Cake!

Cadyboo

Hi, Im sorry if this has been asked a million times before, but Im looking to find out the average prices for wedding cakes on behalf of my sister. We have been looking online but they all only have pictures with no prices. She will more than likely go for 3 tiers with different fillings.
So I am looking to find out how much you have paid for your cakes, and any recommendations for anywhere? Oh we are in Cork1
Thanks, C.

BC

This site has prices (click on the individual cake pictures and you'll get them).
www.cakebox.ie

We paid 350 for a 3 tier cake with different fillings on each layer (chocolate biscuit, madeira and fruit). The price included delivery to the venue.

00112984

We got our cake from Karina's Cakes in Douglas, Cork. Very happy with the result and she was lovely to deal with. We had three tiers with different flavours and sugar versions of us on the top Can't remember the exact price but I think it was around €400 with delivery to Killarney.

Her website is www.karinascakes.ie

This was our cake-

snuggles09

I'm having 2 tier with chocolate tier on end and fruit sponge on top..200 euro in total

Cadyboo

Thanks for the replies guys, all the cakes look yummy. So it could be anywhere from 200 to 450 by the looks of it. Crazy money to be eaten, lol! There is so much choice of fillings, I suppose best bet would be for fruit cake for the older relatives and maybe a fruity flavour sponge, and choc sponge?

Oh one more thing! Is there a time limit for them to be made, and if so how long?? Thanks again.

BC

Some types of fillings can't be easily iced so take that into consideration (i'm not sure which ones!).
Some need to be made quite fresh, things like fruit cakes are usually made months in advance, chocolate biscuit cakes can be made a good bit in advance too. If you're going with something like that then as long as you order a few months in advance you should be fine. However if you go for something that has to be done fresh then the cake maker may be booked up so you should do that well in advance. Most places that make cakes will let you go in a taste them and talk about the different options so thats probably the best thing to do!

Cadyboo

BC wrote: »

Some types of fillings can't be easily iced so take that into consideration (i'm not sure which ones!).
Some need to be made quite fresh, things like fruit cakes are usually made months in advance, chocolate biscuit cakes can be made a good bit in advance too. If you're going with something like that then as long as you order a few months in advance you should be fine. However if you go for something that has to be done fresh then the cake maker may be booked up so you should do that well in advance. Most places that make cakes will let you go in a taste them and talk about the different options so thats probably the best thing to do!

Thats great thanks for all that info. Tbh neither of us have a clue really so it would be great to be able to taste them as her in laws side all have very sweet tooth.

Acoshla

Cakes with fresh cream or fresh fruit in them can't be covered with sugarpaste/fondant icing so bear that in mind when picking your flavours. The filling would normally be flavoured or normal buttercream, chocolate ganache, things that don't need to be refrigerated, as once the cakes are iced they can't be refrigerated, hence why fresh cream doesn't work.

The best idea these days is to get your smallest tier in fruit cake, that way you have it for those who want it but are not stuck with loads of it. Chocolate, Chocolate Biscuit, Lemon, Vanilla and various other Madeira flavours are the most common/popular. Madeira is chosen moreso than sponge as the icing needs a firm cake to support the weight of it. You can of course also have a cake covered in buttercream or chocolate cigarillos in which case you can have any flavour you want.

Most placed need at least 8 weeks notice, some ask for up to 6 months.

DreamC

I would recommend to book the date for your cake as soon as you make your you mind and know what you want. As you will get exactly what you are paying for. So do not expect a 5tier cake with fancy design and lots of detail and "cascades of sugar roses" for 200 euro.

And a little off-top - Some brides are very strange. They would not mind to spend 300-500 euros on calligraphers. But a wedding cake for the same money is rated as expensive

-K2-

Go to M&S, pick up a cake for less than €€€ and then spend the savings on something else.

I don't think that people really care about the cake beyond getting a few pictures of it being cut and then a slice to go with their tea at 11pm.

That's what we did anyway.

