Oh yes! I remember that post. Glad I was able to help you!

I think working and making cakes at home is good as well, when youthink about it. Because, when you work, you can sell your cakes to your work colleagues and from them to their friends!

I'm hoping to attend few Wedding Fayres end of this year. But they are quit expencive.

Have you heard about BSG forum? Its a UK cake forum. You can get loads of help and ideas from there too! Here is the link,

http://bsguk.org/forum/index.php

Oh yes! I remember that post. Glad I was able to help you!

I think working and making cakes at home is good as well, when youthink about it. Because, when you work, you can sell your cakes to your work colleagues and from them to their friends!

I'm hoping to attend few Wedding Fayres end of this year. But they are quit expencive.

Have you heard about BSG forum? Its a UK cake forum. You can get loads of help and ideas from there too! Here is the link,

http://bsguk.org/forum/index.php

Hey ladies,

Sorry for my lack of reply, work has been crazy!

Wow, I didn't think the thread would take off so well I'm so glad there is such a great bunch of Uk bakers here.

Just Darling - sorry to hear about those horrid people who cancelled the party. Just so rude.

The picture of the cakes I posted with the swirl were my first attempt at using a tip for the buttercream so to get so many lovely comments has definitely boosted my confidence!! Thanks ladies

I haven't baked for ages but need to make some more cupcakes to post to my mums hubby and also some for my nieces 1st Bday. I need to remember how I made those swirls now!

The more time I spend on here listening to all you lucky ladies who bake for a living, it makes me wish I had my own cupcake business! Ohhhh one day...

x

oo bashini I didn't know about that forum, iv'e just signed up to register now thanks for that. I love it here at CC as well though all the hints & tips everyone gives, and the galleries are AMAZING and I get some right ideas from them, I just find it a little frustraiting when I cant find the UK substitutes for what the Americans use for some of the stuff lol.

I have posted it on our "for sale" site at work that I offer cakes, no takers yet, plus I work with about 100 men in my section (im in IT...BORING!) and they probably "leave all that kind of stuff to their wives" lol

I advertise on Facebook lol, once I week or so I update my status offering cakes, ive had 3 orders that way (1 done the one I charged £15 for an 2 to do in May & June) and had 3 enquiries but when I got back to them with a price (I said £20 to all 3 of them for 9" square decorated and 1 figure) none of them got back to me but i'm not doing it for any less, I think £20 is fair really.

hailinguk...I dont think you need to practice your swirls, there were perfect, the cakes looked soooo yummy. What tip did you use?

oh and Justdarling, I agree, shuold of charged them the full amount, £20 was a great deal as it is, unappreciative buggers!!

My nine inch decorated cakes usually work out at between £50 and £70 depending on the decoration.

I find wedding fairs a good way to get orders. I do roughly 1 every 2 months. I have 4 dummy cakes which I take as well as some photos of some of my other cakes. It does cost approximately £80-£100 per fair but I do offer a 10% discount to any bride who orders and pays their deposit on the day of the fair. I usually end up with a minimum of 4-6 orders for each fair and as my minimum price for a 3 tier cake is £300 It's usually a good investment

That sounds like good advice Miss Baritone, thanks for sharing, I didn't think of offering discount when they book there and then but it makes sense.

Just darling...thats good to know about the prices then so even if I were to charge £30 while im doing them to build up my portfolio its still a good price isnt it!

MissBaritone great tip about wedding fairs, the cost deffinatley seems worth it since you get all them orders, once ive had lots of practice and feel confident enough that i'm not going to ruin someones big day then I think I will try that one out!!

Bashini, I don't know if your registered on facebook or know anything about it, but the adverts on the right of the pages yes you pay for, I imagine a hefty fee but what I do was in my status update I put something like "Jennifer is offering cakes at excellent prices for all occassions for anyone that wants them, email me for more info and tell your friends" etc and ive got like 250 friends on there (all old school/college/collegues/friends of friends etc) so 250 people see that for free, in my eyes better than nothing ha. Oh and you can set up groups where you can post your info about yoru cakes/contact details etc add pictures then if anyone searches facebook for "cakes" they will be directed to all the groups with Cakes in the title, thats a long shot as I dont think all that many people use facebook as a search function but you never know, you may get one or 2 hits! For free it doesnt hurt does it!!!

Im really scared about making DS's birthday cake and cupcakes, I dont wanna mess it up for him or I will be sad Lots fo practice tomorrow I think!

Oh and meant to ask you all, do you ever ask for the Bases/boxes etc back?? I don't know if thats the done thing or if you factor them in to your price and buy new every time.

