ok, so it's about 90 degrees here in CNY today...I have a cake due, and as i'm mixing it hubby says "you are NOT baking a cake in this heat!" and i reply, "yes, i am" he then says to me "you just don't get it, you'll never learn...how am i supposed to cool down the house with the ac while you are baking??" Now i understand where he is coming from, but what am i supposed to do, call the customer and say "i'm sorry, i can't bake your cake, it's too hot today!" It's been hot all week, so it's not like i could have chosen a different day to bake and then freeze. So how do you deal with this?? 
I know how it is, we have had a hot summer here, average temp is 90 -100 lately. But what do you do when I need a bunch of cakes. I try to do it in the evenings when a few degrees cooler. Not much choice.
Can you bake late at night? Is it any cooler then? Otherwise just tell your husband what you told us. You have to get it done. It's hot here every day too. I'm in So. CA where it's close to 100 everyday. We just have to deal. HTH! 
It gets so hot in my kitchen just when I'm making dinner that I've started wearing a bandanna to keep sweat from dripping in my eyes. I'm kind of a night owl, so I do my baking during the night, when it's maybe 75 outdoors. I just turn off the AC and open the windows, then get all my baking done. There's no windows in the kitchen and only a small doorway, so it doesn't help with heat in the actual kitchen, but it keeps the rest of the house cool without having the AC run constantly. I wish I could make tortillas in the middle of the night when it's cooler, but we're too used to having them fresh with the meals.
My husband never says anything about the oven being on 
I'm not even baking for customers, just for fun and practice, but he gets happy when he sees the oven getting used because he knows he's getting something yummy.
Have you considered a second oven somewhere like the garage? Somewhere that you are not trying to keep cool in other words. You can do all your mixing, etc. in the kitchen, then just pop out to 'other' stove to put in/take out and test. This could save you a lot of money and frustration and would be worth the cost of an extra stove. Especially when you could get a really nice one used! Good luck, I totally feel your pain. I'm about ready to start a new policy of not doing stacked tiered cakes in the summer. It's too frustrating!
I bake either late at night or very early in the morning. My DH goes to work at 6am, so if I preheat the oven while we're getting him ready for work, then bake as soon as he leaves, I can usually beat the heat.
The rule in our house is: No A/C until it's time to frost. 
LOL Hey, it works for us. Fortunately, the frosting and decorating are the time-consuming parts, and if you don't think I don't milk that for all it's worth... 
Seriously, though... I also give him half of any tips I collect from cakes (I only charge for supplies right now), and he puts that toward the electricity and gas I use for cakes.
Do you have central air or a window unit?
I live in the hot and humid south where if you get behind on your cooling, you just about will never catch up. So I always plan for any heat related event. For meals and such, I cook EARLY in the morning, use my crock pot and microwave whenever possible. I do baking as late in the evening as I can manage.
I read an article where someone used a fan in their windows at night. When it was cool enough outside, they turned the fan the opposite way to pull the heat out. Then in the morning, they could run the runs the correct way for several hours before needing the AC. They saved several hundred dollars that way.
Our AC went out recently when the temperature was 102 for the weekend, heat index much higher. It made a HUGE difference in our house by simply keeping it as dark as possible. My blinds were fine except for the east side of the house...namely my kitchen. I hung thick sheets over my bay window and other windows. WOW. What a difference! Try that.
I cannot tolerate the heat and we have lots of allergies here. I can scrimp on gas and food and lots of other necessities, but I cannot function if I'm hot. So we do what we can to cut down on the heat but keep it a comfortable temperature.
I wish I had AC in my kitchen!!!! before I started baking I never turned on the over in the summer, now, its simply just a necessity sometimes. I try to bake at night, like some others said, and I use a vornado fan (small and high speed) pointed at me or at the oven towards the window to try to keep the hot air blowing out the window instead of into the rest of the house.
Baking in the summer sux 
DoniB I love your AC only when icing rule! Our house is AC only during the night and late evening when we sleep (nobody in my house can sleep while hot) and after the last light bill ($700!!!!) My parents are pretty much getting ready to shrink usuage even more. Last week it got to 86 in my house, talk about hot!
