A question to be answered

Why are the custom made cakes more expensive than the ones ready made in the shops?

This questions has been posed too many times to be ignored any further

The answer is:

A custom made cake cannot be compared under any circumstances with any other ready made cake one can easily find in shops. It's not "just a cake". It's hours and hours of work for you and only.

Whilst a ready made cake is put together with frozen sponges, filled with ready made, long time preserved buttercream, contains lots of preservatives to prolong their shelf-life and it's not personalized, a custom made cake is made out of fresh sponges, the filling is freshly made, it is free of any preservatives and above all it is made according to your own specifications (this is exactly what we at C-cakes do).

Let's give an example and take this little cake underneath:

It's a 5" = 12 cm round chocolate cake

From scratch to the final product:

1. Baking takes 1 hour (cleaning included)

2. Making chocolate cream takes 1 hour (cleaning included)

3. Making frosting cream (whether it's buttercream or ganache} takes 1 hour (cleaning included)

3. Frosting takes 1 hour (cleaning included)

4. Making & colouring fondant takes 1 hour (cleaning included)

5. Decorating takes 3 hours (cleaning NOT included)

As one can see a little 5" cake requires 8 hours of work.

Besides these 8 working hours we need to add

a. The ingredients (for baking, making cream, making frosting, fondant & colouring it)

b. The edible prints, the ribbon (in this specific case)

c. The cake board

d. The warm water & electricity

e. Wear & tear of the tools & machines used

f. Papers and cleaning products

g. Cost & time spent to purchase the ingredients and items needed

h. Time spent to clean all up after the cake has been brought to a finish product

i. Baking, sugar and decorating skills

Undoubtedly one can understand now that it's about one-of-a-kind cake and that every custom cake order is uniquely tailored to a client’s specific needs while creating an experience for guests too.

We at C-cakes understand budgets and are willing to work within your budget.

Before requesting a cake, figure out what works best for you to stay within your budget, research our gallery but remember you get what you pay for — cheaper is not always better.

Despite how expensive a custom cake may seem, the reality is that many cake decorators don’t make profit that’s large enough to make a living off of a single cake order. Most of the cost goes to quality ingredients and investing in tools to make special details, while the remaining amount covers consulting, labour and skills that brought the cake together. Regardless, we continue doing what we do because we love it with passion. Passion which can be seen and tasted in every dessert we make.

If you have any questions about custom cakes, feel free to reach out!