London cake-maker?

BrunoM

Hi all,

(posted this in Marriage forum too) I'm looking for a 40/50-person chocolate cake for a wedding reception at the end of the month, the quote I have so far is £260, should I expect to be able to find somewhere much cheaper than that? Does anyone have any specific recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

siren13577

Congratulations :beer:! Try the local catering college, they wilhave a course teaching cake decorating and they will have a price list for doing cakes for the general public, for them they get the chance to practice, don't worry if that sounds bad, it will only be advanced students. I've done cake decorating and know that in my college (in Liverpool) they do and people end up with great cakes. Telephone and make an appointment and remember if you're not satisfied you don't have to try. Have you thought about making your own fairy cakes and topping them with a large chocolate flower or ready made decorations, these could double as favours if you have nice boxes to put them
http://www.surbitonart.co.uk/acatalog/Sugarcraft_Catalogue_Chocolate_Cigarellos_and_Chocolate_Roses_215.html
Or you could buy a ready made chocolate cake, for example Costco do a large one for around a tenner and decorate that with the roses, which would just be a case of placing the roses on top in concentric circles. As they come in different colours you could alternate the colours, also that link sells chocolate cigarillos which you could press on the outside of the cake for something really spectacular, a bit like this:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.polhill/images/cwP5200015.jpg
but with flowers instead?

It's not hard to buy ready made cakes, and decorate them like this, I hope this helps and your big day goes really well.:T

crank_girl

A friend of mine makes cakes (super dooper fantastic cakes) at very reasonable prices. She lives in S London. Not sure how's she's fixed for cake-making at the moment as she's only just got married herself. Will direct her to this thread and see what happens!

Rulla

Thanks for the recommendation, Cranky!

Bruno, I could certainly do something for cheaper than what you have been quoted, depending on when your wedding is (and where) - I am already doing a cake for 25th August so I probably won't have time to do it if it's around the same time as I also work full time.

If it is too soon then I can recommend M&S's wedding cakes, which come in chocolate and are very cost-effective - I know quite a few people who have used them (I have recently been posting on a wedding forum and there are many happy customers on there!). They are generally very plainly iced but this means that you can decorate them as you want with flowers, ribbon etc.

Otherwise the suggestion re fairy cakes is a good one - I did this for my own wedding (too busy and lazy to make my own cake!) - there's a photo here: http://homepage.mac.com/joyblake/Jennie%20and%20Jethro/large-66.htm
(although bear in mind that it was done very much at the last minute so the half full cakes are no reflection on my usual standards if I was doing it professionally!)

Hope that helps - if you want to contact me you can do so on jennie.cottrill @ 1webmail.net (minus the gaps).