I've been put in charge of cake decorating at a local grocery store. They haven't had this going for quite a few years so today I had to go through all their things and tomorrow I have to order what they don't have... now, doing cakes in a grocery store is WAAAY different than I'm used to! If you know the answers to any of my questions below, please give me insight or guidance! Thank you!!!

Pettinice: Good or bad tasting? Apparently this is the only fondant available in the catalog they gave me and the price is really cheap so I was wondering anyone's insight on it?

Pastry Bags: They don't have ANY so what would you recommend? Plastic or paper throwaways OR polyurethane or "European" (these are supposedly the heavy duty kind)?

Squeeze Gels: Anyone ever work with this stuff before? I've only used Americolor and Wilton so these are new to me but they say that they offer the ease of use of a liquid with the color intensity of a gel without effecting icing consistency. I can get a starter kit of these for $51.80 and you get 12-13.5 oz. bottles.

Spatula Size: They have a mongo 17" spatula for doing sheet cakes but what size would be best for smaller frosting jobs? 9"? 11 1/4"?

Sheet Cakes: I know these sizes are different for everyone. They did have some 7x 11 pans but they were so banged up and dented that I'm having them order 2 new ones... I'm also having them order 2-9x13 pans, an 11x15 pan and a 12x18... what sheet cake sizes are most popular to you? Just curious if I should order more of a certain size or not...

Greasing Pans: I've always used Wilton's No Stick Grease stuff for making cakes at home... (this will probably sound really stupid but...) how do you grease a pan without that stuff? I know some just use butter/margarine and/or flour... just curious!

Edible Images: Can these go bad? They've had some (still in the original packaging) for awhile now, they still look good, just wondering if they can go bad or not...

I think that's about it for now. Any other advice for getting started in a grocery store would be helpful... I've never used a big mixer or a big oven before so I'm sure that'll take awhile to get used to. Thanks!!!

Sorry, I can only answer one of your two of your questions, one is just my opinion; you'll probably get others.

The sheet cakes size , I would think that would depend on the occassion and how much cake a customer would need. My opinion is the 11x15.

I grease my pans with crisco ( I use a paper towel) then add about a tsp of flour (again depending on pan size) and I coat the flour until it is all covered; then flip pan over and throw away the excess.

I hope this helped a little.

I've used Pettinice. It was good. Tastes like marshmallows.

For pastry bags I like to use parchment paper.

I use a 9 in spatula all the time. Works great.

For sheet cakes I use an 11x15 and 12x18. It depends on how many they want to feed. I don't really call them a particular size. If someone asks for 1/2 sheet I ask them how many they need to feed and we go from there.

Have fun in your new job!

Sorry, I can only answer one of your two of your questions, one is just my opinion; you'll probably get others.

The sheet cakes size , I would think that would depend on the occassion and how much cake a customer would need. My opinion is the 11x15.

I grease my pans with crisco ( I use a paper towel) then add about a tsp of flour (again depending on pan size) and I coat the flour until it is all covered; then flip pan over and throw away the excess.

I hope this helped a little.

WOW!!! Talk about a big task!

I so can't help with 99% of that stuff, but I did recently use Pettinice and it wasn't bad. It does have a little of an after taste (my nephews pointed that out), but I couldn't tell too much.

well I can't help you but here's a bump for you! and congrats on your new job! Best of Luck!

Edible Images lasts for a long time as long as you keep them in a dry cool area, away from the heat. I have tons of them downstairs and they are as good as they were when I first bought them. I make alot of my own also, and they stay good. I have never had one go bad and like I said I have alot of them that are years old. HTH

I've been told by Kopykake that as long as the edible images are sealed tightly and placed in a cool, dry place, they should last about a year. I've have some that I purchased last November and they seem perfectly fine. As far as printing them out in advance, I wouldn't do it unless I was going to use it on a cake within a few days. The reason is that the colors do change even if placed in a cool dry place. This is just from my experience. Hope this helps.

That's what I use where I work. Just brush it on the pan with a pastry brush. It comes in a 20 lb. bucket.

I googled it and you should be able to find it where ever you get your baking supplies for the store.

Wow ... lets see what I can do:

Fondant -- Have used it and it is not bad. If you can order in bulk than I would go with it ... but I have never seen fondant on a grocery store cake (do they want you to use it for something particular?)

Pastry bags -- I would assume that the wilton ones would be fine. But for the sake of cleanliness I would use the paper ones. This will also cut down on the amount of clean up and drain issues.

Gel -- never used it.

Spatula size -- I have always seen the ladies use "scapers" not spatulas. And I know that several ladies on here use the same things. They are much easier to hold.

Pan -- I use an 11x15. But I don't think it is the "correct" size. Check the box size that the store uses and go from there.

Greasing Pans -- I use oil and wax paper but would not recommend it for bussiness quantity. I know that several ladies on here use a homemade "release" something with oil and flour (check the recipes). I am assuming that there is some sort of commercial product out there.

Edible images -- I read in a cateloge that they go bad after some time ... can't remember. But a little research would answer that one for you (for the specific brand).

Hope it goes well!

I've used pettinice and thought it was pretty similar to satin ice. Tastes pretty good as far as fondant goes...


Good luck with your new job!
Courtney

when i worked at a grocery in high school they used a spray pan grease. cheap version of pam. i use a spray at home too. works good and it's fast.

I recently bought one of the heavy duty pastry bags and I liked it much better. Youll probably want to have some of those and some disposable ones. That way when you have to use many different colors you can use the disposable ones for that purpose.

