Interesting points here. I never make a cake unless it’s been fully paid for in advance. A bakery I used to work for was continually losing money by making cakes that were never collected. The owner was afraid of losing custom by asking for money up front, but instead she lost the money for materials, time, utilities, additional staffing and sometimes lost custom by having to turn away paying customers. I have loads of people who ask for quotes and then make out as if they’re going to order a cake because they’re embarrassed to admit that they thought a cake to feed 70 cake was going to cost £50. Real customers are perfectly happy to pay up front, they know they will be paying sometime anyway. I’d absolutely not make anything for this customer. I think she’s made it perfectly clear that she’s not expecting cake and you’d be throwing away money. I have many tales of crazy customers (like the woman who phoned up and declared that she wanted a “unicorn cake”. She put the phone down before we could get any details, including the date of delivery, then turned up in the shop a few weeks later demanding that we instantly produce her unicorn cake! :) ). You can’t worry too much about them, you’d exhaust yourself. x
Kasserina Cakes, Dorset