Acoshla

Slightly O/T but DreamC you couldn't be more right! People seem to think cakes are the cheapest part of a wedding to make, but they are quite time consuming and the ingredients can be expensive before you ever factor in the time. People pay thousands for photographers but want cakes with things like the sugar roses (perfect example!) which take days/weeks to make for very little money.

-K2- wrote: »

Go to M&S, pick up a cake for less than €€€ and then spend the savings on something else.

I don't think that people really care about the cake beyond getting a few pictures of it being cut and then a slice to go with their tea at 11pm.

That's what we did anyway.

As with all parts of a wedding some people don't care about it, for some people it's an integral part. For example I couldn't care less about flowers for my wedding but good food would be worth as much as I could afford.

But yes OP if you're not that into the cake definitely go to M&S, it'll be all fruit but they're great value.

-K2-

Spadina wrote: »

Slightly O/T but DreamC you couldn't be more right! People seem to think cakes are the cheapest part of a wedding to make, but they are quite time consuming and the ingredients can be expensive before you ever factor in the time. People pay thousands for photographers but want cakes with things like the sugar roses (perfect example!) which take days/weeks to make for very little money.




As with all parts of a wedding some people don't care about it, for some people it's an integral part. For example I couldn't care less about flowers for my wedding but good food would be worth as much as I could afford.

But yes OP if you're not that into the cake definitely go to M&S, it'll be all fruit but they're great value.

Sure, I agree that there are areas which people care more about than others.

In most weddings I've been at there is a dessert at the end of the meal (which is worth spending on): the cake isn't served until late-on with the hangsangwiges and tea when people won't notice if it's a fancy one or not.

Still, it's the OP's day and their choice.

allanb49

Slight Thread hijack

- We're thinking of getting two cakes one big and one smaller from superquinn, just a sponge and chocolate cake, and my fianceés mum will put some icing on it. Anyone else done this?

magneticimpulse

Yeah im thinking of doing the same with my Wedding Cake...thinking of making it myself and icing it. Not too keen on the Chocolate Biscuit cakes. Id rather Green and Blacks Dark chocolate raspberry brownies to be honest. Ive not ever had a wedding cake and thought...wow thats amazing. I could definitely make a better, tasty original one.


I mean come on, how difficult is it to make a cake?? And you just have to make about 3 or 4. With at least 2 of them being fruit cakes that can be made in advance. Thats a saving of the 400 euro

Spent enough Wednesday nights watching Desperate Housewives and making cakes for housemates and work that im sure it will be fine. Im sure theres some great recipes on BBC Radio 4 womens hour.

As for little Mala people on top...that should be easy. Get some marizpan and food dye. Copy some Walance and Grommit style format and hey presto.

Sure can get the mammies help and im looking forward to adding Guinness and Wiskey to mine. Should go down a treat.


Ive also seen on the BBC Program "Dont tell the Bride", that Fancy Muffins seem to be really popular also. Id rather fresh fruit, creamy cakes to be honest (which you couldnt ice off course)

DreamC

magneticimpulse wrote: »

I could definitely make a better, tasty original one.
I mean come on, how difficult is it to make a cake?? And you just have to make about 3 or 4. With at least 2 of them being fruit cakes that can be made in advance. Thats a saving of the 400 euro

You will never know how difficult or easy it is before you try yourself. And you "save" (theoretically) your 400 euro only if the finished product looks the money. Though to begin with you will have to buy some ingredients. For a 3-4 tier sponge&fruit it would cost around 100-130 euro depending on where you shop. Then a fair chunk of the "savings" will have to be spent on cake stands (buy or rent which is not cheap either), cake boards, which are not free either, cake dowels (as you do not expect just bang all your 3-4 cakes on top of one another. If you do then the bottom one will become a flat flapjack ). Add there baking tins of the right size and HEIGHT (as people usually expect the tiers to be of the same height as well, a weird thing, I know) - the prices for hire of the tins sometimes are just ridiculously high, it's cheaper to buy. Then probably you would need some decorations - which means more spending on the cake. The use of sugarcraft tools is optional Sorry for the long post but some people really believe that cakes are made just of the air which is absolutely free for all (so far).

