Fairy/Cup Cakes

kiddy_guy

Right my fellow MSE-ers!

The powers that be have decided that we are having a cupcake/ fairy cake wedding cake mountain, and having tasted the recent efforts that have been produced - nice as they are! - I think I am going to have to take a completely non MSE view and have to pay for some ! :eek: :rotfl:

Having said that she has advised that they cost in the region of £1 each - which unless they were coming from Waitrose:rotfl: , I just cannot work out how a small little business can charge this!

I desperately want to give her a beautiful cake mountain, but can anyone recommend a company in the warks/bucks/leics/midlands area that could make me some at a less than barmy price! I'd rather have somebodys mum make them who is decent, I know what is going into them and they could do us a more special service, without costing the earth!

Any help guys most appreciated!:beer:

CakeLady_2

Sorry, don't know anyone that could help you but just to put your mind at rest about the price. The small cakes may seem expensive for what they are but depending on how they are decorated they can take much much longer than a normal wedding cake. It's the time of the person making and decorating them that you are paying for. Because they are sponge they cannot be made too far in advance of the wedding and have to be decorated individually rather than just having say 3 large cakes to decorate. I personally hate doing these kind of wedding cakes because of the time constraints and the time it takes to decorate each individual cake.

Good luck in finding what you want.

Gingernutmeg

I agree with CakeLady - I used to be a baker and people really don't realise how long these kind of cakes take, not to mention sourcing and buying the cases, decorations, colourings etc etc ... £1 each really is quite reasonable when you take into account the time, the decorations, the packing box, and, as CakeLady said, the fact that these can't really be made *that* far in advance. I used to do these cupcake wedding cakes and for a couple of hundred cakes, of varying sizes and with different decorations I would literally have to block off at least two full days to fill the order - they're not like wedding cakes where you can do them over a long period, and so 'spread' the costs. In a small business, 'loosing' one member of staff just to do one order is a big thing, hence the fact that if you want this kind of cake, you will have to pay for it.

Your only really MSE option, if you're not willing to pay, is to find someone (a friend or relative) who can do it for you at cost. I'd be careful though if you choose this option - I used to decorate cakes that people had made themselves, and I stopped doing it because the quality was so poor and I didn't want 'my' business associated with it. What scared me the most was the time I was decorating a cake and noticed something glittery in it. When I pulled it out it was a paperclip, and there were two more in the cake too. Personally (and professionally) I'd rather go with a decent baker - you're guaranteed a minimum standard and you've got some kind of comeback if there's a problem. I dread to think what would've happened if someone had eaten/swallowed the paperclip ...

If you shop around you may be able to find a bakery that will do you a discount if you order more than a certain number - I know that when we used to do more than 100 cakes we'd work out a special price.

Firefly

I stumbled upon this thread by chance and have in the past been quite a good, but 'hobby' cake maker. Some years ago I made a cupcake mountain for my god daughters christening and it took an age - probably a whole day to put together and that was with the flowers already prepared. As much as I was aghast to read that you could be charged £1 per cake, I agree with Gingernutmeg and cakelady - they really are a lot of work to do them properly.

If it was for my daughters wedding I'd prefer for fork out another £100 to have them done nicely rather than risk it.

I hope you find what you're looking for and I'd love to see a picture of them.

MsChazzer

Actually if you go to Waitrose you will pay less than £1 a cup, they have choccy ones and Victoria cakes at their entertaining site.

I thought about making my own but I think baking 80 odd cakes and decorating them to the finish I would want the day before the wedding is probably asking for trouble. Still to decide about the whole cake thing! I had a chat with a cake decorator at a wedding fair who did the cupcake towers and she was doing it all out of a domestic oven, must take her ages.

finc

I don't know what numbers you're having but could you not compromise and have a certain amount of cupcakes and a regular cake on top, something along these lines, 2nd one down.