~Alicia
I definately know where you are coming from being in the same area.
My suggestion is to try and plan on baking on the cooler days of the week. I usually watch the weather forecast to see which day I will be baking. Friday looks like the day this week!
If I have to bake in the heat it's very early in the morning so that the house will cool down during the day and not be steaming when I'm trying to sleep.
Hope you don't have too many cakes over the next few weeks the weather like it's going to stay for awhile.
Our AC went out recently when the temperature was 102 for the weekend, heat index much higher. It made a HUGE difference in our house by simply keeping it as dark as possible. My blinds were fine except for the east side of the house...namely my kitchen. I hung thick sheets over my bay window and other windows. WOW. What a difference! Try that.
I just read about covering the windows with those emergency blankets...you know, the thin shiny plastic sheets that they sell at the sporting goods store for about two dollars each. Anyhow, I read that you could block 40% of the heat entering your windows if you covered them with that stuff. I've tried it in one room so far (Academy only had 2 of the things, I guess other people had read about it too) and it really seems to help. It doesn't block all the light in the room, just the heat.
Our AC went out recently when the temperature was 102 for the weekend, heat index much higher. It made a HUGE difference in our house by simply keeping it as dark as possible. My blinds were fine except for the east side of the house...namely my kitchen. I hung thick sheets over my bay window and other windows. WOW. What a difference! Try that.
I just read about covering the windows with those emergency blankets...you know, the thin shiny plastic sheets that they sell at the sporting goods store for about two dollars each. Anyhow, I read that you could block 40% of the heat entering your windows if you covered them with that stuff. I've tried it in one room so far (Academy only had 2 of the things, I guess other people had read about it too) and it really seems to help. It doesn't block all the light in the room, just the heat.
you can also use car window tint -- the sliver kind works best ---
but be warned -- at night -- it's a mirror on the INSIDE so hard to see out.
Living here on Kauai, Hawaii, we don't have AC at all, we do have wonderful ceiling fans & as our temperatures on this island hardly ever reach 90, it is a fabulous place to live, we mostly have nauture's AC, the trade winds, our doors & windows are aways open. It is very comfortable. Having lived in S.California for 20 years, I know what everyone is going through with the terrible heat, it is awful.
Tell your husband it's your house too. Isn't it?
Living here on Kauai, Hawaii, we don't have AC at all, we do have wonderful ceiling fans & as our temperatures on this island hardly ever reach 90, it is a fabulous place to live, we mostly have nauture's AC, the trade winds, our doors & windows are aways open. It is very comfortable. Having lived in S.California for 20 years, I know what everyone is going through with the terrible heat, it is awful.
I lived on Oahu and man i loved not having to have ac!!! and honestly, one night it got so chilly to me i had to put sweats on! LOL but yes, the natural ac was LOVELY! man i miss that place!
Reading this, I feel very very blessed. We built our home 10 years ago and it's a very energy efficient house. We run the AC all the time, the house is never hot, even when we're cooking or baking, and our highest elec bill (including AC, washer/dryer and electric water heater) is in the $150 range, during the hottest heat wave. I usually wear a sweater or cuddle on the couch under a blanket because hubby likes it REALLY cold in the house!
Well, if you only have a window unit, there is probably no way that you will get caught up with the humidity being what it has been today, but now it has cooled off here. When we only had a window unit i would block off the livingroom from the kitchen, then place a fan backwards in the window when baking to draw the heat out of the kitchen. About 5 years ago we invested in central AC and it was one of the best investments we made, and it costs us no more to run the central as it did to run the window unit the difference now is that the whole house is very comfortable in stead of just one room being bearable.
I bet you do Ruby, I feel truly blessed to live in such a lovely place.
oh it was gorgeous!!! i lived in Waialua on the North Shore. we were able to get a house right on the beach! OMG 3 years of HEAVEN!!!!
You need to calmly talk about it during the cool hours.
Cake orders mean money coming in.
Cakes orders mean the oven will be running.
Ovens mean added heat.
Ask him what he expects you to do.
Does your husband want you to refuse cake orders in the summertime?
Does the added income pay for the additional AC?
Questions like that.
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