Hello,

A lady whose certified kitchen I rent from wants to go in together on a cake. She has a dessert business with a line of gourmet cakes and I have my own specialty cake business but am skilled with fondant and tiered cakes and she is not.

Anyways, she wants to do a topsy turvy cake for a 16th birthday collaborating together. The cake is an 14", 10" and an 8" tiered cake. She wants to make the cake, fillings and frosting and I am going to step in, crumb coat the cakes, cover with fondant and decorate and also deliver to a venue that is 116 miles round trip from my house.

What percentage of the cake cost should she get? She is asking me for an answer assuming that she will buy all the ingredients but I've never collaborated before with someone and don't want to cheat myself out of any money I deserve.

I think the whole stacking of the topsy turvy cake and the decoration and the stress of transporting 116 miles is the hardest part of this order, not the baking part.

So clueless on what percentage would be fair to negotiate with her. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Brittany

Also, just wanted to add, that I am going to be carving the cakes before they are crumb iced. All she is doing is buying the ingredients and preparing the cakes, fillings and buttercream.

I would say that you SHOULD get the most out of this deal. If she is just baking and making the frosting then I would think that no more than 10-20% should be hers. You are doing most of the work. The reason I'd say no more than 20% is that your ingredients should cost no more than 20% than what you are selling the cake for.

How many hours do you think you will be working on the cake, including the delievery (to and from)? How much do you feel your time is worth?

Well I think I could work on the fondant decor at my home so that at the kitchen, all I have to do is glue everything on.

It's complicated because I will also have to pay her $15/hour for using her kitchen to decorate the cake. Basically the price we came up with for the client is $6.00/slice. That is really high for me to charge. Since I am just starting out I am still uncomfortable charging a lot for my cakes but with paying to rent her kitchen now, I have been charging more because at the prices I was charging, I was barely making any profit at all.

I don't know, kinda feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick here. Having to give her a cut, taking two hours out of my day and miles on my car to transport the cake, reimbursing her for ingredients and then also pay her for renting her kitchen for her order she is asking me to help out with.

Why is this so complicated! haha

I would treat this like a normal order since you have to pay her for your time at the kitchen. Be confident at the $6.00 per serving that you are charging and dont let that deter you

Personally, I'd ask her to waive the kitchen rental fee, since you are working on this project for her. She took the order, not you.

From there I'd figure your percentage based off of labor time (including the delievery). I'd also probably tack on a $1 mile there and back charge for the wear and tear on your car not to mention gas.

If you didn't do this for her she would either have to do it herself or pay someone else to do it.

I agree because I really don't like having to pay the rental fees when I do the cakes for her but I tried to negotiate this with her and she didn't want to. I mentioned that I didn't want to pay rental fees when I'm doing an order that she got for her own business but she doesn't think that is fair. I've been searching for an affordable rental kitchen for so long that I decided that in this situation, I am just going to have to bite the bullet and pay it until I get my own kitchen someday.

I calculated $60 for the delivery fee by doing .51 cents the standard mileage reimbursement rate x 116 miles round trip. I wasn't going to give her a cut of the delivery fee since that is my reimbursement for using my own car and gas.

What do you guys think about her getting 20% of the cake cost ($600) in addition to the cost of the ingredients and my renting fees? Too much? Too little?

$600 is the total cake cost, so 20% would be $120.

I think that the 20% would cover the costs of her ingredients and her time in baking and making the icings. I wouldn't give her anything more than that.