I also bought one of those mongo spatulas! I cant get used to it. I think someone else said a 9 would be good and I agree on that one. Much bigger than that it awkward if youve never used it before, but then again, you could get used to it I guess.

I would say that the 12x18 is probably going to be the most popular. Lots of people get ½ sheets and thats what a ½ sheet is where I am. I would say if they let you, get two of each size in case you may have to do a layered sheet cake and if the oven is large enough to handle them. Would also be good to have just because it will allow you to prep better.

I saw someone a while back had posted a recipe for pan grease and it was Crisco, flour and vegetable oil if Im remembering quickly. So you can probably just make it yourself.

These are just my opinions, Im no pro by any means! Im jealous of your new job! Hope I helped a bit!

I work in a grocery store bakery but it must be way different than what you are going to do.
We don't bake our own cake but I used to work in one in the midwest where we did bake our cake, at least the bakers did. They baked all of the cake in a full sheet pan, using a pan extender which gave it nice straight sides and let it rise higher. We then cut all of our cakes to 1/2 or 1/4. That is where that term came from. Any cakes we didn't use for the orders we either decorated and put out for customers to pick up or we froze them until we had an order for them. We made the cakes in very large quantites, using the big floor mixer.
The squeeze gels are great to use for the color. You will need paste color for black and red though. It takes too much of the gel and it makes your icing thin.
The spatula size I use all the time, measures 11", that includes the handle. That large spatula you are talking about is great just to level the final icing on the cake, one swoop across the cake and it is done.
The pan grease I would think you would order in, as "pan grease". Where I have worked it came in a can and they used a brush to put it on the pan. They also used a baking sheet (parchment) in each pan.
The edible images....as long as they are not brittle should be just fine. Nothing to go bad in them.
Don't know about the fondant.....I have never worked in a bakery where they ordered it in. Mostly we don't use it, only buttercream. I did work in one place where they used fondant but we made our own.
I personally use the poly bags at work. You can't wash the disposables and use them over. I know some bakeries use those and just leave the icing in them and throw them away at the end of the week. They wash only the tips. Our inspector won't let us do that. I also like the parchment bags for writing or if I am only going to be using a small amount of a color.
.....and that is how I do it. I am sure different stores do things differently. We do, including cakes for our display case, about 125 to 150 decorated cakes per week. We do not do set designs, except for the kits which we do like the photos supplied to us. We do have to come up with designs which can be done reasonablly fast though.
It is a lot of fun. I have been doing it for 30 years and love it.
Congratulations and good luck !

I would suggest the disposable bags as they are easier on clean up.... you could also get a few of the featherweight bags for use with the icing tip and for times where you're doing a cake all in one color like white base but TONS of pink details.... it may be easier on your hands and I think they may even hold more icing then the disposables

Gel colors... Americolor is technically a gel liquid and I find it 100000000000000 x's easier to use then wilton! I can match two seperate bowls of icing by counting drops with Americolor - I can't do that with Wilton's lol.

Sheet pans... 9x13 is a big seller here locally, it feeds about 18 depending on size cut... 1/2 sheet (here) is considered 11x15, and 3/4 being 12x18, full sheet being either 22x15 or 30x11 whichever way you want it laid together...

I would also check the supply of boxes and boards and order what's needed... you can't really go by what they sell most of since they haven't done this for quite some time... but I would say maybe some boxes to hold 10" rounds, 12" rounds, all 4 sized sheet cakes... you said they have the 7x11 pan... I haven't seen one of these in stores anywhere but know they sell it lol... not sure on boxes for it though... I'd also get them to purchase some cupcake boxes, both 6 and 12 count plastic hinged containers as well as mini cupcake holders. You'd be surprised at how many people will order a 9x13 sheet and buy 2 dozen cupcakes to match it just because they are sitting on the shelf in front of them and they match perfectly!

Good luck and congrats again!

Thanks everyone for the help so far! Keep it coming! As far as fondant, they are going to let me do wedding cakes out of the kitchen so that's why I was wondering about that... they want me to do more "creative" cakes rather than the plain old that you get from Wal-Mart...

I work part time at a high end gourmet grocery store in Orange County, CA. We don't offer fondant b/c people don't usually like to pay for what it actually costs; you might find it's not worth to offer it to customers. I use it only to accent cakes and have never covered one completely.

We only have round and half sheets that come pre-baked from Pillsbury, so we never bake cakes. We have a standard 8 inch round and we cut our half sheets to make quarter sheets and use two half sheets to make a full. The half sheets are 12 x 18. We bake muffins, rolls, etc., but not the cakes.

Spatulas..I decorate all my cakes using the smallest offset spatula (I think it's a 6 inch, it's easier for me to hold and my hand hurts less than the large offsets. I also use a straight 8 inch or so spatula that is wider that I use to put the frosting on the sides. I use a large ice cream scoop to get the frosting out of the bucket and onto my cake. I use a straight edge paint guard to smooth out my sides.

I used to work at a McGlynn's Bakery in Minnesota (are there any of those left???) where we baked in store. It was almost exactly as BCJean describes in the post above. One thing that really stood out for me was how our decorator mixed his colors right in the pastry bag...he swore by the extra large heavy duty bags.

For greasing the pans, I always use parchment paper for the bottom of the pan. For the sides, combine 1/3 veg. oil, 1/3 flour, and 1/3 Crisco; make a big batch of this to have it handy.