I asked the girl I charged £15 for the cake for them back and she has given me some more as well she had from past cakes blass her. My local cake shop charged me about £2.40 for a board that was 14x18 inch but really thin so I think there expensive!

Like if you forked out for the SPS system you would deffo take that back wouldnt you.......

Thanks olsjs for the info. I am a member of facebook. I will look into it.

Many Thanks.

thats OK bashini, here is an example of a cake group CLICK ME there really easy to set up, ill get round to it eventually....got to think of a name first lol

We've got a Ladies Summer Event coming up where there'll be loadsa stalls, activities and stuff. I'm planning to have a cake stall and thinking of doing cupcakes and the like. I wanted to do half boys themed cuppies; with football shirt decos on top and another half girly themed cuppies; with miniature tiaras. I've looked on CC for tiara templates but they're sized for larger cakes. Would anyone have an idea where I could get smaller size? I came across this, but there's no template for that:
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1187418

*edited to sort link out

Hi,

Have been on a break and just back a couple of days ago in time to get stuck into a tray of easter cupcakes and a carved tractor birthday cake. Couple of things n response to some of your queries:

1. I also am charging basically the cost of doing a cake for friends etc while I build up a portfolio and get certificates etc, so yes I ask for the box back but not the bases as they tend to get scratched when the cake is cut. I have also tried to where possible make my cakes fit on the smaller boards that Asda sell when doing birthday cakes for friends as they are about 60p a board, loads cheaper than cake shop!

2. What about doing tiara shaped cookies, just thinking that I used the NFSC recipe on here for the pirate boats for my son's party and they went down a storm with lots of parents asking for the recipe. I got a really decent sized crown cutter on line last year and decorated with icing and metallic balls, jelly diamonds etc for DD's princess birthday.

3. Is the BSG website part of the british sugar guild, just not sure if you have been to any of their meetings? I went to one last year and it was fab, I paid a guest rate of £5 for the meeting and spent ttwo hours watching Debbie Brown create a circus cake a few meters from me. I think it is £12 or so to join for the year and then only £2 a month for the meetings you go to. Iwas the youngest there by far but recon I would learn a lot, just struggle to fit in the meetings around the kids!

Speak soon, E x

eilidh, thanks for the cookie idea. Your pirate cookies look fabulous! I could never do work like that . I asked the lady who's cupcake pic I liked, and they are actually jumbo cupcakes, so to make miniature tiaras would be a mission

honestly you could easily do it. It was my first time and it was not tough at all other than I have a pretty bad tremour in my hand when I am concentrating! The cookie recipe is so easy you could not go wrong at all and you just make the decor as fancy as you want, the best bit about the icing is that you just outline in watered down royal icing (from the box) and then make it slighly more runny to "flood" in he same colour so e.g. you could maybe do a crown in yellow and then stick on "jewels" and maybe dust in a bit of edible disco glitter. Used that today at an easter party on cupcakes I di and the kids (and mums!!!) were very taken with the sparkles!

Only other thought I had was maybe seeing if there is a mini crown cutter that would fit on our normal sized cupcakes. Like I have the wilton set that has a flower butterfly bell and tulip, maybe another set has crown on it? That way you just cut out of fondant the shape. I did flower ones for hubbie's work one morn started baking at seven and had had breakfast showered and decorate a tray of them by eight am so seriously easy.

Whatever you decide good luck with it!

Don't really know what the protocol is for using these templates (I'm assuming you can as people have posted them!!) But if you either save the pic to your pc or copy it into word, you can re-size it to what ever size you need!

Might be a bit time consuming to pipe them all, but bet they'd look fantastic!

Failing that, Cakes, Cookies and Craft have a mini crown cookie cutter which might do the trick!

Good luck!

eilidh, that easy huh. Can't wait to try my hands on them! I'll have a look at that site for the cutter, fairycakes. And thanks so much for the instructions on re-sizing. I assumed I'd need some fancy software to work with images, but obviously I can resize on word too! I had another idea of doing butterflies on some cupcakes, coz those are absolutely gorgeous too!
Thanks again guys, when I do them I'll post the pics to show you guys how things turned out.

Hello fellow UK bakers
I'm am a self taught decorator (been decorating for about 18mnths) and am so pleased that I found this post.
I am thinking about setting up a home business and It's great to share other UK bakers experiences about setting up businesses and the usual issues with pricing (everyone wants a bespoke cake for Asda prices - lol)

Newsums x

I' know I'm a little late coming in on this but hello fellow UKers. It's so nice to know some of you are out there lol

I live just north of Birmingham & I work from home too. All my work comes from family, friends & work colleagues & It's just word of mouth from them. I get lots of compliments that my cakes taste as good as they look. They think I use some really fancy recipe but I only ever use a good old fashioned victoria sponge recipe, you know equal amounts of fat, flour, sugar & eggs.

