I have a question for whoever has an answer for me. I have a small restaurant owner wanting me to "decorate" cakes for her, use her ingredients (she makes cupcakes herself and uses "only the best" her words not mine). She wants to take the order, have me pick up the mix and frosting she uses, bake the cake, decorate the cake as was ordered. We are not talking wedding cakes here pretty much birthday, anniversary and the such. I'm just not real sure how to respond and is I say yes, I don't know how much to charge. Anyone have this problem before? Any advise would be appreciated.

P.S. I don't decorate for my income, have been doing it for friends and family. Have gotten pretty good but definitely not professional. Thanks.

She wants you to pick up the stuff and take it home to bake and decorate? First question I would ask is if that is legal in the area you are from.

Personally I think I would pass. If I did it, I would insist I do it in her place of business and be paid an hourly rate to bake and decorate. That would save the hassle and time of the pick up of cake order, ingredeints, as well as delivering it all back to the resturant.

I'm a bit 'iffy' about the picking up of ingredients and transporting back to your place etc. From a hygiene point of view I really think that the less raw ingredients are handled the better.

If all is legal for you to bake at home then what if you asked her for her recipes and then you could bake/decorate at home and bring the cakes back to her. She is going to have to give you the recipes anyway since she wants you to bake the cakes.

I have a shop owner that I decorate 3D cakes for and our arrangement is that she sources the business, I bake/decorate and deliver and charge her my normal cake fee.

This is only a good thing if you aren't able to get orders yourself and need a middleman to do that for you for a cut of the profit. However, if you are capable of getting enough cake orders of your own by yourself, there's no need to share the profit with someone else for something you're doing all the work on. And since you're not even getting the benefit of building your client base, it seems like it will help her more than it will help you.

Your subject line is misleading. I thought they wanted you to "just" decorate an already baked and iced cake. You're STILL doing all the work, so why would there be a discount?

Wold someone REALLY expect to get a Van Gogh for a cheaper price if they provided the canvas and paint?

You shouldn't be offering any type of discount. Sell your cakes to this 'middleman' at your usual price (even if they are supplying ingredients), if they choose to put a margin on for themselves that is up to their business's discretion.

You can continue to grow your own business while having this regular work as a sideline, I think that the two can work together. Hint: stamp the bottom side of all of your cakeboard with your business details.

Your regular price minus the cost of ingredients? That's probably what I'd do.

This is most likely not legal. People ordering a cake from a restaurant are assuming it was made in a legit kitchen. She wants you to pick up everything? Then add in mileage charge too. I think you should offer to work for her in her kitchen. Will you get credit for the decoration or is she being deceitful about that too? idk Unless you are really hard up for business I'd say "no" if you really need the $ offer to work for her on hourly rate, and don't take a min. wage. If she is coming to you, you must be pretty good or at least you have impressed her in the past.

I'm also not comfortable telling anyone what my ingredient costs would be. The caterer might get it, since he/she works in food, but most people think anything above the cost of eggs is profit ..... which is SO not true.

The restaurant owner next to my shop was always amazed at my cost of a cake compared to the selling price of a cake .... and he worked in the food industry and "got it"!

thanks to all who gave me advice. I believe I will just pass on this arrangement. I was not going to get credit or recognition for the decorating since it was her shop. I have quite a few clients already that come to me for cakes so I think I will just keep it that way. Thanks again to all!