Good luck with you cake anyway.

allanb49

As long as the cake is tasty and people enjoy it who cares what it looks like, (by the way i'm the one fighting for the cake, OH doesn't think it's nessacery) I am tempted also just to get a load of M&S Catterpiller cakes.....

DreamC

allanb49 wrote: »

As long as the cake is tasty and people enjoy it who cares what it looks like,

Usually the newlyweds do if they are going to have photos of "cutting-the-cake" unless you do not mind get your own photo with a tilting heap of bumpy icing more suitable for a "cake wrecks" blog

allanb49 wrote: »

I am tempted also just to get a load of M&S Catterpiller cakes.....

They are much cheaper in Tesco.

allanb49

DreamC wrote: »

Usually the newlyweds do if they are going to have photos of "cutting-the-cake" unless you do not mind get your own photo with a tilting heap of bumpy icing more suitable for a "cake wrecks" blog



They are much cheaper in Tesco.

We have some class :P

Would rice krispie cakes be inappropiate. lol. Back on topic,

Lisa's mum will do a nice job of the cake with some icing, We have the wedding at just under 2k (not including the dresses & tux) So we are doing the whole thing on the cheap and just want to have it as a nice day and night that people will remember.

magneticimpulse

DreamC wrote: »

You will never know how difficult or easy it is before you try yourself. And you "save" (theoretically) your 400 euro only if the finished product looks the money. Though to begin with you will have to buy some ingredients. For a 3-4 tier sponge&fruit it would cost around 100-130 euro depending on where you shop. Then a fair chunk of the "savings" will have to be spent on cake stands (buy or rent which is not cheap either), cake boards, which are not free either, cake dowels (as you do not expect just bang all your 3-4 cakes on top of one another. If you do then the bottom one will become a flat flapjack ). Add there baking tins of the right size and HEIGHT (as people usually expect the tiers to be of the same height as well, a weird thing, I know) - the prices for hire of the tins sometimes are just ridiculously high, it's cheaper to buy. Then probably you would need some decorations - which means more spending on the cake. The use of sugarcraft tools is optional Sorry for the long post but some people really believe that cakes are made just of the air which is absolutely free for all (so far).

Good luck with you cake anyway.

Seriously have you seen SMARTIE CHOCOLATE CAKES??? it is the best chocolate cake ever and only cost 5 quid for one. We always got these cakes for birthday parties and it managed to feed everyone at the huge house parties we had. It already comes with icing and a cake board!!! Seriously about 6 of these will feed everyone for 30euro!!!

Im not going to be snobby about how it looks, once it tastes good

magneticimpulse

DreamC wrote: »

You will never know how difficult or easy it is before you try yourself. And you "save" (theoretically) your 400 euro only if the finished product looks the money. Though to begin with you will have to buy some ingredients. For a 3-4 tier spo
nge&fruit it would cost around 100-130 euro depending on where you shop. Then a fair chunk of the "savings" will have to be spent on cake stands (buy or rent which is not cheap either), cake boards, which are not free either, cake dowels (as you do not expect just bang all your 3-4 cakes on top of one another. If you do then the bottom one will become a flat flapjack ). Add there baking tins of the right size and HEIGHT (as people usually expect the tiers to be of the same height as well, a weird thing, I know) - the prices for hire of the tins sometimes are just ridiculously high, it's cheaper to buy. Then probably you would need some decorations - which means more spending on the cake. The use of sugarcraft tools is optional Sorry for the long post but some people really believe that cakes are made just of the air which is absolutely free for all (so far).

Good luck with you cake anyway.

I have all the cake tools...i suspect everyone does. Spent years making Christmas fruit cakes, icing them and Christmas Puddings with my mother every year. I think I know how to make a cake.

