What is included in the cost of your personalised cake?
When purchasing a bespoke cake, its not just the cake you are paying for, you are also paying for the personalised, individual service you are being provided.
Quality:
Here at The Creative Cake House we aim to provide a cake which is of the highest quality when it comes to both the appearance and taste. All of our products are freshly baked on premises as close to the collection date/time as possible to ensure freshness. We do not use additives or preservatives in our products. Therefore on many occasions we are up early and working long hours to ensure your cake is as fresh as possible for your collection.
Time:
In order to achieve the quality we aim to provide here at The Creative Cake House, this involves extra time and preparation. Therefore this will effect the personalised cake cost.
Order Time:
When ordering a bespoke cake, its not like picking the cake off a supermarket shelf or clicking a button on the computer to order a standard design. We bespoke design your cake to make it personal to you. The majority of our cakes are ordered online through our contact page on out website or through our Facebook page. The ordering process for your bespoke cake does take time. It involves discussing your bespoke design, exchanging images and pulling together elements to bring together your individual cake. We will also discus the size of the cake to ensure we can feed all of your guests. Other elements we will explore include the event date, delivery or collection and also flavour discussion. When purchasing, this time is incorporated into the final cost of the cake.
Preparation time:
When it comes to making the cake, it isn’t that simple. We have to take time out to plan the cake, What ingredients do I need? What size and shape tin do I need to use? What prep do I need to do before hand? When do I need to do each stage of the process? This planning task usually takes 1-2 hours but ensures that I am ready for the week ahead, to ensure all cakes are the correct flavours and designs and are ready on time for collection.
After creating the plan for the week, we then have to move on to the physical preparation for the cakes. This involves shopping for ingredients, making any stands or supports needed for the cake and also any elements of the cake decoration which need to be made in advance to ensure they are set for decorating. Some cakes have very little preparation, however others will have a lot more. This will therefore be taken into account when quoting for your personalised design.
Baking and decorating time:
The baking and decorating for cakes of course takes the longest. When quoting for different size cakes one of the contributes is not only the amount of ingredients needed but also the amount of time they take in the oven. A common question I get asked is how much would you charge for this cake, with an image. At this point I begin by asking how many people my client is looking to feed as this is a major factor for the personalised cake cost.
The second major factor is the nature of the design. Some cake designs, as discussed previously, have very little preparation and are quick to decorate and construct whereas others have complicated designs which will take a lot longer to assemble.
Below are examples of a relatively quick to make buttercream coated, drip cake with a chocolate arrangement. You will also see a time consuming to decorate cakes including a very time consuming ruffle cake which takes around 4-5 hours alone to apply and hand paint just the ruffle tier. Carved cakes are also time consuming to create which will add to the final cost of your cake.
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Collection/delivery time:
Even once the cake is finished we then have to move onto the delivery or collection of the cake. Here at The Creative Cake House, we do offer delivery for a small charge. The cost of delivery is worked out with the distance and time for us to deliver, this will be discussed with the client. We also provide collection of the cake for free. The collection time will be discussed with out client before hand. However, even then we have to take time to ensure the cake is presented well for the client as well as everything being ready to leave.
One of the main things which does add extra time onto our day is late collections, although we understand there may be traffic or you may be unable to find us, we always provide a contact number. If you know you are going to be late or need to change your collection slot please contact us as soon as possible to make us aware. As we work from home and are not a shop premises this will allow us to continue day to day life around your collection time