AI keep getting asked if I can "just fit it in?" I have two jobs plus i bake cupcakes and they don't seem to see why you can't just fit in 5 dozen cupcakes in 2 hours

I just got my first "I don't wan't too much cake because i know nobody eats it anyway". Whaaaaat? My cake is delicious and people come bake for seconds. 

Thanks for sharing, i wasn't able to get the other link to work either. OMG, he wanted you to bring this cake, for FREE??? Why do people always assume their time is quite valuable, but yours isn't. *slap* the nerve!

At a wedding fair this weekend I had a woman come to my stand, I asked if she wanted to try a taster piece and was told no because 'my whole family are very good bakers' then went on to basically say that because of this she had very high standards and didn't want to lower them by eating my cake. 

I didn't punch her. I feel that was very restrained on my part.

AI guess because of the popularity of candy and dessert tables, people are ordering smaller cakes. I've had 5 inquiries already this year, and i lost all 5 potential customers because apparently i am too expensive.. Oh well.. It's try, the market has been saturated by so many bakers and custom cake decorators that it is hard to gain clients, especially if you charge accordingly.. :(

AI think it beautiful

AOoooSI have the tv 0n for background noise. The guy said " MOIST" is a women's least favorite word" So I guess whoever said that way back in this thread. Naturally, I had to tell you guys! Your welcome. :USA:

A

I know this feeling...there are a couple girls on Facebook that do the same thing to me...I have got to where I am "unavailable." When they need a cake...lol.

A

Oh, wow!!! I would be furious! I hate being asked " so you just get to stay home and bake cakes? Sounds like an easy way to make money..." Umm, no!

[quote name="MyFairDiva" url="/t/751860/things-not-to-ask-say-to-a-baker/2955#post_7553839"]Just to update, the Jack Daniel's cake was a success! She even sent me pictures of the place and the cake cut, said: "We all loved it! Even my mother and she's really picky!" That's definitely something to say to a baker me thinks ;)

[URL=http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3291961/] [/URL]

[URL=http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3291962/] [/URL] [URL=http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3291952/] [/URL]

[URL=http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3291953/] [/URL] My fair diva: which letter sets did you use? I love the different fonts on this cake! Great job, btw...

A

ASo, I have a few more: 1) I have noticed a trend amongst my acquaintances to say something like " So you bake cakes for a living? It must be so nice to get to stay home with your son and have an easy way to make money..." Um, yeah right. I love what I do, but it can be challenging, and time consuming, and there is a lot more money that you have to put into it than people realize. I don't know if it is the same everywhere, but it seems around here, the general impression is that there is little to no startup cost to "become" a cake decorator...like if you have a 9x13 cake pan and a box mix, that's all there is to it. Seriously...it infuriates me. I'm sure I have probably made some waves, but I have got so tired of it, that I usually (nicely) respond and educate these people! I will say something like "Yes, I do love my work...but just like any other job, there is more than meets they eye. The hours can sometimes be intense as I make everything from scratch, and the cost of operation is a lot more than meets the eye. "

2) there is a cake baker in my area (she is probably around 55, and I actually used to go to church with her) who makes mostly buttercream cakes, and only charges like $25-30 for 2 tiers!! She is a very sweet lady, and a fairly decent baker...I can't figure out her reasons. But people who know both of us have seriously asked why I am so much more expensive. I am just blunt about it and say " There is NO WAY if she is baking from scratch that she is making any money, at all. She must just be doing this because she is being nice, or she is losing money...simple as that." But because of her bargain basement prices, I lose business...ugh! I am considered one of the higher priced cake bakers in my area, but If I am going to dedicate my time and effort and miss spending time with my toddler, I need to be paid what it is worth. Plus I am constantly buying new tools, purchasing classes, etc to further my skill set, not just have about 5 things I can do to a cake that I repeat over and over. That's not mean, it is just business. I can't afford to give all my cakes away like she does.

3) this one is just a funny, but :shock:my best friend actually turned into a PITA customer. She asked me to do her birthday cake, and said "I trust you, do what you want" then gave me a long list of demands, and kept changing her design up until a few days before the party. She paid me to do the cake. Luckily, we are really close, so when she asked me if she was being difficult, I straight up said yes! Then we had a good laugh about it. At least she was a good sport. :D I told her just to trust me. She ended up being very pleased with the cake, and even insisted on paying me more than I charged her. So this one had a happy ending lol.