Thats like saying, oh pay someone in the change a lightbulb?? Its really easy to make a cake. Its not rocket science (which I do study anyway so I definitely know its not that difficult)

00112984

magneticimpulse wrote: »

Yeah im thinking of doing the same with my Wedding Cake...thinking of making it myself and icing it... Id rather fresh fruit, creamy cakes to be honest (which you couldnt ice off course)

Few things to keep in mind-
1) Transportation. I don't know where your wedding is but if it's a hotel, most won't take responsibility for the cake being left there overnight so you'd have to deliver it the morning of the wedding. You'll have to factor this into logistics. Cakes are pretty tricky to transport so you may have to find two volunteers to take care of that.

2) If you are thinking of going for fresh cream and your wedding is in a hotel in Ireland, most (if not all, I don't know if it's an FSAI regulation) will not allow fresh cream cakes due to health & safety reasons.

If you'd like to make the cake yourself, why not look at cupcakes/muffins? They can be made in advance and frozen and then you can frost and decorate them the day beforehand. You can buy or rent cupcake stands and they're much easier to transport. Less waste too as you're allocating one per person. You could also have an M&S or whatever iced fruitcake for the top if you think the older guests would prefer something more traditional and then you'll also have something to cut.

Like I said, I'm not sure of what kind of wedding you're having but if it's a traditional Irish affair with full wedding gown, bridesmaids, 100+ guests and a hotel, you're going to be very busy the week of the wedding itself so you might find that you don't get as much done in terms of cake baking and decorating as you'd like.

Last piece of advice, if you're serious about icing your own sponges, do loads of trial runs!

snuggles09

i'm cutting the cake at the reception but i'm getting the hotel to cut it up and put it out with the "afters" food as i'm guessing that everyone at the meal will be full after the dessert and have no interest in the cake. it'll be nice to offer people the cake at the afters with all the other food as a sweet

Acoshla

magneticimpulse wrote: »

I have all the cake tools...i suspect everyone does. Spent years making Christmas fruit cakes, icing them and Christmas Puddings with my mother every year. I think I know how to make a cake.

Thats like saying, oh pay someone in the change a lightbulb?? Its really easy to make a cake. Its not rocket science (which I do study anyway so I definitely know its not that difficult)

Making a cake IS easy....when you know how. Not everyone would have had the same experience as you helping your mother make cakes every year, so you have an advantage when it comes to making a cake.

I can make cakes, I could turn out my own wedding cake easily, the same way someone else could easily make their wedding dress, or flower arrangements, but if you haven't a clue how to do something or if you don't have all the equipment it makes sense to pay someone else who has the skill to do it, it's the basis of all trade/service jobs, not just cakes.

You mightn't pay someone to change a lightbulb, but you'd pay someone to wire the light fitting if you didn't know how and/or didn't have the equipment.

DreamC

Anyone can make a cake. I would never argue with that. And this is a great design sourse. http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ Some masterpieces are just breathtaking and would make you cry

iguana

magneticimpulse wrote: »

Its going to be in a tent in the back garden of the house!! One of these giant mar-key so wont have to worry about transportation or hotels

This is not After Hours. If you keep on treating it as such I'll have no choice butt to ban.

BC

I was going to make my own.
I practiced a chocolate biscuit cake. It cost me about 60 euro to try it (ingredients, tools etc). It was okay but not great. I reckon it would have taken 2 more attempts to get it right. When you add up the cost of all that plus the cost of making it on the day, it was cheaper to get it made.
Plus despite being super organised in advance, i did end up with loads to do in the run up to the day and i'm glad i didn't have the cake on top of that.

Shivers26

Our cake is costing €340 (ish). The price on the site is €440 but we got €100 discount for ordering at the wedding fair in the RDS.
www.creativecakes.ie
The plan is to have 3 tiers with 3 different flavours and I know they will deliver to our venue on the day.

I wish I could make my own cake. Whatever about learning how to make the fillings but the icing and decorating must be very complicated.

