Cake Makers- How Much Do You Make An Hour
Decorating By buttercreammgt Updated 27 Oct 2008 , 9:26pm by aligotmatt
After figuring out what I spend on mixes frosting ect. and time I figured out I make around 10$ an hour. I was just wondering what others made after they crunched numbers.
In my area they make between $12 and $16 per hour. That's what the bakeries and grocery stores pay.
I end up with $40-$60/hour on cakes and over $100/hour on caterings. Before you think I charge an arm and a leg, I'm considered one of the less expensive cakers in this area. The key is productivity..... the fewer hours it takes, the more I make on the hour. The more cakes you make IN the hour, the more you make ON the hour.
So this question depends on a LOT of various factors .... regular or convection oven? .... do you have to bake only 1 or 2 layers at a time, or can you bake 12 layers at a time? Home or Commercial kitchen? .... do you have the space to really set up an assembly line to get them done faster? One cake order at a time or do you accept more than one cake order for the same day? 20 qt mixer where you can make 15-20 lbs of icing at a time? Or a 5qt KA where you have to make 8-10 separate batches of icing?
For instance ... this weekend I have 2 wedding cakes and a groom's cake. There are 4 different flavors of cakes involved. I had all 14 (single layer) cakes mixed, baked and in the freezer inside of 3 hours. In my home kitchen, that would have taken me somewhere between 7 and 10 hours.
So the question of "how much do you make?" doesn't really have a simple answer until you factor in all the different variables and production conditions that folks work under.
I don't pay myself all of my profits every week... I have multiple bank accounts and I pay myself an hourly rate. The remaining profit for the week stays in the cake account and gets used for advertisement, new equipment... Last week I would have made $100 per hour if I took it all out, but I left a lot in to supplement other expenses.
I used to take all of my profits as my hourly, so sometimes I made $45, sometimes $28... And then I needed new pans and other stuff and I had to pay for it. So I started running myself like a business, so my business that I own pays me by the hour. I do get bonus checks once in a while
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