4) I hate when people are SO RUDE when discussing a cake. I get messages daily with just a picture and the words "how much", or they start listing demands right off the bat, sometimes in all caps! Does anyone else find this rude? When I usually start a conversation with someone about their services, I greet them, then say "I was just interested in._________...for this date________...could you please give me some more information?" Grr...does it physically hurt people to be polite?

5) And finally, since this is is the only place I can say this out loud, but does it bother anyone else that sometimes people rave on and on across social media about your "competition," and how marvelous their cakes are, when it honestly looks like something found on cake wrecks? Their high praise is usually followed by "And I only paid [insert ridiculously low amount]. Well, duh it was cheap...look at it!! It was very obviously just thrown together with little skill!! I am not trying to be mean...just bluntly honest since it is only here that I can say what runs through my mind lol...

A

Yes yes yes! That's when I feel like giving up, when I've done something pretty cool and had almost no reaction, while the local cheap cake ladies whack a bag of Malteasers on a cake and you'd think they'd designed the royal wedding cake!

I have to admit, I did have a bit of a smug smile when the rude lady came back to me... I guess I know now how good her cut price cake was :-D

A

...And your comment about it being the day you planned to stare at the wall seriously made me laugh out loud. I too find myself "unavailable" for certain people haha. :D

ALoving this thread, on page 78, so far. I'm NOT in the cake business, but I own a painting company. I just really enjoy baking for family, it's my stress release (I can hear all of you crack up @ that statement after all these posts I've read, lol).

I can't tell you how similar all these circumstances are. Clients complain about their current painter, he doesn't do this that or the other etc, but then proceed to ask if I can do what I do for his prices.

Or the, "why is it so expensive, it's just paint,it's not hard, I see what can be done on tv"

Oh god, the price undercutting is ridiculous & purposeful.

I suppose all small companies can face the same issues, no matter how different!

I made an Elsa doll cake (from movie Frozen).  This cake with the doll cost me $75 to make just in materials.  I advertised the cake for $100, (they get to keep the doll) which was paying myself less than $15/hour and assumed that I only spent 2 hours baking/decorating it, which believe me, it was far more hours than that!  Response?  Too much money.  

Last week I did a three tier wedding cake for 60 people.  The MOB is a florist and owns an upscale Florist business.  She texted me three times that she was going to decorate the cake-- she wanted the cake delivered to the hall with no decoration.  It was white fondant with white ribbons and some edible pearls on the sides.  Very very plain.  I delivered the cake and she told me she had no idea what she was going to do with the cake-- hadn't thought about it yet.  I was a guest at the wedding.  When I got there I was shocked to see that she had done nothing to the cake except put this hideous glittered letter on the top.  And, someone had stuck their thumb through the fondant in the very front of the cake.  The hall had stuck it nearly in the middle of the room and people were using the table as a place to put their empty glasses.  I thought someone would knock the table over.  So disappointing.  Don't think I'll let that happen again.  People knew I did the cake, I didn't want to bad mouth the MOB, but that was going to be a source of advertising and referral for me and it looked like I forgot to decorate the cake!  Many people did compliment me on the taste, so that was worth something.

I have a consultation coming up next week.  She wants me to do a small cutting cake for photos and then she's going to Costco to buy sheet cakes to serve her guests.  I can't wait to see what her budget is going to be.  I'm sure she's gonna want something for nothing here.  I think I'll be busy.

But this brings up that age old question-- how do you charge for a cake?  My sugar gum flowers take hours to make.  They are very real looking.  I've seen some very poor quality ones on Easy for $28 for one medium size rose.  If I only charge $10 a flower, which is ridiculously low-- even just 4 flowers brings that cake cost up $40 and then it's too expensive for most people.  What's up with that?

I checked with local bakers that do wedding cakes-- their most basic cake is $3.75 a slice-- 2 layers per tier, not the three or 4 I do.  I'm getting less than that for cakes with beautiful flowers and custom decorating.  What am I doing wrong here?  I guess the problem is I want to bake and unless I keep my prices below my cost I'm not getting clients.  Any suggestions?

AHello everybody again! To the ones interested in how I made the fonts for the Jack Daniel's cake, and the like, I make my own templates when the cake features a logo of some sort.

First I find the logo in .eps format, for example, you can try http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/ I then open a new Word file and insert the file as an Image. The good thing about .eps files is that they are vectorial type images, that means (among other things) that you can enlarge them as big as you want. So I make it the size I need, and then print it out. I glue the paper onto a clean cardboard sheet and begin to carefully cut letter by letter with an x-acto knife. I keep each letter in an envelope and the cut template for future reference. I roll my paste (50-50 gumpaste and sugarpaste) thin and cut pieces to the size I need and keep them inside a Ziploc bag. I place a cardboard letter on top of the piece if paste and begin cutting again. It is much easier to cut paste than to cut cardboard when it has a lot of details, mind you, so this part will be quicker. If you make a mistake or break it, just pick a new paste squareish piece and start over. Once you have all your letters dry, arrange them over your cake guiding yourself with the template you saved for referemce :) I would post pictures but the navigator at the office doesn't let me. Will try later from home.

