How much would you pay for this cake?

[Younganddumb]

The header is pretty self explanatory 😂 I made a cake yesterday and was wondering how much you guys would pay? I tried my hand at a baking business just after having my son, the orders were rolling in but I wasn't charging enough so wasn't really making any profit. Looking to start it back up but want to know how much you'd pay? Tia

What makes me laugh is people wouldn't question paying a plumber £80 just to come to your house to just give a quote

I don’t think that’s relevant? I can’t buy a plumber for £20 in M&S.

People on MN are deluded, no way could you get a cake like that for under £80 and I'm from the NW - not pouncy London.

I make cakes from my children's birthdays because buying handmade is so expensive and I can appreciate why with the hours of labour and cost of ingredients.

Honestly OP take no notice.

I bet your Mum was thrilled - what a lovely thing to do for her. It is not a cake I would pay for though. The cake is very plain and the flowers put me off.

As someone who knows nothing about cakes or cake making can you explain why it took 5 hours of work?

All I see is you make the cake, then you decorate it, then you have placed fake flowers on top. A lot of specialist cakes have much more detail made/

Now this is not a criticism, so don't take it badly but I am interested to know and I think of other people knew where the hours of work come form they would be more willing to pay a higher price.

I have bought many bespoke cakes over the past few years. I’m also in London where prices are higher. I pay roughly £80 to £200 depending on size. Respectfully, I wouldn’t pay £60/£70 for that.

If I’m paying someone else to make me a cake, it needs to be perfect. I get what you’re saying about it being rushed, but you’ve asked us to judge you on that cake and that’s what we’re doing. Maybe share a photo of one of your better ones and we can judge accordingly?

People on MN are deluded, no way could you get a cake like that for under £80 and I'm from the NW - not pouncy London.

TBF the OP asked people to say how much they would pay for a cake like that. The answers will always be highly subjective and tailored to the way the poster values such a cake and their budget for stuff like this.

If the answer is £20 that is still a truthful answer. Just because they won't find someone to sell them a cake like this for £20 doesn't mean their answer isn't a true reflection of the personal value they place on a cake like this. Iyswim.

Not every cake could be done in 2 -3 hours but that particular one could. Now, I appreciate I spent every school holiday in my nana's kitchen learning the skills but that one I would build, crumb coat, cover, wrap flower stems and insert, cut out lettering. It really isn't hours and hours of work.
I would still pay a professional Baker even though I do have solid sugarcraft skills because my piping isn't the best.

I think it’s lovely. I’d pay £80 but it’s probably worth more.

£50-60

Even just to make a cake that height requires a lot of sponge to be made. Ingredients are expensive. I made my ds a birthday cake once.. nothing fancy. The decorations and icing stuff alone came to £20.

Now this is not a criticism, so don't take it badly but I am interested to know and I think of other people knew where the hours of work come form they would be more willing to pay a higher price.

I don't know that they would because at the end of the day if someone doesn't want to spend that much on a cake they will simply buy one from M and S or similar as pps have said. But the fact is people often don't think about the hourly rate for practical things. I saw another thread where someone was complaining at a handyman charging X for an apparently simple task , but his hourly rate worked out at £25 or 30.

That's the problem with trying to run this kind of business. You just can't make enough to make all those hours worthwhile.

I knit and crochet. People are always telling me I should sell my scarves / wraps / blankets and don't get it when I say it's just not worth it. Easily £35 for the yarn for a blanket and at least 30 hours work. At £10 an hour (less than minimum wage!) that would mean £335 per blanket. Nobody is going to pay that.

Handmade goods rarely sell for what the maker would hope.

If you are serious about starting a cake business again I'd take a look at social media(tiktok for instance) and see what kind of cakes are in 'fashion' now, jump on trends and people will pay more. Your cake is lovely but is very homebaker in style and I say this as a homebaker who throws together cakes for family celebrations.

Or you could go to the lower end of the market with simply decorated cakes that taste really good but don't take forever to make and sell for a decent price.

There is a difference between you deserve and what I would pay.
The ingredients, gas and time (ie wage) alone would be a lot higher than I would pay for a cake.
I would pay no more than £40 to give you a number. Even at that I would be feeling flamboyant.

For me the market is quite saturated with bespoke cakes, but not all are great.

I’d probably pay approx £65-£65

@flagpie so it takes approx
1hr just to make the cake batter, you could just chuck it all in but It would affect texture/taste.
45minutes for the lemon curd
30minutes for the buttercream
10 minutes to prep the cakes
30 minutes for the first step of stacking the cakes and applying the crumbcoat
20 minutes while waiting for that to cool off, washing up while waiting
20minutes for applying the second and final layer
20 minutes to let that cool while washing up anything else and getting the flowers etc prepped
30 minutes to scrape down the cake and get a perfect finish
20 mins to decorate
20 mind washing up again

How long did it take you to make and what do you consider your labour worth per hour? What did the ingredients cost? What % profit can you accept?

A lovely cake shop near me made a cake for a friend very similar to this. Unsure on price but the writing was iced into the board, italic delicate writing. Looks much nice, easier for you and classier.

Maybe not but I like to understand where the costa are coming from if I am spending money. It's not about being able to buy cheaper for me, but I would also have broken down a handyman quote before agreeing to a price. I do this with most things. I had a driveway built recently and everything was fully costed on the quote, that's quite normal. If someone is costing a cake and saying it takes 5 hours to make but they have placed artificial decorations on top then I do want to know where the hours quoted have come from

Thank you. I appreciate you breaking it down.

Can't say I could ever agree with an hours worth of washing up though. I think that's excessive.

Aside from that though I can now see the time and effort which has been put in.

I know of someone who runs a bespoke cake making business but I think it’s a combo of her and other bakers doing it.

At a rough guess I’d say she’s been doing it for 15 years and based in an exclusive part of London,

She tends to theme her cakes on what’s popular but also does classics. Spends a lot of time uploading or getting someone to upload to social media.

Once you get a very established client base in a certain area then yes you can charge high prices.

The first cake sorry to say does look very home baker in style. I used to make elaborately decorated cakes way before it got popular but for family and friends.

So many of the ‘mums at school’ decided to start cake-making as a WAH business a few years ago but none of them do it now, so I presume it’s just not financially viable.

I think the trouble is, you get better and faster the more you do. It takes quite a lot of practice to get to a speed where you can be financially viable. Inevitably going to make a loss until you can get to a point of producing quality work quickly. I think that’s why a lot of people start out at hobby bakers. I make cakes for people and sometimes charge them for ingredients, and often that costs more than if they’d just bought a cake from a supermarket.

@flagpie to be fair those few bits of washing up could've been cut down a little but regardless you're still waiting for it to cool, it certainly would take an hour to wash everything up while including all the stuff after baking it too, people forget it isn't just washing the bowls/pans ect but properly sanitising everything too

We have ordered a more intricate cake for my dd birthday and it £70. I'd say £55-£60

My niece makes flowers that are edible and look real. They take her a long time to make but if i was having flowers on a cake I'd expect to eat them. If your flowers are not edible I'd only pay £60 but if they are edible I'd pay £110-£120. I'd only buy it for a special occasion. I think you'd have more success with novelty children's cakes.