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Personally, if it were for an occasion such as this, I would splurge. I'd want to spend time preparing myself for the occasion. Not working in a kitchen.
And I like to bake and cook.
Between DIY and $200 cupcakes, is there no happy medium? What about a sheet cake from a decent bakery? That's what most people use. And it won't cost you $200 - or time in the kitchen.
There are levels of bakeries. I'm not talking about a supermarket or a big box store.
Are there any family run older bakeries?
If you are a good cook, you can make the cupcakes yourself. Butter, flour, sugar, it is really not that hard.
Now if we're talking boxed mix and canned frosting then yes--yuck. But it is super easy to make REAL homemade cupcakes that will taste just like the kind the bakery makes.
Why not whip up a sample batch? That way everyone can try them and see if they think your product is good enough to compare to the bakery's.
I can tell you from personal experience that most grocery store bakeries make foul tasting baked goods. I am a baked goods snob, I only like the real thing. Most stores use chemicals and preservatives and the cakes taste awful. I think a GOOD home made baked good/cake beats the stores' about 90% of the time. It's only the real fancy bakeries that can outdo the a GOOD homemade product.
Since the beginning of the year my husband and I agreed that we would limit our dining out. I've been cooking almost all our meals making a lot of things from scratch, trying to avoid pre-made and pre-packaged food as much as possible. I am totally enjoying getting back to cooking and experimenting with new cuisines. My husband has been loving it, and we've saved almost $4,000 in restaurant spending from the same period last year (we dined out way too much).
I have a family occasion coming up and I volunteered to be in charge of the desserts. I originally was going to get cupcakes from a famous cupcake place here in SoCal. They are rather pricey and will be over $200 for 4 dozen cupcakes.
I have special photo cupcake toppers I am using and mentioned to my husband that I may just make the cupcakes myself, especially since I'll be supplying the main decoration, and it kind of seemed like a waste of money to pay the premium price for just the cake.
He immediately groaned and admonished me not to "cheap out". So now it seems like a home-made version will appear to be a lesser quality. I'll have to make them look "store bought" in order for them to be good enough.
It is ironic that a lot of restaurants tout their food as being just like "grandma used to make, or old country, made with love" etc , but if the meal actually IS homemade it isn't as special as dining out, seemingly.
What is your impression of a homemade spread vs catered food vs restaurant? (Assume competent preparation and quality ingredients).
I agree with you. Homemade can mean a lot of work, but also can result in wonderful foods.
I'd go with homemade, unless it's either a huge gathering that would be extremely difficult to cook for, or wanting certain foods that I didn't think I could prepare properly.
I think homemade food can be either lower or higher quality. Depends on the quality of ingredients and the skill of the cook.
Baking is a bit odd in this regard though. Oddly, blind taste tests consistently place boxed cake mixes ahead of store bought cakes and even high priced custom bakery cakes. I think your best off when dealing with generic cakes like white, chocolate etc your best off sticking with the boxed mixes and spending the money on high quality toppings and add ins.
Now if your doing something like a carrot cake, coconut cake or fruit cake, nothing store bought can compete with homemade cakes in this regard because freshly ground spices, real coconut and freshly dried fruits will always trump.
I don't really make many desserts and have very rarely made regular white/chocolate cakes so I can only give advice as to what I have read and what I see others doing. No way would I consider a boxed carrot cake over a decent homemade one though.
A lot of "high end" boutique bakeries use pre-made mixes and use expensive add-on/ins to the finished cake. They don't run out and slap hersheys chocolate on or in a chocolate cake, they spend the money and use a good dutch process chocolate to boost the flavor and a high grade chocolate in the icing.
That's because the box mixes use cake flour and most home bakers use all purpose flour. There's less protein in cake flour, and that means less gluten development and a tenderer crumb.
OP -- know your audience. I quilt and for weddings and graduations I make a quilt for the couple or person. I can spend a lot of hours and enjoyment making a quilt, and while my family knows and appreciates the handmade item, others don't, and think it's a cheap way to get out of buying a gift. Someone actually mentioned that to me once, and I put her straight -- I only use good fabric and batt. I send the top and backing off to the long arm quilter to do properly, and by the time I was done that quilt cost me not only three months of my time, but about 700 bucks.
I know I'm not alone in this -- I read a Dear Abby once, where the mother was heartbroken her son didn't care enough to buy her a Mother's Day Card. He made it on the computer. And the kids decorated with stickers and markers. To her, it meant more if he walked into Hallmark, pulled any old card out of the rack and paid 4 bucks for it.
Sorry if I misunderstood. It sounded like you were saying it would be better to buy cupcakes, because people might be worried about being poisoned by homemade food. And I was responding that actually, homemade has a better record than store-bought in that regard.
Since the beginning of the year my husband and I agreed that we would limit our dining out. I've been cooking almost all our meals making a lot of things from scratch, trying to avoid pre-made and pre-packaged food as much as possible. I am totally enjoying getting back to cooking and experimenting with new cuisines. My husband has been loving it, and we've saved almost $4,000 in restaurant spending from the same period last year (we dined out way too much).
I have a family occasion coming up and I volunteered to be in charge of the desserts. I originally was going to get cupcakes from a famous cupcake place here in SoCal. They are rather pricey and will be over $200 for 4 dozen cupcakes.
I have special photo cupcake toppers I am using and mentioned to my husband that I may just make the cupcakes myself, especially since I'll be supplying the main decoration, and it kind of seemed like a waste of money to pay the premium price for just the cake.
He immediately groaned and admonished me not to "cheap out". So now it seems like a home-made version will appear to be a lesser quality. I'll have to make them look "store bought" in order for them to be good enough.
It is ironic that a lot of restaurants tout their food as being just like "grandma used to make, or old country, made with love" etc , but if the meal actually IS homemade it isn't as special as dining out, seemingly.
What is your impression of a homemade spread vs catered food vs restaurant? (Assume competent preparation and quality ingredients).
If you watch what you are doing and know how to cook inexpensively home made is less expensive, but it also is healthier and so much fun. There are times when store bought it best: I don't think many of us would tackle making a 5 tier wedding cake. We try to do everything from scratch, but do depend on precessed foods for some things. Tonight I am making beef stronanoff and am using a can of mushroom soup, but the broth is home made. tell your husband to get over it.
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