Hi I am new to this site which I love already!
I only bake for myself and family and friends and dont charge and give them as presents and was asked to make a 12 inch square highly decorated fruit cake for a family members business associate who business was celebrating 60 years.
The cost of ingredients and cake board etc from a supermarket was £40+ so I said I would do it for £60 and they were horrified at the cost.!! I thought this was cheap considering the work that I would have to put into it. They went elsewhere which was not a problem as Im not a business .
What are your thoughts as to costing.?
PS i am thinking of starting a business this year as I make cakes all the time and give them away and lots of friends think I should do this as a job which I would love to
Many Thanks
They would have got 135 portions from that cake (see this guide below). At less than 50p per portion it was a bargain and goodness knows where they will get their cake from. Even charging 20 more than your ingredients, you would not have made any money on this cake after you paid for everything else associated with it (petrol, electricity, water and soap for washing up, your wages, profit on top of that etc)
many thanks for your message. I will check that website out.
I was really upset with his reply and he did go elsewhere!
Goodness knows where he got a brandy soaked free range egg and butter rich fruit cake from at less than £60 then
X
Goodness knows where he got a brandy soaked free range egg and butter rich fruit cake from at less than £60 then
He didn't. He got a commercial cake with candied potato and mystery fruit, no brandy, no butter, not much egg. Mostly sugar and colouring.
When I baked both sponge and fruit cakes for weddings, I charged 3X the cost of ingredients for fruitcake when the decorations were dead simple piping.
AI love fruit cakes, I use my own dried fruit medly and after chopping them I soak them in coconut rum for a few days, not expensive I can bake an eight inch for under ten dollars.
APricing a fruit cake is tricky, if you use more dried fruits and ripen the cake with rum or brandy for at least three months, for an eight inch I would sell the cake for twenty bucks.
Hi Read with interest the lady who was charging £60 for a 12 inch fruit cake.I was looking on the intenet for an idea what to charge for the same.After you add up the ingredients,cake board,box etc and using fresh ingredients free range eggs etc people expect something for nothing. They will pay £1.85 for a single cup cake then think £60 for a work of art is expensive.If you add up the hours it takes you would need to charge double.I feel to offer a cheaper cake you have to comprimise on quality.If the person wont pay the price dont supply them.
For a 12" square rich fruit cake, with basic decoration, I would charge £150. If it was highly decorated, I'd be adding extra on to that figure!
Even Sweet Success charge £63.80 for a 12" square - and that's undecorated and only 2.5" high (mine are about 3.5"). And theirs aren'tmarzipanned or sugarpasted....
A@Relznik - can I ask how you bake such a large/deep fruit cake? What temperature, how long for? I would love to be able to do a really deep fruit cake this Christmas but I was worried that going and deeper then 2.5 would really dry out during baking as it would need so long.... I was thinking of doing 2 and sticking them together but if they could be made together, it would really help!! Thanks in advance :-D
And I think M&S charge about £55 for a large round fruit cake...I'd say £60 is an absolute bargain!!!
@Relznik - can I ask how you bake such a large/deep fruit cake? What temperature, how long for? I would love to be able to do a really deep fruit cake this Christmas but I was worried that going and deeper then 2.5 would really dry out during baking as it would need so long.... I was thinking of doing 2 and sticking them together but if they could be made together, it would really help!! Thanks in advance
And I think M&S charge about £55 for a large round fruit cake...I'd say £60 is an absolute bargain!!!
I bake mine at about 120c and an approximate rule of thumb is 30 - 35 minutes per inch of cake - then I usually give it a bit more for luck!
So, yes, a 12" cake can take 6 hours to cook!
A small bowl of water in the oven helps to stop it drying out.
I also wrap the tin in wet paper (I use cheap lining wallpaper, but have also used newspaper...) and place it on wet paper on the shelf.
I bake mine at about 120c and an approximate rule of thumb is 30 - 35 minutes per inch of cake - then I usually give it a bit more for luck!
So, yes, a 12" cake can take 6 hours to cook!
A small bowl of water in the oven helps to stop it drying out.
I also wrap the tin in wet paper (I use cheap lining wallpaper, but have also used newspaper...) and place it on wet paper on the shelf.
Hi Relznik,
Thank you very much for the tips. I'll have a go and see what happens...The deeper the fruit cake the better if you ask me ;-) I have heard of people putting a layer of silver foil on the top as well to protect the top. The only problem with it being in there for 6 hours is that the smell would be very difficult to resist! :-D
I've heard of people putting a layer of baking parchment over the top... if you do that, make sure there's a hole to let any steam out.
I LOVE baking rich fruit cakes. Fills the house with smells of Christmas. I also like covering them...
I baked a rich fruit cake last November, which I intended to have at Christmas. I never got around to it and it's been sitting, wrapped in baking paper and foil, on a shelf in my dining room. I bet it'll be absolutely fine for this Christmas!!!
I have just finished making a 12" rich fruit cake, iced and decorated for a diamond wedding celebration. The cake is two thirds covered with hand crafted Peace roses which took somewhere between two to three days to craft (26 large roses). Then of course there were the rose leaves too. The recipe I use is Delia Smith's rich fruit cake which is, as you would imagine, rather an expensive cake to make and I also used two thirds of a full bottle of brandy once the feeding process was completed. I do not feel I have over charged at pricing this cake at £120.00 considering the ingredients, time and skill used to produce the finished cake.
Love and light,
CP x
Relznik - a fruit cake aged that long is going to be absolutely divine - can I come to yours for Christmas????? :-) x
Quote:
I have just finished making a 12" rich fruit cake, iced and decorated for a diamond wedding celebration. The cake is two thirds covered with hand crafted Peace roses which took somewhere between two to three days to craft (26 large roses). Then of course there were the rose leaves too. The recipe I use is Delia Smith's rich fruit cake which is, as you would imagine, rather an expensive cake to make and I also used two thirds of a full bottle of brandy once the feeding process was completed. I do not feel I have over charged at pricing this cake at £120.00 considering the ingredients, time and skill used to produce the finished cake.
Love and light,
CP x
BTW - you haven't overcharged.... you have SERIOUSLY undercharged. For a 12" round fruit cake with basic decoration, I'd charge £145, plus all those flowers... surely another £100 of your time, at least?!!!!!
I realise that London prices are slightly higher than in the north, but even so.... think of all the work you've put into it. 
You need to VALUE your time - because if you don't, no-one else will.
AI was thinking exactly the same thing! I'm Manchester and large fruit plus marzipan, plus sugarpaste plus brandy plus six hours in the oven plus lots of handcrafted flowers would be at least £185 depending on the amount of flowers, so yours should be more than this! If you have a deep cake which most of us make as well there will be more servings. If you bought the m and s one and just put your flowers on you would still have to charge £100 for your time at least so the total cake would be £160 ish which is still low and you haven't had the time consuming nature of producing, feeding and covering a cake included in this. That's the way I think about it anyway!
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