How to start a cake business from home in the UK

To start a cake business from home in the UK: register with your local council (free, at least 28 days before you sell anything), do food hygiene training (most councils recommend a Level 2 course, about £15–£30 online), work out how to give allergen information for every bake, sort out insurance, and price from your costs rather than copying supermarket prices. Most home bakers start on Instagram; a shop on Cravers Eats lets customers order and pay by card instead of DMs.

The legal set-up (about a month, mostly waiting)

1. Register as a food business with your council, free, 28 days before your first sale. Our full guide to selling food from home covers the details.
2. Food hygiene training: most councils recommend a Level 2 Food Safety & Hygiene course: online, two to three hours.
3. Safer Food, Better Business pack from the Food Standards Agency: your records for the inspection.
4. Insurance: tell your home insurer, and consider public and product liability cover (councils recommend it; markets usually require it).
5. Hygiene inspection: the council visits after you register, usually within a few weeks of you starting. Clean kitchen, pets out, records ready.

Allergens for cakes

Almost every cake contains gluten, eggs and milk, and many contain nuts, soya (in chocolate) or sulphites (in dried fruit). You must be able to tell customers which of the 14 allergens each cake contains. For a made-to-order celebration cake that is a written note with the order and on your menu. For anything you box up before it is sold (cupcakes on a stall, brownie boxes for collection) Natasha's Law requires a full ingredient label with allergens in bold. On Cravers Eats you tick the allergens on each product once and every customer sees them before they order.

Pricing: from your costs, not the supermarket

The commonest mistake is pricing from supermarket cakes. Work from your costs instead: ingredients and packaging, plus your hours (a decorated 8-inch cake can take four to six hours including cooling and cleaning), plus a share of your fixed costs, plus a margin. Our free cake pricing calculator does the sums. As a rough industry guide (not official figures), simple buttercream celebration cakes commonly sell for about £80–£180 and wedding cakes from about £350 (CakeFlix, May 2026).

For custom orders, take payment up front or a booking deposit. Keep a deposit you won't refund small: under UK consumer law, if a customer cancels you can generally keep only what covers your actual losses. See cake deposits, cancellations and no-shows.

Getting your first orders

• Photos sell cakes. Natural light, plain background, one cake per photo.
• Start local. Local Facebook groups, school and workplace networks, and a couple of free cakes for the right people (a nursery, a hairdresser) bring the first ten customers.
• Make ordering easy. Every message you spend confirming flavours, sizes and bank details is time you are not baking. A Cravers Eats shop puts your menu, sizes, allergens and card payment in one link for your bio and your DMs. You keep 95%; customers pay a 99p service fee.
• Lead times. Set a minimum notice (48–72 hours is normal) and stick to it.

What it costs to start

Realistically under £300 to start properly, assuming you already own the oven, mixer and tins.

Sources: Food Standards Agency and local council guidance on registering a food business and allergen information (PPDS); HMRC trading allowance guidance; Cravers Eats seller terms. Last reviewed 2026-11-05.