Homemade Cakes thread

stardrops42

Fantastic cakes stokegal:T
I'm always waking up in the middle of the night thinking about cakes so you're not alone:rotfl: I def think you should charge more for a 10" cake. I've seen 8" cakes for £30 - £35 and thats with a very basic design. I'm just like you though, I find it really hard knowing what to charge people even though a cake has taken me days to do and lots of money:o

stokegal

I'm just happy for the business at the moment - I did 3 cakes last week and got £80 - I'm off on holiday tomorrow morning to Turkey so it was a bit of extra spending money. The week I'm back I've got 2 orders and then pretty much 1 cake every other week until November... Love it though!!!

flea72

stokegal wrote: »

Does anyone else worry about what to charge?? All of my cakes were 10 inch sponges and I charged £25 / each - mates rates and I thought that was cheap but they thought that was too cheap - in fact the iggle piggle orderer gave me £30 and refused to take any change.

the best starting point would be to cost your ingredients and then work from that. if using cheapy ingredients i can make the basic sponge for a few quid, but once you start adding in free-range eggs, extracts rather than essence, etc. the price can be well over £5, before you even factor in decoration and labour

also prices would vary depending on where you live - try ringing around local bakers and see what they charge for similar cakes

in my area £25 would be top rate for a non-professional (dont mean that in a nasty way) 10" cake

however my only pointer would be to make sure you have everything covered business-wise. so hygiene certs, liability insurance, and register with tax man. they are simple to sort out and dont cost the earth, but are worth the peace of mind

hth F

ickle_me

how do you make the icing bows without them breaking??:think:

stokegal

ickle_me wrote: »

how do you make the icing bows without them breaking??:think:

That was my first attempt at bows so I'd try and make it loads neater next time (I only had 40 minutes to colour the purple icing and decorate the cake) I mixed Sugarpaste with tylo powder and then wrapped a section of it around a bit of tissue paper and left it a couple of days to harden - I made 20 as I wasn't sure how many I need but i broke 3 and then only ended up using 10, it's really easy but I would advise making extra in case of breakages

Evansangel

Fab cakes stokegal, the photobucket links says its been deleted also.

DH came in a said my fondant rose was really good. i have pics but they are on my phone and i cba to find the lead for it

skintbint_2

has any body been watching foodnetwork challenges? stokegal they are better than duff and cakeboss as they are different challenges like baking fairs across america, the wedding cake challenge was unbelievable, and they also had a series recently where they had some of the top bakers do different challenges,
maybe this thread will help with the costing https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2167151 and with other bits and pieces, like registering withe the enviromental health if you want to make a business out if it. i'm subscribed to both threads an d flit back and forth. i am registered with the EH and been inspected and also registered with the tax - mates rates are roughly the same for me, but i know somebody who charges a bit more but is not registered , i went onto local websites to see what local bakers were charging and also googled local cakes to get an idea of what people were charging doing it from home

stokegal

flea72 wrote: »

the best starting point would be to cost your ingredients and then work from that. if using cheapy ingredients i can make the basic sponge for a few quid, but once you start adding in free-range eggs, extracts rather than essence, etc. the price can be well over £5, before you even factor in decoration and labour

also prices would vary depending on where you live - try ringing around local bakers and see what they charge for similar cakes

in my area £25 would be top rate for a non-professional (dont mean that in a nasty way) 10" cake

however my only pointer would be to make sure you have everything covered business-wise. so hygiene certs, liability insurance, and register with tax man. they are simple to sort out and dont cost the earth, but are worth the peace of mind

hth F

Thanks Flea72 - I have a spreadsheet set up which works out the cost of cakes to the penny/gram so I know I make a profit on each one - I also held some blind tasters (gotta love the freeloading friends) with quality products v cheap ones to see if the could tast the difference a tbh my main difference found was the quality of the vanilla extract - they all prefered the Nielson-Massey pure extract over supercooks, however most prefered the concentrated lemon juice from Asda over fresh lemons - they're a strange bunch I find that because I can buy the silver spoon sugar in bulk it works out cheaper than the supermarkets own brand.

I always worry about prices so any feedback is appreciated thanks - I remember I paid £35 for my little boys 2 tier christening cake and I thought that was reasonable but I wish I had the cake bug back than as it the decoration on it was dire

stardrops42

Here are the little baby converse trainers I made for my grandsons christening cake:D I will post pics of the finished cake next week, just wanted to share;)

skintbint_2

love them stardrops! did you use a template at all - you know the ones you get for card making and adapt it? or did you just do it by eye?