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Original message sent by cupadeecakes
To the OP, everyone has bad days and we've all had our share of cake disasters. It really sounds like you have learned from your mistakes. Pick yourself up, dust off, and move forward. I'll give you my time management tip - I never go to bed before the next day's cakes are ready to go out the door. Occasionally that means I'm up until 3am finishing a cake, but I never regret it the next day when things go smoothly.
Original message sent by -K8memphis
that's a great time management tip!!
and i want to add this
back the schedule up far enough with accurate planning and enough wiggle room to be practical so that you can go to bed by ____ o'clock [I]every[/I] night
insert the hour--it gets earlier & earlier :D i now stop 'working' when the sun goes down
9:00 PM is the new 3:00 AM ;)
to protect your health--we don't get a second chance to take care of ourselves
just like we don't short change ourselves charging too little and undercutting--we also owe it to ourselves to have it together enough to provide ourselves adequate sleep--you are piloting the celebration cake ship as much as any pilot flies a plane--getcher zzzs!
Thank you very much for the time management tips!!!
For everyone who gave me the advice, I really appreciate it!!! It helped me re-assess my business situation and realize what not to do and what to do next time.
I feel K8 made the most valuable point when she said that this biz isn't for the feint of heart (faint of heart?). A celebration cake is generally much more than the dessert, it's a real part of the event. It sits in a place of honor at the event and people take photos.
So the pressure is on, because clients aren't expecting a dessert, they are expecting a performance, a triumphant memorial of the day...from flour, sugar and eggs. For this reason, I suspect every cake decorator has a little bit of Isadora Duncan at the core of her soul. You gotta love the spectacle, fantasy and last minute drama, or you won't survive.
Hang in there, and uh...maybe plan for a 3 hour bumper before delivery?
jen
To the OP, everyone has bad days and we've all had our share of cake disasters. It really sounds like you have learned from your mistakes. Pick yourself up, dust off, and move forward. I'll give you my time management tip - I never go to bed before the next day's cakes are ready to go out the door. Occasionally that means I'm up until 3am finishing a cake, but I never regret it the next day when things go smoothly.
This is the first thing I thought to comment on when I read the story. NEVER leave major amounts of decorating to the day of the delivery. It's one thing to have a few things to put on your cake at the setup, but don't wait to decorate the day of. And I'd just refund her the money too.
AIt w
Original message sent by denetteb
eatmcakery, how did it go at work today?
It went well. I gave her a full refund and she was pleasant to me.
No problem. I'm glad it went well too. My friends at work were really encouraging. When the incident happened, I doubted myself a little bit but I have a very supportive husband and friends. Also, everyone's advice helped me out a lot.
As you are new and just starting out and have a full time job you might want to tell people you need at least 2 weeks notice for an order. Don't take last minute orders.
As others stated - make sure the cake is completed the night before. If you have to stay up all night to finish it, that's what you do.
Leave earlier than you need to for delivery. At least 30 min. Better to arrive early with the cake than late.
and if a client says the party starts at noon then you plan to deliver at 10:00 am two hours ahead of the event as a general rule
you need wiggle room
they can say oh i don't need it that early--that's not their decision
oh we'll be at soccer practice then --they might say
ok i'll deliver at 7:00 AM then before you leave for practice
and
charge for delivery too ;)
wow so glad it went well at work!!!!! yay!!!
I still can't really believe that at 1.5 hours late, the party was all done and over, especially a party that required a $120 cake...
I still can't really believe that at 1.5 hours late, the party was all done and over, especially a party that required a $120 cake...
yes! because you can delay things a bit too--not that the cake wasn't late etc--just saying as a hostess--you kinda wait a bit to get things started--
an hour & a half is late no ifs and or buts
but if you delay 20-30 mins starting --'cause you know no party ever starts on time -- peeps are always fashionably late- <tosses chin up flips hair back in one smooth motion >
serve everyone a drink--talk or have a game and open gifts for a few --an hour is gone in no time and it's refreshment time--shoulda been at least close to on time to eat --but i don't know
going forward the cake should arrive hours before the first guest is scheduled to appear (except at weddings there's often an out of town somebody or two just floating around uber early)
that is odd to me though
I'm not saying it was OK that the cake was 1.5 hours late, but was the party over and done? I doubt it!