CathyMoran

Our cake was one of the most expensive parts of our wedding and the one real thing that we spent money on - we got our cake from Cakes and Co, they did our son's christening cake a few years later and have also done a sister in law's birthday cake - can not recomend them highly enough.

no1girliegirl

I tried making my own, did a practice on a chocolate biscuit cake and the icing just didnt look good enough. It would have cost a fortune to try again and again so I ordered mine from the black forest bakery in kilcock, it was yummy.

I got 3 tiers, 12" chocolate biscuit, 10" carrot cake and 8" lemon maderia all plain white icing for 150euro. I just got ribbon for 2 euro and that was it. It tasted fab and was the best price I could find. I probably would haver spent alot more doing it myself and would have been worried about what the icing looked like. We put ours out with the afters food and also at the residents bar later that night.

tatli_lokma

Spadina wrote: »

But yes OP if you're not that into the cake definitely go to M&S, it'll be all fruit but they're great value.

M&S do sponge cakes also. You have to go north of the border, but you can order in advanceand collect them in advance of the wedding. They are iced fairly classicly, nothing fancy, but nice and if you decorate with fresh flowers can look great. From memory it was about €130 for 3 tiers when I was looking in 09.

I ended up going for 3 tiers for €250 inc stand etc from a local guy (Crumbs in Stamullen, Co Meath) purely for the fact that I would have a tastier cake, and he was so close by he delivered and set up the cake for free, and then I didn't have to go north and collect the cake myself. For me that was worth €120 (and don't forget, I would have had to pay petrol and toll charges too, so it would have actually been less than that saved)

but having said that, if I couldn't have stretched to the extra money I would have happily had the M&S one - it would have looked fine if decorated nicely with fresh flowers.

or a lot of people are now ordering really nice gateaux from a local bakery in 3 sizes and using those - much cheaper than a 'wedding' cake I even know someone who got 3 frozen chocolate gateaux from a wholesalers, iced in choc ganache. her mum then decorated it with white chocolate curls and white roses. Her wedding colours were cream and chocolate, so it matched in with everything else. Honestly it looked fab when it was all done and she had a beautiful cake for less than €100. Plus they bought 3 extras to serve (it was a big wedding). it tasted really nice too.

I totally appreciate the work that goes in to many of the designs, however when a 'cake' becomes a 'wedding' cake suddenly lots of places charge twice as much for essentially the same work! I'm not talking sugar roses here, I mean just really nice gateaux or plain white iced cakes. I don't get that.

angelfalling

I do wedding and occasion cakes out of Waterford and for a three tier cake I'd charge somewhere between 250 and 300...

I don't feel like you should pay a fortune for your wedding cake and half the time its too disgustingly fake/dry/sugary to eat! Everything is made fresh and I make my own marshmallow fondant (which is super tasty). I'm big on taste and getting you exactly what you want so feel free to have your sister shoot me an email for a special cake style/flavor for a quote. I have a website: http://www.thebohokitchen.com

Candace

snuggles09

angelfalling wrote: »

I do wedding and occasion cakes out of Waterford and for a three tier cake I'd charge somewhere between 250 and 300...

I don't feel like you should pay a fortune for your wedding cake and half the time its too disgustingly fake/dry/sugary to eat! Everything is made fresh and I make my own marshmallow fondant (which is super tasty). I'm big on taste and getting you exactly what you want so feel free to have your sister shoot me an email for a special cake style/flavor for a quote. I have a website: http://www.thebohokitchen.com

Candace

would just like to champion Candace, her cakes are gorgeous:)

tatli_lokma

angelfalling wrote: »

Everything is made fresh and I make my own marshmallow fondant (which is super tasty).

just to point out that marshmallow fondant is, as the name suggests, made with marshmallow and therefore not suitable for vegetarians, so any veggies out there would have to rule this out.

And as a matter of courtesty any B&G having this fondant should advise their veggie (or muslim, cos most marshmallow is made with pork gelatine) guests if they have any. Although I know some people don't see it as a big deal and wouldn't bother telling people, as a veggie I would very much appreciate knowing. I wouldn't expect a seperate cake or anything in place, I'd just like to know to avoid it