Cakes

[nickiey]

Ok so im not sure if this is the right place to write about this but im sure i will be redirected if its not.
Im trying to earn a little extra cash to help with life and so on and so have decided to put what has so far been favours for friends into a bit more of a proffesional thing.
Im not sure if what i do is good enough-but the feed back ive had from others seems positive so what do you think.
How much would you pay, design wise what are your thoughts and i spose if you need a cake get in touch!
homepage.mac.com/nickiey/PhotoAlbum19.html

Sorry not too good with html and so on-link should look like this!
some of my cakes

Nickiey - these look great and I think you should go professional. I guess the designs are about what the cake is for, but they look pretty good to me and would give people a range to pick from or at least a starting point to think about.
In terms of price - I am afraid I am useless for things like this but I remember paying about 90 for our wedding cake (homemade) but that was quite a few years ago now

some lovely cakes there nickiey

nickiey they are fantastic! Love the look of the choc one. Some comments; sorry no real idea about cost of cakes, I've never really bought one. have you done research yourself to find out what your competitors are charging? - just phone a few up and ask for various quotes. I read a good article a while ago in Eve mag (I think) about a woman who started up a similar business - one of her top tips was not to undercharge.
Hope you don't mind me saying so but maybe at some point you shoudl look to get your website updated/professionally designed. Nothing fancy but just so it has more of an air of professionalism. They do look yum though!

hehehe nasa, its funny you should say that-my hubby is a computer programmer and has been promising me to do a site for my cakes for about 4 years now-I think its gonna be a long wait!

But i think you are right about it, it should look a bit more fancy-ive got loads of ideas just no skills!

It's a small thing really but I think if you decide to make a go of it, it wouldn't do any harm - keep it simple and stylish though.
Wish I could make cakes like that!

Bellie, thanks for your comments-I think i need to sit down and do some propper costings, andd with regard to design-It is much easier if the bride has a strong idea about her cake, a few people have just said oh well we want cream but wil leave the rest to you, with friends that ok as you know their tastes but with strangers it will be dead hard

your cakes look great !
Regarding prices I had a quick browse on the web and found
This
It should give you a rough guide as to what the professionals are charging
hth

£90 for a wedding cake!!! I got married about three years ago and it was £400 which seemed about average for a traditional tiered royal icing cake.

My mum has thought about taking this up as she makes some amazing cakes the problem is that people do not appreciate the length of time that goes into decorating cakes.

I have done a few and only charged for costs so about £10-£15 for children's birthday cakes and people have thought that is a lot

Do you know (I am sure that you do!) that you can buy the mixes as used by professional cake decorators for your basic madeira sponge or variations which help keep costs down.

Nickiey, when my ds was 3, I ordered (at the last moment) a Teletubbies cake for his party. It was a round cake with what looked like a predone transfer of the teletubbies on - wasn't overly impressed but it cost me £23. That was 4 years ago.

I think your cakes are excellent - especially the wedding cakes, the only difference between the professional site which Linnie did a link to is they are photographed really well (look at the strong colours as backdrops which accentuate the cakes). This is good news for your dh, once he has the basic page layout the cakes will speak for themselves!

Good luck with your venture! x

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wow your cakes are very good and if I was buying them I would pay around £15-20 for the first couple but when you start with the teirs and those flowers I would pay about £60 ish.(min I dunno if that's too cheap sorry...maybe more).Tesco's charge around £9 for theirs and they're not half as personalised as yours are....imho I would add the cost of the ingredients and then stick on around £8 an hour minimum for your labour....this is a great idea because so many people want to have very personal cakes for their loved ones but don't have the skill or time....lots of luck

just looked at them again and would say £20 for a basic cake and up to £100 for the teired ones....guessing here

When my mum was in home catering she charged 3xthe cost of the ingredients. I would charge that plus an hourly rate for the decoration.

ie cake cost £18 to make therefore charge £52
it took 4 hrs to decorate so add £6 x 4 £24

Total cost £76

but you might want to put the hourly rate up a bit - I don't know

lovely cakes, very profesionally decorated.
katiemacks pricing idea is about what I would have said. also remember to add things like cooking fuel (gas/electric etc,) as this can often be overlooked. Even things that you wouldn't think of like water costs (washing up) washing liquid/diswasher tabs. and the packaging you will use. (cake board, boxes) then remember delivery costs.
HTH, was the advice i was given when pricing up cakes.

My mum does makes cakes and does cake decorating. Started off as a small hobby and she done them for family friends and now it has really taken off. Seems to be a huge demand for it and she has to now turn some down as she just hasnt got the time to do them. Think a lot is by word of mouth so may take you a while to get that busy. She normally has a cake on the go at any one time. As for cost, she started off quite cheap, as long as she got enough to cover the ingredients and a bit extra for time. Now she charges around £250-£300 for a wedding cake. Obviously the more she does the more her skills build up so she can charge more and more. I would be prepared to pay up to £300 for a tiered wedding cake, and £30-£40 for a nice cake for birthday etc. Fortunalty I dont have to pay. Good luck in your venture, and as i said mum has found a huge demand. One thing to remember that if you are going to do it more professional it is adviseable that you get insurance. Mum is part of the sugar craft guild and the membership for this includes insurance.

Wow .. they're really excellent .. did you make the flowers yourself?

As for pricing it depends where you live .. what I would do is grab hold of a yellow pages and call all the wedding cake makers and pretend you're a bride and ask how much for a 3 tiered cake .. describe some of the ones you've made

even make appointments with them

I'd contact business link or similar to see if there's any H&S issues about making food professionally though .. I'm sure there will be something about the kitchen etc

yes twiglett, you have to have kitchen inspected or rent an inspected kitchen space, also i think certain boroughs(sp) say food hygeine cert is required too.

Well you could maybe start with a sml buisness add on here............just for us mumsneters as there are going to be pleny of us after novelty birthday cakes
Its just a thought to get you started on a small scale...........I think alot of this sort of business is generated through word of mouth.

my 2 dd's birthdays arn't till next yr now otherwise I would be ordering one

Wow thanks peeps for all your comments!

Im really excited reading them that this could turn into reality for me.
I did contact the council about food saftey etc and have done their madatory food hygeine course. They have also said I can do it from home so long as my kitchen meets the inspection standards and that whilst im doing it all animals and kiddies are out of the kitchen.
Its funny how your prices ideas can vary so wildly-but i do realise that the time taken is often not appreciated-hence why so far my cakes have only been for wedding gifts to friends so far.
We live just outside London in Southend, and I like the idea of phoning up some other companys to get an idea of what they charge.
And yes I did make all the flowers-out of sugar paste, petal by petal-its takes a long time!

Thanks again peeps

also, what about getting friendly with local nurseries and seeing if they would let you leave a leaflet advertising your services for mums to pick up.

your cakes look fantastic!

re brides who have no idea what they want, obviously picking from pictures is easier but a good starting point is copying something from their dress? prob obvious.

I know that when I was getting quotes for my wedding cakes that it seemed I was not going to get any kind of 3-tier classic decorated cake for under GBP300. eventually my sister made the actual cake as a present and a friend decorated it for cost which was GBP120. more money than sense, me but that's the kind of customer you want

The cake I want for my wedding is 750 quid!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

walawala...........how about CAT ing nickiey with a photo and see if she could do it any cheeper !!!!!!!

Just a thought