Start A Cake Making Side Hustle

Cake Making Side Hustle Run Down:

Cake is one of the best ways to celebrate a special occasion! But it’s fair to say that not everyone has the same creative abilities, tools, knowledge or patience when it comes to decorating cakes and making them look super special. Generally, you have time to book in and plan in advance as it’s not a surprise when these occasions pop up so customers can book in weeks or months in advance. Offering different designs and styles, flavours, shapes and keeping up to date with current trends is important. There’s also the option to specialise in just one area such as kids birthday cakes, wedding cakes or allergy/intolerance specific cakes.

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PROS AND CONS OF STARTING A CAKE MAKING SIDE HUSTLE

PROS

You can use your kitchen at home and work around family and other commitments!
Most items for cake making and decorating are easily accessible and readily available
There’s lots of tutorials and books out there to help you develop your skills for free or affordably if needed
People are always going to want cakes for special occasions, and with the rise of ‘instagrammable content’ people are looking to outsource for beautiful looking food

CONS

You make need to work hard or make changes to your current kitchen to ensure it can be approved or signed off on by council
With the rise of food allergies and intolerances you need to be very careful with cross contamination and listing all ingredients used
As people will expect their cake to be fresh, you will have a busy Thursday and Friday evening/Saturday morning decorating and putting cakes together – which limits your capacity and workload earlier in the week

Effort Required To Start A Cake Making Side Hustle

To get started: Moderate – High
Many food home based businesses will require additional certification and checks to be completed by their local council. Depending on what your local council’s requirements are, this may impact how much work is needed to receive your kitchen certifcation. Then, depending on your current skill level and the equipment you have, you may need to purchase additional tools and equipment such as fondant tools, cake tins, cake boards and boxes for transport. You will then need to work on marketing your business and getting a stream of clients booking with you to begin covering your costs.

Ongoing: Moderate-high
Cake making is rewarding in the sense that the final product looks amazing and feels wonderful presenting your work to your customer. However, cake making does require a lot of time, patience and skill and while some elements can be bundled together to save time, each cake requires special attention. Therefore, over time, a cake making side hustle doesn’t necessarily reduce with effort – however marketing and promotion efforts may reduce as word of mouth develops over time.

Cake Making Side Hustle Earning Potential

Earning potential is low-moderate. If you have great skills and highly desired cakes then you can charge a nice markup on them to increase your profits. Depending on your market, you have to consider your competitors and pricing strategy compared to theirs as this is becoming a crowded space and without differentiation you may not be able to charge what you would like. If you love baking and decorating cakes, this won’t feel like work though which is definitely a bonus!

Also, as a side hustle, there is only so much cake one person can make. There are limited resources in terms of both oven time / fridge space and your decorating time while would limit the potential income. If your side hustle really takes off, there is nothing stopping you from developing it further with staff and hired kitchen space – but that’s a whole different ball game!

Cost Required To Start a Cake Decorating Side Hustle

You will need to pay your local council for a food business registration, and then purchase any materials and equipment required to start your business.
This may include –
-Home Kitchen Registration (pending your local council requirements – $50-$300 approx)
-Cake tins in a variety of sizes (varying sizes and shapes)
-Cost of materials to make the cake ($20 pending size)
-Fondant or Icing ingredients (approx $20 a tub)
-Fondant shaping and icing tools and accessories – like this one on Amazon depending on what you need or want – $30-$150

How Do I Start My Own Cake Making Side Hustle?

Assess your skills and passion for baking – can you make cakes people will pay for?
Market your business through Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business, build your own website and utilise local flyer drops
Start taking bookings! Keep a diary or calendar to track your bookings so you know what cakes are due when, and for who
Pre-purchase items such as cake boards and boxes in advance
With each booking, don’t forget to take lots of photos to grow your social media pages and encourage reviews onto your Facebook and Google My Business page

Hot Tip:
Get business cards printed encouraging your customers to give you a review – stick inside their cake box when you deliver or they pick up. This will help to prompt them once they’ve taken the cake home and gives the opportunity to remind them at a later date.

Ideas To Boost Your Cake Making Side Hustle

Partner with a local company and offer custom cake toppers for an additional fee or buy a cricut machine and make your own! This can help to increase customer satisfaction as it’s a one-stop shop for them to get all their cake needs in one place.
You could also offer to add candles for an additional fee (or a bonus!) for birthday cakes to help simplify the process further for the customer.