Hope that helps! Cin

AOops, I'm sorry about the post repetition, someone had asked me on this same thread in the past and I wasn't sure if I had replied. It was too late to delete it when I realized.

On another note, does anyone else feel "blah" when the customers orders a very, very plain cake?.. I recently had an order from an old classmate, he wanted a chocolate cake covered in blue fondant, with a golden small crown on top and his name, also in gold... so plain...! He didn't want anything else at all. I tried to do a really cute crown, and perfect fondant, but over all I just felt bored with it. I barely took one photo, for my own record.

He liked it, and I was a guest at his birthday party so I saw how the rest of the guests liked it but anyhow, I felt I could have done so much better if he had given me some creative liberties...?

AThat's very funny [@]MyFairDiva[/@], I did a cake for a friend like that recently. I did number 1 birthday cake for his daughter, he wasn't sure what he wanted beyond flavours so I made some beautiful hand painted butterflies and flowers to arrange on the cake, and cut a message in a lovely font. A couple of days before I had to decorate it his wife got involved, she wanted plain buttercream with a musk stick border and white chocolate bits in a grid pattern on top, with no message. Completely blah...

Did I do a nice job? Yes. Was it satisfying? Absolutely not, I felt like I was decorating with one hand tied behind my back!

The crazy thing is, this guy is a super-talented gym instructor who teaches amazing choreographed dance classes he develops himself. I told him that cake was the equivalent of me demanding he teach a pre-choreographed class - would it be good - yes - but would it utilise his true potential? - of course not!

Anyway, I think the issue was his wife had no idea the sorts of cakes I CAN do, so she was thinking only about generic bakery cakes...hopefully I can educate her before next October!

AUgh!!!!! So I just had a girl ask me why my price was so high...I quoted her $40 for one of those giant cupcakes with Mickey mouse ears. I actually thought it was a fair price, maybe even a little low. She said someone else quoted her lower prices, and wanted to know why I was so expensive, I blew up and told her why...ugh! I had a hot head moment I guess. [IMG ALT=""]http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3325927/width/350/height/700[/IMG]

AOh goodness!! I thought I had cropped it out!! I will take it down and/or edit. Thanks for pointing this out.

Update: I'm not sure how to delete my picture from here. I flagged it and wrote why, so maybe an admin will take it down? I feel really bad about having her name on it.

Well I think you outlined the situation quite well and the tone didn't seem rude or over reactive to me.  You were honest and truthful with her and stood up for your pricing and the quality of your work.  Good job.

I just saw Duncan Hines chocolate cake mixes 4 for $5.00 at the grocery store.  Add three eggs and some oil to that and that recipe of cake probably cost around $2.25 to make.  But it tastes like a chemical soup to me-- unless you want to splurge on a box of pudding to dump in there.  I understand that some people actually prefer that taste/crumb to a scratch made cake, but people look at that ingredient list!  Do you want all of that stuff in your body?  

I don't know-- I guess I'd rather bake one cake a month and have it be worth my time and reputation than bake a day for free.  I've got better things to do with my time.

I just go this phone call:

Her: "Hi What would it cost to make a cake in the shape of an orchid?"

Me: size, serving, budget, blah blah blah

Her: My friend's birthday is today and she really likes orchids. 

Me: size, serving, budget, blah blah blah

Her: "There are only six people. The party is in a couple hours."

Me (shocked silence)

Her: Do you know anyone who can make it?

LOL SERIOUSLY?? 

It was a close friend of mine's little girls 1st Birthday the other day and she asked me (rather twisted my arm lol) to make a cake for her.

After hours of work between making SMBC/Ganache/Fondant/Baking/Decorating etc I was really pleased with the cake - it looked just like the pictures and colouring that we had come up with (lol apart from the uneven dots that the 1 is on)

and took it along to the party. While taking it out of the box one of her family members was there and says to me 'that's cute' and I reply 'yep, I just hope ****** likes it' and she responds with 'I am sure she will' followed quickly by 'I am sure she would like anything that is given to her'.

Really lady - that was just mean lol, I swear some people don't think before they open their mouth to speak.