about the order I took today.

Lady calls after being referred by a baker in town who is booked. I'm thrilled to have the referral, and still try to be really helpful even though the order is for this Wednesday (very short notice). She wants a specific cake from Bon Appetit magazine, July 2000. I tell her I can't make the frosting since it requires refrigeration. She agrees to my frosting accented with white chocolate and lemon.

I quote her 2 prices....she wanted 2 cakes, and the only guidelines she gave for decoration was that she wanted it to be really pretty, and look like a birthday cake instead of a wedding cake. I asked to see a picture of the cake and quoted her a price for really simply decorated version (like the picture) and one more custom decorated.

AFter much talk via email back and forth where she keeps emphasizing that she wants it to be really pretty, like a really elegant dessert but taste spectacular, like she made it instead of "some crappy bakery" she came over and signed the contract. I made sure she initialed all the little paragraphs where I talk about how I cannot guarantee exact duplication of design, etc. I specifically state that the cake will not have the published icing on it. She only wants one cake to have the "happy birthday" message. As she's reading the contract she says what about stacking them as a 4 layer cake for better presentation? I tell her that in order to feed enough guests, the pieces would have to be cut 1/2 as big as originally planned, or cut in half height wise, both of which would pretty much ruin the presentation on the plate. I left the contract as 2 individual cakes.

After she signs it, she again says she wants it to be "very spectaularly pretty" and will it? I say it will be decorated like the picture in the magazine. Obviously I cannot replicate every stroke shown in that picture, but that is basically what it will look like. She then tells me it is most important to her that it taste really, really, good, not like some crappy bakery made it. (yes, again). THen asked me if it would be really pretty (again). I just deadpan said...."It will be decorated like the picture" and refrained from asking her if she even freaking liked the picture or if she was just yanking my chain.

I took the order, but am sort of dreading this. There have been so many "unhappy bride" posts on here lately, I'm starting to feel my turn is coming up.

Am I kookoo for Cocoa Puffs, or is she a real piece of work?

id just label her weirdly obsessive just now! at least you got her to sign the important bits of the contract too. good luck!
xx

All you can do is all you can do. Her ... how shall I say it?... intense focus on the magazine cake is HER problem! There's a contract, and you will do your best - what more can you do? Besides turn her down, I mean...

Just a thought based on some other threads I've seen, did you verfiy with the other baker that she did indeed refer her to you? There have been a few thread posted about scams. Not sure of the purpose behind it, but just a thought.

WOW she sounds just like my SIL

no matter what is under discussion she will absolutly beats it to death. repeating things over and over. My brother always gives in just to get her to shut up

I'd say she's borderline... she could go either way...
I hope the cake comes out great, post the picture when you get it done.
Jodi

She just sounds really nervous to me. And the "crappy bakery" comments, well, you don't know where she has purchased before. She could be a Walmart bakery person and consider that a real bakery. (not to put down the workers but it just isn't the same).

It does sound like to me that this is the first purchase of this kind she has made and is just really scared.

Sounded like this one girl from Baltimore I had to deal with one time. She met me for the cake tasting and kept insisting she wanted everything to be "buttery". She wouldnt even sample the cakes I brought for her to taste. She gave me less than a week and about 200 emails of going back and forth about a design. It was for her boyfriends birthday and she wanted to throw him this huge bash since he bought her a Mercedes the year before for hers. She kept showing me pictures of wedding cakes that she liked. So after going back and forth and then her adding carved fruit centerpieces, I did the cake. Since I had no time to prepare for this cake, I had to make my own fondant without having glycerin or other ingredients that I really needed to make it. So I did my best, stayed up to 4am trying to get it right. She had called twice the day of delivery, very early wondering what it looked like, etc. So I emailed her a picture and she said it was beautiful. Went to go deliver she calls and instead of letting me deliver to the party she wants to meet me. Then calls when I arrive at the meeting site begging me to drive another half hour (it was already over an hour's drive for me, also in 90 degree weather I might add!). So I agree. Then Im sitting and waiting, and waiting and she shows up over an hour later. I was parked in a pizza parking lot ended up ordering the pizza, going to get it and me and my daughter eating it before she even got there. So she finally shows and we have to cram the cake in the back of the Landrover she drove, which was already crammed with other food and giant subfoofer speakers. She thanks me and leaves.
Emails me the next day complaining that the design wasnt what she wanted and that she was "embarrassed" to feed it to her guests and said she just threw the cake away. I highly doubt that. But one of her complaints that underneath the black fondant diamonds was green on the white fondant. I told her that when you have a cake that is sitting out for THAT long in the heat, ofcourse the colors would run, especially black on white fondant.
Needless to say, the red light should of went off when she first contacted me saying she got my name off of CC along with my phone number. Which wasnt true since I do not have my phone number listed on here and at the time I didnt even have my website linked. Now, after having gone through this experience I tend to be a little more sensitive when I get strange requests or right off the bat difficult customers. If the red light is going off, there is a reason. You might just want to walk away on this one. Or make sure you document EVERYTHING because if you dont, your a$$ will be in a sling later!!!