AThat
Original message sent by kikiandkyle
I'm not saying it was OK that the cake was 1.5 hours late, but was the party over and done? I doubt it!
That's what i was told when i was on my way to the venue.
AThat it was over makes no sense to me, either. It was either a dud, or started earlier.
I always, always, always make sure my cakes/cupcakes are done the night before, rushing around the day of is just way too stressful and if something happens at the last minute, you don't have time to fix it...I also make sure I give myself enough time. I tell the customer that I would like to deliver at least an hour before the event, so I have time to set up, stack tiers (I usually stack at the venue). If I know the venue is 30 minutes away, I leave an hour or more early so I KNOW I will be there on time.
You made a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. You are trying to make it right by giving her a full refund, that's all you can do. Take a deep breath, learn from your mistakes and move on, that's all you can do.
With children's parties that are on a time table, this is reasonable. There is an indoor jumping castle playground here that does parties and when you book the space, you get it for either 1.5 or 2 hours exactly. The parties are on a schedule: first a private jumping party on the equipment and then the group is moved to a party room where they get between .5 and .75 of an hour for snacks and cake. The staff is there at the party ending time with a big rolling bin to help move presents out to the parent's car and another is cleaning up your decorations and setting up for the next party (who were just admitted to the equipment room when your party left). The price for this quick party is between $130-250 and I've delivered a few fancy and sculpted cakes (at prices higher than $120) to this place. Usually at these quick turn around venues, they have a large reach in cooler for cake deliveries, and that makes it so much easier to handle an early delivery. When the party is on such a quick timetable, delivery times are important--much different than a backyard party where an extra game of pin the tale on the donkey can fill the gaps.
I'm glad that the OP has such a great attitude about this. It is a learning experience that unfortunately most cakers either have or will go through. My worst was with the owner of our son's karate dojo. I did a small cutting cake and cupcakes for their older son's wedding. I gave them an invoice and asked her to review it. Stupidly, I didn't have a good email trail because it was a 'friend' that I saw 2x a week. Ends up the order I wrote for their Saturday wedding was actually needed for the wedding on FRIDAY. She calls me panicking at 7:30 that they were going to cut the cake and it wasn't there>!!>!>!>! Nope...it was on my turntable and I was getting it finished up. No cupcakes either (i bake those early the morning of). I quick finished the buttercream, wrapped it in ribbon and popped on a few premade gumpast flowers. It was a bit tilted when i got there being transported unchilled, but they had something to cut. And what a walk of shame that was going in as The Lady Who Forgot the Cake, when really it was the mother who confirmed the wrong date. Right there on their order. I wrote them a check on the spot for a refund, but in looking at their invoice, they saw their mistake as well and 'gave back' a portion of the order amount in credit towards our class fees. Boy was it uncomfortable for a couple of weeks in there 
and it was a huge learning experience for me.
howsweet, yikes--forms a knot in the pit of my stomach
good save
and yeah you don't ever wanna get the bride on the phone day of <shudders>
i get the disaster but i can't get the perspective of the photo
how does the chocolate shmear appear so much like a spatula or a foot print?
did the ganache just cleanly split there like the red sea parting???
I'm not sure what you mean about the spatula. Maybe what's confusing about the picture is that the bottom tier was chocolate cake on one side and vanilla on the other. The cake popped off the base with the center dowel intact. It was one of my first cakes. But I think if i had doweled it better, it still would have been knocked over - just with the base intact.
oh oh oh --it just looked like a spatula--with a bend in it y'know?
i couldn't quite tell how it got all chocolatey so evenly--i thought it was ganache or something
oh a choco/van layer--makes perfect sense now
scary though -- good save!
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