Hi everyone!
I just started making cakes about 9 months ago and just do it for friends and family right now.... I had a person from my church ask me to make her daughters wedding cake next year and I have no idea what to charge her! What ideas do you all have as far as what should I charge per serving... sounds like she wants a 3 or 4 tier square cake with minimal decorations. Any thoughts and advice would be very appreciated! tia

Our pricing for multi-tier cakes starts at $5/serving, but we live in CA where you are legally required to have an inspected commercial kitchen before you are allowed to charge money for cakes. If we were living in a state with a cottage food law that allowed homemade food to be legally sold, the price would probably start at $3/serving. For example, for a 10"/8"/6" square tiered cake (100 servings) we would start at $500, while a home baker in a cottage food law state might start at $300.

In any case, you'll need to add up your costs for the cake (including ingredients, labor -- make sure to pay yourself a reasonable hourly wage, and overhead) then add 20-30% for your profit margin.

Another idea, to the costs I mean is this. Add all of your costs up, but the labor, figure the labor separately and then decide whether you want to do the labor part of the cake as your gift to them. In other words charge the ingredients costs and whatever else costs might be included and then decide if you want to do it for that amount. It totally depends on how well you know them. If you are going to be invited to the wedding as a member of the church or as a friend whether you do the cake or not. If you would not be going to the wedding if you were not doing the cake then I definitely would consider adding a labor charge, but this is up to you. If you want to start doing cakes for money then doing a cake like this for someone in the church might be a way to get the recognition going. If people in the Church see what you can do you might start getting other orders, but if you do not want that kind of or amount of business then I would definitely add your labor costs. Also, another factor might be that if you did decide to do it(the labor part) as a gift then you need to tell the mother that you do not want her discussing your price for doing the cake with others because the price is lower for the cake then what you would normally charge as the labor part is a gift. just some ideas. A situation like this is tricky though so you definitely want to think it all out before you decide how you are going to charge.