The place where I work does a Relay For Life bake sale every year, where certain "signature" cakes are bid on in a silent auction. I was asked to make a cake, which I was happy to do. It was a 4 layer torted chocolate cake, strawberry filling between layers, buttercream basketweave, with a pile of buttercream roses on top. I had comments the entire day about how pretty it was! Come the end of the day, I checked to see what the high bid was. I was so disappointed! I would have easily charged $50.00 for the cake. The highest bid was only $40. I thought the purpose of a fund raiser was that you knew you were spending more for something than it is worth, but you are doing it as a donation for a worthy cause. Someone walked away with a custom cake for a steal of a price. I also made 3 dozen decorated cupcakes (like the ones in my avatar). I was told that no one would pay more than 50 cents for a cupcake, so that's the price those went for. And no, it's not the economy. No one where I work has any danger of losing their job, they're just plain CHEAP. Sorry, I'm just so disappointed.
We did something like this last week. We put an opening bid on each cake/cupcake because we feared that if we didn't, things would go for below market value.
My area isn't particularly depressed either.........people show up in their Lexus, Mercedes, BMW's etc., and were complaining that the opening bid on the cakes were $25. 
It's for charity people!!!!
So I know where you're coming from and it does stink. You're right people are cheap, even when it's for a good cause it's all about what THEY can get out of it. 
Last year did this cake for boy scouts and they got $50 for it. I didn't think they would get what it was worth, but $50 was really bad I thought. Here is the pic http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1209952
Key word: "bake sale". Don't ever expect anybody to pay fair price at a bake sale. Bake sales are for plastic baggie wrapped cookies and simply done cupcakes. The term bake sale should be completely omitted from anything that expects to make good money, be ot for charity or or personal profit. 
No kidding on the bake sale....my dance team just did one last weekend and although we made pretty decent money - when you broke it down to per-girl amount - most parents didn't even "profit" what they spent....each girl got $50 but most parents spent abuot 30.00 to make all of the stuff we sold. Then if you figure in the time and effort - there really wasn't a "profit" at all!!!
I do feel bad for OP though - it's kind of deflating to put that much effort in. But the people bidding probably have not a clue what kind of work goes into something like that! Sounds beautiful though!!
Maybe people assume cos it's food, why pay much for it.It can be dissapointing though.
A friend of mine did custom decorated sugar cookies for a church bake sale (fundraiser) - packaged in individual bags with colored ribbon ties - very pretty and professional looking. The ladies at the church running the bake sale priced them at $.25! When my friend saw the price on the cookies she about passed out. She told the gals how much time and effort went into making them and they said they probably couldn't get more than a QUARTER for each one (3 in a bag)!
She also donated a beautiful torted cake that had something like $2.00 on it (easily a $50 cake) so her grandpa went up and bought it, they took it home and had it for dinner that night.
She said no more bake sales. They donate well to the church thoughout the year in regular tithes so she said she doesn't feel guilty not making anything more for the bake sales.
Last year did this cake for boy scouts and they got $50 for it. I didn't think they would get what it was worth, but $50 was really bad I thought. Here is the pic http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1209952
$50 wasn't bad
That was just wrong.
50 cents for cupcakes? NO! Good grief, even Kroger's charges $9.00 for six of theirs with nothing but a swirl of icing!!!
It's that bake-sale mentality, though. I might throw a mix cake in there for $10-20 or something, but no way am I spending time on a scratch anything to be insulted like that.
Not today. No way.
Whenever I donate, i hand it over, walk away and don't look back. I chalk it up to my good deed for the day and try to pretend that's the end of that. People who don't know the value of what I do can't be expected to make a valid judgment on it. It's not their fault. they just don't understand. It doesn't reflect on the real value of your work.
I'm an artist by trade and run into the same thing with my art. I think it's a standard job hazard for anything that involves craft and creativity. Unless you do it yourself, you probably don't understand what goes into it.
hubby's work was having an auction one year to raise funds for .. something i forget what it was now sorry- i made a two tier stacked cake since it was winter i made the head of a snowman witha top hat and scarf,a design i saw on here several times .. it went for $15.. i paid that much or more for materials.. as unhappy as i was with the results; mostly that there wasn't a profit for the organization- what steamed me was they sold a 12 pack of beer at the auction and the plate of mini snickers alone went for $25!!! i was PO'd!!
i told hubby i'd never make a cake for them again. and that was for free too!
This is why we (I help organize fundraisers for my daughter's school.) look to get everything donated, especially from businesses, and pay for as little out of pocket as possible. Yes, a business may donate a large ticket item worth hundreds and we'll only get a percentage of it's worth - but the school didn't pay for it - so it's solely profit for us.
Every year Costco donates a gift certificate for our school, it never goes for it's face value. This year, one of the grades pulled together a basket worth $1000 easily in games & experiences - it went for half that.
While it's pretty typical, not everything goes that way. I donated an 8" square cake, decorated to their liking in fondant. Last year it went for $250.
yah my mother inlaw was teling me that at an event in a nearby town (larger then ours) cakes that were bought from a grocery store were being auctioned and went for $200, a store bought keylime cheesecake went for almost $300.. the cake i made for the same event in our town was 100x better i bet woulda went at That town for big bucks. what is it with store bought items going for more then better quality home crafted lol eesh.
oh i haven't uploaded that cake pic to CC yet yikes! i need to do that.
Each year for several years, for the local Girl Scouts fund raiser, I donated a gift certificate for a 9x13 or character cake (about $40 value), or an equivalent discount on a 12x18, basic choices how I decorated it. Intricate designs would cost more.
The same woman bid and won 3 years in a row. She used my cake for her sons' DeMolay (young men's version of Masonic Lodge) receptions. Very very detailed freehand designs.
Example: http://www.sugarfrosted.com/displayimage.php?pos=-2328 Click the picture to enlarge it to show detail.
This is a very wealthy woman, and she always complained when I told her that her designs would cost more because they required TIME to do.
I found out after the final year I donated it that my gift certificate had always been included in a birthday party package ...hats, balloons, cake, party favors, etc. and sometimes even a location! Lots of STUFF! 
It was probably about $200 total value.
And I was told that the package rarely went for more than $50! accckk 
this is for charity, people!
I have no idea what DeMolay mom did with the rest of the package but I bet she complained to the rest of the donators about not "getting her money's worth" 
... cheap people! Unbelievable.
btw, I don't donate to that fundraiser anymore... partly because I never want to deal with that DeMolay mom ever again.
Well, I see that I'm not the only one that this has happened to. I really don't think they understand how much time and money goes into a homemade custom cake. One woman saw my cake and said it was the exact colors of her upcoming wedding. She thought about buying it and freezing it, because she couldn't afford the $700 that she was quoted for a cake. Another woman heard her say this, and turned to me and said: "Why don't YOU make her wedding cake?" I felt like saying, "what makes you think I would charge less than $700? But I have to work with these people, I just walked away.
Does anyone else remember the following commercial -
A busy woman is listening to her phone messages, and one of the messages is, "Can you bring one of your famous cakes for the bake sale tomorrow?" While she's listening, of course she's smiling, and pulling out of the cupboard a box of Duncan Hines cake mix and a container of frosting.
That is why nobody will ever be compensated correctly at these types of events, because the general population believes that's all it is. (Or maybe the lady was smiling because she was tired of bringing her famous cakes and getting screwed, so she was just going to give them a box mix that she spat in or something) 
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