FAQ's

Yes! We have a cake decorating shop here at the bakery in Nottingham. We are open for you to pop in and browse, and keep a stock of all our products so you can just collect what you need.

The shop is open 9am till 4pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 4pm Saturday, closed Sundays and Bank Holidays. We also usually close for some days between Christmas and New Year. If in doubt, call us on 0115 845 0660 or email info@sweetsuccess.uk.com If you'd like to order in advance just use the click and collect option online. We are at Unit 7 Gauntley Court, Ward Street, Nottingham NG7 5HD

Yes! You can order samples in our online shop here.

If you order before 1pm Monday to Friday your order is likely to leave us the same day. If you select 'express courier' delivery your order will normally arrive just one or two working days after ordering.

If you want to place an advance order for delivery at a later date, use the 'comment' box at checkout to let us know when you'd like the cake, but bear in mind we can't 100% guarantee delivery on a specific day so it's wise to allow a little extra time in case of delays!

Our carriers usually delivers between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, not including Bank Holidays.

BAKED TO ORDER items (eg unusual shaped fruit cakes or bulk packed fruit cakes) will take longer - please allow 10 to 14 days for delivery. If your order contains a mixture of baked to order and standard stock items, we will wait till we have baked the special items and then despatch the whole order at once - this avoids extra carriage costs. Don’t worry, our standard range of round and square sponge cakes, fruit cakes and cupcakes are all held in stock and do NOT take extra time for delivery!

If you selected economy 2nd class Royal Mail delivery, please allow longer for delivery.

Please see our Delivery page for more information.

Ideally, place your order a week before you need to use the goods, even though our delivery service is normally much faster than that! Our sponge cakes have a long shelf life and won't suffer if they arrive a few days before you plan to start decorating. This allows for occasional delays in delivery, and also gives us more time to sort out any problems after you receive the parcel. Remember to allow extra time over weekends and Bank Holidays.

For more information to help work out when you should place your order visit our advice page

Tracking won't usually be available until the next working day after you have placed the order - it becomes 'live' after your order has been collected from us. If you order over a weekend, your order will likely be collected from us Monday afternoon and tracking will be available from Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

If you chose 'Express Courier' at checkout your order will be sent with Parcelforce or DPD. The carrier will send email or SMS updates on your order, so keep an eye on your notifications for your tracking number. You should receive an 'estimated delivery slot' notification on the morning of the day of expected delivery.
We recommend downloading the DPD or Parcelforce apps so you can keep up to date with your delivery and add any special delivery instructions for your address.

If you choose the Royal Mail economy second class delivery service, this is not trackable, and we don't recommend it for urgent orders. Royal Mail orders normally take at least 3-5 days to arrive and its safest to allow up to 10 days.

Please see our Delivery page for full details. 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.

Unfortunately we can't currently deliver outside of the UK.

We bake cakes freshly every day, and our sponge cakes and cupcakes keep for five weeks from baking. Store all cakes in a cool place in the original packaging, not in a fridge.

Our sponge cakes and cupcakes also freeze very well for up to 3 months.

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, so 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.

Our rich fruit cakes keep well for at least 2 years, and will usually have at least one years shelf life when you receive them.

Our sugarpastes and chocolate modelling pastes have a one year shelf life, and our filling creams keep for 10 weeks - longer if frozen.

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. Just pop the cake in the freezer in its original plastic wrapping and box.

We don't recommend freezing our fruit cakes, and there should be no need as they keep very well for 24 months from baking. It is not a good idea to freeze our sugarpastes - in our experience, it does not extend the life, and you risk problems with condensation on the icing as it defrosts.

All Sweet Success branded products are suitable for a standard vegetarian diet. We also offer vanilla vegan and chocolate vegan cakes, as well as vegan cupcakes!

Our filling creams, Sweet Silk sugarpastes and Chocolate modelling paste are also suitable for vegans - browse our full vegan friendly range.

We offer vanilla vegan and chocolate vegan cakes, as well as vegan cupcakes, which are all baked to egg free recipes. However, we are a small bakery with only one production area, and unfortunately can't guarantee that ANY of our products are totally free from traces of egg, as it is used daily in our bakery. We strongly recommend that these products are not suitable for customers with severe allergies.

Sorry, not at the moment. HOWEVER we do offer a vanilla gluten free sponge cake mix for you to bake at home. Find it in the Cake Mix section!

Our toffee cake and red velvet cake are both dairy free recipes - ie they do not contain dairy as an ingredient, but MAY still contain traces of milk as we do use milk powder on the premises. The same applies to our vegan vanilla and vegan chocolate cakes.

Full ingredient lists for all our own brand products are available on the relevant product page. If you can't find the information you need, please email info@sweetsuccess.uk.com and we will do our best to help.

We are a small bakery with only one production area, and unfortunately can't 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 vegan sponge cakes, every possible precaution is taken to avoid cross contamination with milk, egg etc. 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 airborne particles which we can never completely eliminate.

Our toffee cake and red velvet cake are both dairy free - ie do not contain dairy as an ingredient, but MAY still contain traces of milk as we do use milk powder on the premises.

We don't currently offer any gluten free cakes. HOWEVER we do offer a vanilla gluten free sponge cake mix for you to bake at home. Find it in the Cake Mix section!

Our sponge cakes are all approx 2.5” deep. Once filled and iced, this gives a finished depth of around 3”, which is standard depth for a traditional celebration cake.

Extra deep cakes are now very fashionable - to create these, customers often buy more than one cake to stack together. The most economical option for this can often be to buy our big slab cakes and cut however many layers you need to create the height needed.

Round sponge cakes are baked in individual tins, and supplied as one cake approx 2.5” deep. Square cakes and our big slab cakes are all sold with two thinner layers of sponge packed together, each approx 1.25” deep, so still giving a total depth of approx 2.5” per cake.

Our standard depth fruit cakes are all approx 2.5” deep, but we do offer deeper fruit cakes baked to order (2 weeks notice required).

Our standard depth fruit cakes are all approx 2.5” deep. We can bake deeper fruit cakes to special order (2 weeks notice required) - please email info@sweetsuccess.uk.com for details. We charge by weight, so a 3" deep cake (20% deeper than normal) will be 20% more expensive and a 3.5” deep cake will be 40% 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 5 inch deep cake.

Unfortunately we can't bake deeper sponge cakes to order, but why not order our big slabs of sponge and build up as many layers as you need to create the effect desired.

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.

Please see the 'how many portions' section of our 'cakeculator' tool to work out what size cakes you need for your number of guests.

Please see our 'cakeculator' tool to calculate the amount of sugarpaste or marzipan you will need for your cake.

Yes! We are always happy to hear from new trade customers, whether you are an established cake decorating business, a cake shop, cafe, or running a business decorating cakes from home. We can offer discounts to most genuine cake, cafe and catering businesses, subject to a minimum order. Please complete our Trade Discount Application Form and we will get in touch with more details.

We can also arrange bulk discounts on one off orders dependent on quantities - just email the details of what you need to info@sweetsuccess.uk.com and we can provide a quote.

We print edible images in store - this service is available for collection only from our Nottingham shop. For more info visit our edible images page.