I've tried lots of recipes for chocolate cakes but the simplest & best tasting comes from Kathy Moore's Cakes From Concept To Creation book, which is a fantastic book if you're just starting out. It covers everything from basic recipes to pricing.

This will do an 8" cake.
225g Butter or maragarine
225g caster sugar
225g self raising flour
4 eggs
4 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp hot water
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp coffee powder/granules

Pre heat oven to 180 c.
Mix the cocoa with the hot water & coffee granules to make a paste.
Then place all the ingredients into a mixer & beat well until light & fluffy.
Then cook in a lined tin as normal for 30 - 50 mins.

As for cupcakes I agree that people think you're crazy for wanting to charge them £1.50 each for them, they think they should cost 50p like they do in Greggs. My cake dec tutor hates making cupcakes so she charges £6 each for them just to put people off.

Newsums I agree everyone thinks you should only charge Asda prices because lets face it that's what most people are used to nowadays. I always say if you want a generic mass produced cake that looks & tastes awful & is full of additives then go to Asda. If not be willing to pay for bespoke.

bashini I too prefer to use covapaste. It's tastes better, is easier to work & doesn't have that weird smell Regalice does.

Lyndseyb52 yay another Lynsey I only I spell mine without the "d"

Just a quick thank you to Cathy for the heads up about Rye Pac. I get my boards from a local warehouse but have had trouble finding cheap boxes & now I have. Thank you so much

Also I don't know if any of you use a lot of ribbon but there's a site midpac.co.uk that sells really cheap high quality satin ribbon. The draw back is you have to buy 91m rolls but it only works out about 12ppm. They also sell gift boxes & printed carrier bags, with your own logo, but I've never bought any of those kind of things.

Hey all.

hope everyone has had a great easter weekend!!

Well I made my first Cupcakes! Did some for a mini party we had for OHs birthday we had on Fri, The butter cream was to soft and my "swirls" mixed in, so I made some thicker butter cream for DS ones on Sunday and the swirls were better but I still need lots of practice!! DS's were supposed to have choccie buttons as mickey mouse ears but as I came down from shower OH had fed them to DS so had to but open some smarties from an easter egg


So these were a few of the first batch (with a few crispie cake DS wanted to make after the advert thats on ALL the time!)



This was DS's birthday cake and the only pic I got of the cupcakes you can see in the corner of the pic


Gutted as my icing cracked when I moved the cake!! icing was suppsoed to be dark green, i couldnt get it any darker....how do you all colour icing, or do you buy it coloured? Is this Covaice easier to colour as well as to work with?

Love the Mickey Mouse club cake! Sure nobody even noticed the crack! i buy my icing ready coloured generally, when it is e.g. red or green etc, I only self colour for small amounts or for more unusual shades e.g. like various flesh tones etc. Not sure what the make is called though as I get it from the local cake shop in Swindon.

Totally agree about the whole asda thing. Funnily today I had a look at the cakes in sainsburys and my 4 year old and I were laughing at how rubbish the Mario birthday cake they had was. i had made one for a friend recently and sainsburys effort was a stick on edible image. Part of me thinks people have forgotton what real baking tastes like. E.g. on Saturday I took some cupcakes to a party where there was tonnes of cakes etc, and lots of people were still going on about my cake the next day, same with a birthday cake I did for Sunday...thing is it is not like I do what many of the Ameicans do and doctor recipes etc, like you say I use a pretty basic victoria sponge recipe that ANYONE could do...but the issue is that so few people bake properly now and they actually think cake from Asda is what cake tastes like...yuk!

Even if I never make it as a business at least my kids will know how to bake and never have a horrid shop bought birthday cake! (EVER!!!!)

Hi all,
just to say this is a fab thread. i have had all my questions answered in one swop.
Thank you all

Great Minnie Mouse cake. I must say that this has been an excellent post, there has been so much information and advice.

When I make a cake I either use a basic victoria sponge, or this recipe that I found in a cake book. This has worked for me everytime.

4oz butter
1tsp vanilla essence
51/2oz sugar
2 eggs (large)
71/2oz sf flour
4floz milk

Beat butter, essence and sugar together. Beat in eggs until combined. Stir in flour and milk in two batches,

Kathryn