 | Do you make decorated cakes too?
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| | I'm afraid not! We are so busy baking our cake bases and making our icings that we no longer have time to produce decorated cakes as well. If you are in the Nottingham area we may be able to recommend someone who does - just call and ask. |
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| | Can I collect my order from you in person?
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| | Yes! We have a sugarcraft shop here at the bakery in Nottingham, so please do come along and visit us if you're nearby - you can find a map and directions here. The shop is open 9am till 5pm Tuesday to Friday and 9am to 1pm Saturday. We are closed Sundays and Mondays, and on the Saturdays of most Bank Holiday weekends. Feel free to call beforehand so we can get your order ready for you to collect. |
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| | How soon will my order arrive? |
| | We always send your order as soon as possible, and if you have not ordered any 'baked to order' items this will normally mean your order arrives around 2-4 business days after ordering. As the delivery driver will need a signature, it is best to have your order delivered to an address where someone will be in all day - sending to a work address is no problem.
Our carrier usually delivers between 8.30am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday. Saturday deliveries are sometimes possible but do cost extra - call us on 0115 8450660 for details.
Please see our Delivery page for more information. |
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| | Don't you make round sponge cakes?
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| | Our sponge cakes are only available in the rectangular slabs and cut squares listed on this site, but are very easy to cut to whichever shape you want - the easiest way is to chill the cake first to make it firmer, then use a cakeboard as a template and a sharp serrated knife to trim to shape, making sure you keep the knife upright. |
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| | How much is the postage?
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| | For mainland UK addresses, we charge £7.00 per order. Please note we now have a minimum order value of £25.00 plus postage and packing. Orders over £70 are sent free of charge (mainland UK only). Please see our Delivery page for more details and a list of the postcodes classed as Highlands by our carrier. NB If you are registered with us as a trade customer, delivery charges and carriage free order levels are different - please contact us for details.
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| | Is there a minimum order?
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| | Yes, we now have a minimum order value of £25.00 plus postage and packing. This is because we charge our customers much less for delivery than the real cost to us, and unfortunately it would cost us more to send a very small order than the price of the cake! Remember, our sponge cakes do freeze very well so why not save on carriage costs by ordering one for now and one ready for next time?
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| | Do you deliver to other countries? |
| | We may sometimes be able to accept orders from other European countries including the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands, but please note that this website is designed for UK orders only and so will not calculate the cost of shipping. Orders for other EU countries will need shipping to be calculated based on weight, and any extra costs must be paid before the order can be despatched - we will contact you with the details after we receive your order. If shipping to your country is too expensive, you will of course have the choice to cancel the order.
If you would like advice on shipping costs to your country prior to ordering, please email info@sweetsuccess.uk.com or call us on 0115 8450660. In most cases, we can send a box of goods up to 30kg for a flat rate fee - eg at January 2010 we can send a 30kg parcel to the Republic of Ireland or the Netherlands for £18.80, which represents very good value if you are ordering enough to use the full weight allowance. Please check current rates when ordering. We do not ship outside Europe, to the US or elsewhere in the world. |
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| | How long will the cakes keep?
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| | Our rich fruit cakes keep a very long time, but are best eaten within 18 months of baking. Every cake has a batch code to tell us when it was baked and a best before date on the label. Our vanilla and chocolate genoese, death by chocolate cake, eggless sponge and carrot cakes keep for five weeks from baking, and our cupcakes should keep for four weeks. Store all cakes in a cool place in the original packaging. All our sponge cakes also freeze very well to extend the life if needed. Do bear in mind that, once decorated, the life of the sponge may be affected by the type of filling cream and/or jam used - eg thin watery jam or cream with a high moisture content may make the sponge soggy over time and speed up mould growth.
Please note that the shelf life of sponge cakes is calculated from the day of baking, not the day of delivery, and most cakes will be around 3 to 4 days old when you receive them. We recommend that you order sponges to arrive about a week before the celebration, then decorate them in the week leading up to the wedding or party. This ensures the cake is in prime condition when served, and ought to give plenty of time to enjoy the left-overs.
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| | Can I freeze the cakes? |
| | Our sponge cakes freeze and defrost very well - some customers even prefer working on them semi-frozen, finding it easier to get a perfect finish to the icing on a very firm base. We don't recommend freezing our fruit cakes, and there should be no need as they keep very well for 18 months from baking. It is not a good idea to freeze our sugarpastes or flowerpaste - in our experience, it does not extend the life, and you risk problems with condensation on the icing as it defrosts. |
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| | Are your products suitable for vegetarians?
