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

£30 with no lettering. probably doesn't cover your time to make the flowers, effort, ingredients and fuel to cook though unfortunately.

I thought gypsophilia was poisonous and not to be used on cakes. Even wrapped.

Oh! Are they? Thanks for the heads up!

I have paid £70+ for celebration cakes.

However, the cake in your photograph is quite small with fairly basic decoration, so I'd probably pay around £30 for it.

Apparently you need to wrap and tube the stem. Was on a Food Facebook page and it all kicked off about can you use gypsophilia.

It looks lovely. It would cost around £40 around here

Does it really take an hour to get it in the oven? I make loads of cakes and I'm really surprised. I get lots of compliments and people ask me to make them for them so I don't think I'm causing a texture issue 🤷🏼‍♀️.

People never want to pay for homemade cakes, I think if you did it all the time you'd be a lot quicker but I think it's hard to make enough money from it really

I think maybe £80? It looks great. I would only buy for very special occasions though as this wouldn't be affordable for normal birthdays for us.

I don't agree with this. I think people do buy things that take time and skills. But not for everything. And something like a cake, that can be made easily to a nice enough standard isn't on top of people priorities. I'd happily pay for a lovely handmade cupcake or cake slice at a cafe. But I wouldn't buy a whole cake, like this, because I can make one myself.

personally id expect it to cost between £65 and £100 more towards the £100

No you wouldn't use it commercially as it is technically toxic but you'd have to directly eat it and the worst you'd get is a bad stomach.
It's absolutely fine to use for decoration if you're careful and it doesn't touch the cake.

That’s okay then.
I still wouldn’t eat the cake. I don’t even want an upset stomach.

Yeah maybe lay off the poisonous flowers

There's a difference between 'time and skill'. And 'WOW'.
Even a basic cake takes time and skill to make, but why pay for a handmade one when a supermarket one would be similar aesthetically?

However... something WOW is on an entirely different scale.

I posted links upthread for a baker whose skill I'd happily pay for. And supermarket cakes that are better than the OP's.

“They do don't they? They're no-nonsense, tell it like it is people.

You know, the ones that most people can't stand”

Very true 😁

It looks lovely, but people l know who try to do this for a living always end up out of pocket. People just aren't prepared to pay, when they can pick up a nice cake much cheaper from supermarket. You've done a good job though.

I think you are going to get loads of answers that assume the flowers are sugarpaste. I did and was going to congratulate you on how lovely they were. Knowing they are artificial would down value it for me, but I'm assuming that you factor this in to what you think it's worth.

I'm intrigued by the timescales though. One hour to make the batter seems like a lot. I don't use the all in one method either and it would take me a maximum of 30 minutes to make a creamed cake batter. Why so long?

op i think ur cake looks fab, if ordering i would expect edible flowers, but for family birthdays etc doesn't matter. if this was all
edible i'd pay £80

i also love how some people think they can be bakers, artists, knitters potters etc all by giving it a bash and then thinking they are professionals haha! give folk the credit they are due, i would not be able to make a cake like this no matter how much experiance i have, i'm a crap baker lol x

I think that is the point people are making though, you don't have to be a professional baker to make a cake of that standard. It's just buttercream with purchased items stuck on. I'm not a professional baker but have been making cakes for 20 years. The OPs cake isn't complex, it's a perfectly serviceable basic cake but it isn't a mad money cake.

Like I said - if you're careful and it doesn't even touch the cake. There'd be zero risk at all.

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

But you need to be able to flush your loo or turn on your boiler. You don’t need a bespoke cake. And you can’t go
to M&S and get a plumber for a tenner instead. I think the problem with cakes is that you’re on the wrong side of supply and demand; loads of people make them (and the supermarkets sell increasingly nice ones), so the demand isn’t there to enable you to charge £££ and stay competitive. It is, however, a really beautiful cake and I would be delightful to receive it!

Ignore the snotty comments and all the posters saying they could whip this up in 10 minutes for a fiver.

It's a lovely cake and you have clearly put a lot of time and effort in. I would be delighted if a family member made this for me!

In terms of making and selling, you're in tricky territory. You're up against the supermarkets who can sell their cakes at a decent price point due to economies of scale and cake makers who have a lot of experience and charge £££. The general public can't differentiate between the two because most people don't go to the effort themselves and have no idea of the cost/time involved.

In terms of pricing, you need to work out what it cost you in terms of ingredients, energy and your time then decide on a figure that you are prepared to sell at (rather than just asking what people would pay). To make the numbers work better, you should be bulk buying ingredients and approach the task like a production line so that you can bake and make cakes two or three at a time. Your cake is lovely but it's not professional standard so I would work on honing your technique otherwise you will be criticised.

Never ever start by offering your product low priced to drum up business not even for friends and family. This is a thorn that will stick in your side if the business grows as people will be offended when you put up your prices to what they really should be. Instead offer 10% friends and family discount to your nearest and dearest.

In your shoes, I would contact a local care home or day centre, explain your plan and see if you can offer your time for free but using their ingredients and/or kitchen/oven. This way you could start with a couple of generic Birthday cakes and get lots of practise in. You'll improve your technique with the practise and have lots of photos for social media. Clearly, you'd need to time limit this as you don't want to work for free forever but it might give you a good starting point and contact for future business.

For this type of business, I would say you need to practise, practise, practise, get your speed up and reduce your costs to as low as they can potentially go. People will pay for bespoke cakes but you need to be really good.

Exactly, and as @WimpoleHat rightly said loads of people make them.
Even leaving supermarkets aside , there's no shortage of home bakers on my local FB page. Many of these people will never make it a 'full-time' business, but for them it beats working for a supermarket or similar on NMW and a zero-hour contract even if the numbers don't stack up.

There’s a woman eve owns a chocolate shop and cafe near me and makes handmade cakes. Lots of people say his lovely the cakes are. However I’ve ordered two and they’ve not been what I’d order again nor were they very tasty and I wasn’t the only one to say so. Same with a local artisan cafe who makes cakes, nice enough cakes but certainly not my taste and not received that well either. They’re both non English people so sometimes I wonder if their taste is slightly different to what an English person would like.

Last year for DM’s birthday I googled and found an artisan cake maker who made the most delicious chocolate orange cake, compliments from everyone and there’s also a similar cake maker near Bath whom we’ve used for relatives living that way who again compliments galore on eating the cakes. Would happily use again and have done so but I’ve lost the details of the chocolate orange one and can’t find them!

I do think some cake makers have an over inflated sense of their own worth and think their cakes are brilliant based on a few comments. The chocolate woman’s chocolates are however out of this world!