Yesterday I had a cake to do. I woke up early to get an early start. Went outside to have my morning coffee and cigarette and came back in the house to find that the power had cut off. Consumers said there was a problem with the local power station...not sure how long it would be. I ended up baking and decorating the two tiered cake in 4 hours. I felt sooo rushed. I was supposed to have the cake at the party by 6...I finished it at 6. Luckily it was just for a family birthday right around the corner from my house. Question is this....if I was a legit legal bakery (which I hope to be by next year) how would I have dealt with it. If the power had been out longer than it was there would have been no way I would have made it on time. Do you just call the bride or whoever and say..."sorry my power went out this morning. you are just SOL and without a cake?!?!?" Have any of you been in this predicament and if so, what did you do??

Thanks so much.
Teresa

My contract has a stipulation for things "not in my control". If a car rams into a tree and it falls over, taking the power lines with it, there's nothing I can do about it. THEY can't bake a cake with no power either.

I would call them asap and let them know "There's a potential problem ... I'll keep you posted."

I usually bake one or two days ahead of the event, so unless there is a major outage (we have lost power for a week at a time with major storms) i will still have the time to get things done. If i'm in a real pinch, i will start calling family and friends till i find someones oven i can use that still has lights.

We have a generator, which DH can hook up to the oven, fridge, etc. It has really helped out in a pinch before!! We actually bought it at a yard sale a few years ago, and we have used it a lot!!

In our new house (if it is ever finished!), we will have a generator that can be plugged in at the meter box outside to power most of the house. I know a lot of businesses have a set up similar to this.

the hello kitty cake in my album was over half done without power, just by candlelight! it was a nightmare, and i was scared to death that it was going to be screwed up.

luckily, we just purchased a new house that has alot more amenities than our old one, and it has a backup generator. when the power goes out, the gen. automatically kicks in, so that has eased my lot that the same thing will never happen again...crossing fingers, here!! this might be something for you to look into. at the very least, though, you could do the generators that the other posters spoke about. we used to use those when i was little...my dad owned a concrete company and had several...any time our power went out, he would plug it in to save all our meats and stuff.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL THOUGH, IF DOING THAT. MY DAD HAD IT UNDER A SCREENED PORCH ONCE, AND THE CARBON MONOXIDE WENT UNDER THE EAVES AND ON INTO THE HOUSE...MY MOM AND DAD STARTED GETTING SUPER SLEEPY, AND THEN IT DAWNED ON MY DAD WHAT WAS HAPPENING. THEY OPENED ALL THE WINDOWS AND DOOR, AND THANK GOD, I STILL HAVE THEM WITH ME!!

If it bothers you that much, get a generator.

My sister lives in the middle of nowhere outside of Columbus and when they do get a power outage, which seems to be pretty often (usually trees knocking down lines), they are the last ones on the list for the company to come out and fix it, sometimes a few days. They got a generator two years ago when my niece was born because she didn't want to go through days without power with a baby. If I get that busy, I might consider one as well. Luckily our suburb has it's own power company, so outages don't last that long.

I could never bake and decorate on the same day anyway. Wow, you must be fast!