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| | All our cakes and Sweet Silk sugarpastes are fine for a normal vegetarian diet, but as the cakes contain butter and eggs they would not be suitable for vegans. Our eggless sponge is suitable for those following an egg-free diet, but does contain milk so is not suitable for vegans. Like most other commercial flowerpastes, our Pastiche and Pastrima range contains gelatine and is not suitable for vegetarians.
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| | Do you make Christmas Cake bases?
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| | We supply our normal rich fruit cake for any occasion, including weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. At Christmas customers often order shallower cakes (2" deep) which work out 20% cheaper than standard. If you have lots of the same size cakes to decorate, you can also save money by having them as a Christmas bulk pack (not individually wrapped and boxed) - call us for details. We don't make any cakes with less fruit, as any saving would be very marginal.
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| | Can you make nut free cakes? Or cakes without alcohol, cherries or peel? |
| | We are happy to bake fruit cakes without nuts (or without cherries, peel, alcohol etc) for a 15% extra charge - please call to tell us what you would like. However, we cannot guarantee that any of our products are totally nut free, as we operate in a small bakery where nuts are regularly used (see the next question on allergens for more information about the types of nuts we use). Please allow at least 2 weeks for delivery of specially baked cakes.
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| | What about other allergens - gluten, dairy, egg? What sort of nuts do you use? Do you make dairy free or gluten free cakes? |
| | Full ingredient lists for all our own products are available on the relevant 'Product Information' page. If you cannot find the information you need, please call us on 0115 845 0660 and we will do our best to help!
We are a small bakery with only one production area, and unfortunately cannot guarantee that any of our products are totally free from gluten, egg, milk, soya or nuts, as these are all used daily as ingredients, or appear in ingredients we use.
We regularly use ground hazelnuts (in fruit cake) and chopped walnuts (in carrot cake only), and occasionally have other nuts on the premises (pecans, almonds etc), particularly at Christmas.
We are not aware of any form of peanut appearing in any of our ingredients. However, many of the ingredients we buy contain the non-specific warning ' may contain nuts' which we must therefore pass on to our customers.
When making specially baked to order 'no nuts' fruit cake, or eggless sponge cakes, every possble precaution is taken to avoid cross contamination. However, the same limitations still apply as we are a small business and all products are baked in the same area. We strongly recommend that these products are not suitable for those with severe allergies, particularly with nuts, as there is an inevitable risk of cross contamination by airbourne particles which we can never completely eliminate.
We do not currently offer any gluten free or dairy free cakes. Unfortunately, new tighter rules on permissable trace levels of guten in products marketed as 'gluten free' make it almost impossible for small bakeries such as ours to produce genuinely gluten free cakes. |
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| | I want a cake deeper than 2.5" - can you help?
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| | We can bake deeper fruit cakes to special order - please call us for details. We charge by weight, so a 3" deep cake (20% deeper than normal) will also be 20% more expensive. We can bake fruit cakes up to a maximum of 3.5" deep - if you need the cake to look deeper, why not build up the height with cake drums the same size as the cake, then cover the whole structure as one? This gives the visual effect without the expense and weight of extra inches of fruit cake, and will also be much easier to cut than a 4 or 5inch deep cake.
Please allow at least 2 weeks for delivery of specially baked cakes.
We do not make deeper sponge cakes, but you can easily use more than two layers if you want a particularly deep sponge.
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| | I can't see the shape of fruit cake I want
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| | This website shows only the shapes and sizes of fruit cake which we keep in stock. We have baking tins for almost every conceivable shape of cake, including petal, teardrop, octagonal, rectangle, horseshoe, scalloped oval, diamond, numerals and many more - we can bake fruit cakes in all these shapes to special order - please call us and let us know what you would like. |
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| | What size cakes do I need?
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| | Please see our 'Portion Calculator' |
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| | How much sugarpaste and marzipan do I need?
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| | Please see our Ready Reckoner
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| | What size board should I use?
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| | It is usually best to use a board 3" bigger than the size of the cake, but it will depend on your chosen design. |
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| | I have a shop - can I order Sweet Success products in bulk?
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| | Yes! We are always happy to hear from new trade customers, whether you have a decorated cake business or a sugarcraft shop where you'd like to stock our products. We can offer discounts to genuine established businesses, subject to a minimum order level. Please call Rebecca, Cathy or Paul on 0115 8450660 to see how we can help, or look on our Trade Customers page and complete our Trade Discount Application Form. |
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