Cake Dilemmas

I know my prices for cakes are outrageous, but when I say that an order for 300 cupcakes and a large cake shaped and decorated to look like a grand piano is going to be $350 and the person writes me a check for $70, how does one approach them? I mean, what etiquette do you follow to say, “Um, ma’am, you left off the first number?”

Herein lies the dilemma. I mostly make cakes for friends and family. Most cake ingredients are cheap. I do not use most cake ingredients. I use real butter, buttermilk, real vanilla, quality chocolate, heavy cream (no less than 40% milkfat, which isn’t cheap by any means)… in short, I use real ingredients which cost real money. In order to even make 300 cupcakes and a grand piano cake I couldn’t even purchase the ingredient list for the $70 she wrote the check for. Usually I insist on being paid after delivery, and told her so, but she insisted on paying me before. On top of it all, she’s a very dear friend from church, and I’m too poor to take that big of a hit and too chicken-shit to approach her about it.

Of course, I could always talk to her kids to find out what she was expecting to pay for this and perhaps work something else out, but here’s another issue… her son is my boss. Not that that should mean anything, but I’m still fairly new to the workplace and wouldn’t want to shatter the opportunity. Then again, I should be able to approach him and say, “Your mom tried to shortchange me by a few hundred dollars, what should I do about that?” Ugh. Dilemmas, dilemmas. Again, I’m chicken-shit.

Then I have to be honest with myself. Am I worth $350 for that much cake? What is the bare minimum I could charge? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? Yes, that last question really did pop into my head. Kind of like when my husband says we need more time and I respond we have four different varieties of thyme out in the garden. I’m quirky like that and it annoys him to no end. The answer is yes, I am. You know why? Because people continue to ask me to make them cake because it is better than anything else they’ve had from a store or bakery. So in other words, my prices aren’t that outrageous, I just need to speak up more clearly or inform them that I’ll make up an estimate on an invoice instead.

And now that I look at the time, I have a meeting with somebody else from church about a wedding cake I need to get ready for. Perhaps I should take my own advice and show up with a couple of estimates on invoices to show the varying prices for what we might want to do. Crap. That means I actually have to plan.