I just don't have the patience for people like this

The next email or phone call I would simply say, "I know that I can make you a very pretty cake. However, if you have any doubts about my ability then I understand if you want to find another baker."

I think she will back off then.
Sounds like you are covered with your contract though if (when) she comes back to complain.

are you sure she wasn't referred to you because the other baker didn't want to deal with her and not because s/he was booked? i think you're in for problems (i had a consult where they weren't satisfied that the cakes be presented like stacked cakes but not stacked-then balked at the price) really, this is why you're the boss and can be choosey.

Sounds like she's referring to the "crappy bakery" that referred her to YOU. Not that they are crappy, but there's probably more to the story about the referral than what you got, like maybe the other bakery cut her loose cause she's a PITA.

i'm the other baker that referred her to karateka. it was an honest referral! i didn't even get more details from her than the date adn she wanted something special. once i heard the date i told her i was booked (which is true, 6 weddings and a birthday for next week) and gave her karateka's number. sorry she's looney, i only spoke with her for a few minutes, long enough to know i couldn't do it and to give her a reference. she's never a had a cake from me and i've never had any one say my cakes are "crappy bakery cakes"

Oh I'm sure she is looney, and of course I wasn't inferring the other bakery, in this instance you, is crappy, it just sounded to me like "she didn't get what she wanted" from you, so she was going to make sure she did from Karateka and let you know about it.

That's why I put "crappy bakery" in quotation marks, emphasizing what the customer was possibly referring to. I would never insinuate someone's bakery was crappy, never ever, especially considering the fact that that person may well be a user in here!

I would tread carefully and document everything. I was thinking, for myself anyways, that I might keep a couple samples of the cake that I baked along with the fondant and icing that I use in a single-serve container and mark it so I know which cake it came from. That way, if the client decides to come back and say my cake tasted bad or was burnt or whatever, I can refer to the sample and even let them try it to be sure. I get nervous about stuff like this. I hope it goes well for you

I wouldn't be me for not asking but...

Are you going to make it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious pretty for her?

ya know, i think she said on the phone to me that she was going to make it herself but wont have time and thats why she was ordering it. after hearing what she's said to you, it sounds like she's planning on telling all her friends that she made it herself and pass it off as her own. i bet thats why she's being so neurotic, she knows her friends will think its her own work.

I think shorty56 hit it on the head...she probably has told all of her friends that she is going to make this delicious and oh so beautiful cake (hence the constant reference to tasting like she made it herself). In with that said I think you'll be alright in the end because I saw you pics and you ARE gonna make her cakes gorgeous...she'll be able to brag about the cake "she" made and how tasty and beautiful "she" made it.

This is funny! I think bakerymommy is correct with her passing it off as her own. To be honest, anytime I get a funny feeling about someone I usually just back out. Some people out there just want to cause drama, and well, I think this lady may be one of them. Good luck!

Since it sounds as though she's going to tell all her friends that she made it, is there any way you could put your business logo on the cake board? So that as there is less and less cake on the board, the more your logo shows.

I'm in somewhat of a nasty mood this morning. Dh and kids were still in bed, one kids starts getting sick and instead of Dh getting up to help he calls for me (I couldn't hear the kid) and goes back to sleep.

I'm ready to deliver them. I'm attatching pics. They look exactly like the magazine picture. Here goes....one is on a tray she gave me. The other just on foil covered foamcore. It's getting ready to pour down out there, so this should be fun.

Very pretty. But ya, since she gave you a tray, and with her comments, she's definately going to pass this one off as her own creation.

They came out very nice, but yeah my thought when I read your post the other day, the fact that she wanted it to taste homemade and it was from a mag she was going to say she made it, her giving you the tray confirms it...part of me says who cares its a sale and maybe she'll continue to order but part of me thinks what a shmuck she is to take credit for someone else's work!!!

The cakes are beautiful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cakesbycathy

I just don't have the patience for people like this

The next email or phone call I would simply say, "I know that I can make you a very pretty cake. However, if you have any doubts about my ability then I understand if you want to find another baker."

I think she will back off then.
Sounds like you are covered with your contract though if (when) she comes back to complain.

I would not spend the teeny tiny bit of patience I have left (the kind that does prevent me from ramming cars in traffic etc) on soothing the doubt this woman was so fully vested in. Being old can be so much fun sometimes.

I woulda just smiled and said, "You need to find someone else that you can trust. Mmmmbuhbye"

But I'm really glad you got a nice order and did it superbly.

You mean GLA - DAY! Lol

Oh yes it's French Oh-la-la