its for fruit cakes i think, did wonder as theirs so many more portions to those cakes than the ones i looked at on another site, but thank you anyway.

Blueberry, how much would you charge for a 12, 10, 8 sponge, with one to cut in the kitchen and a small fruit cake?

For a royal iced 6in I would charge about £55 ( royal icing is a PAIN!), the 8, 10, 12 I would charge £250-300 depending on decoration and for the cutting cake I charge £40 for a 10" square. So looking at between £350-400 in total. Don't feel shocked at the charging that, once you have totalled the ingredients and man hours it isn't that much!

Oh god blueberry that sounds so much money, but thankfully i dont know her, she's a friend of my daughter, and have to be honest the cake she's chosen is hideous, 3 shades of pink, with tiny roses with you may think isnt to bad untill you look at the bottom tier, she had the same roses made into heart shapes in a band going around the middle, flipping awful it looks!!!

Yes it is a lot of money but just think of making all those tiny roses then ensuring all the hearts are in a straight line and even, colouring paste, baking cakes, hiring tins and all the rest you will be doing!

Blueberry, i guess thats what she had in mind to be honest, in effect i will be making 4 cakes, i cant believe i'm making a cake that looks as bad as that one. She thinks it looks( lush) her words, as soon as she said that word i knew i was doomed. hopefully when i tell her the price she may just may say, thank you but no thanks!!

I've inboxed you back Nanny, forgot to say in my email, the prices on the spreadsheet is just the basic cost of the ingredients. An electrifc oven uses (top end) 60p an hour, then you need to charge at least £6 an hour for your own time. Once you've added it all up, you'll soon see that it will likely come out around £360-£400

Personally I think a 8" is better a middle tier. By the time you ice it it'll be more 9" and be huge. Therefore a 5/6" top could look more elegant.

Agree that a square cutting cake would be more economical and if you did this one as a vanilla/lemon then it would keep the price down.

When it comes to design you have to do some influencing and state what would look better.

Make sure the depths look good too so you may have to add additional layers to get height. Doing it this way you'll get more servings.

Not everyone wants cake either and servings can be cut smaller. Even though a 6" cake states 15 portions you could get 20 especially if made into a tall cake.

If your doing it as a hobby more than a business then you can get away with making it at a lower price.

Look forward to seeing the pics!!!

Thanks Bacon, so maybe 10,8 and a sixinch and a cutting cake, plus the fruit cake, yeah i dont do it as a business, just a hobby. but today i've asked to do another wedding cake for next year, thats 3 all together.

Thanks slim, will take a look at those.

Slim, those costing sheets are very helpful, thank you so much.