What's You're Timeline/schedule For Multiple Orders?
Business By LovelyCakes4Us Updated 22 Feb 2013 , 9:01pm by tracyaem
AI normally make 1-6 cakes a month, now that I'm getting more business I'm trying to figure out my timeline/schedule so that I'm now overworked.
Say you have 5 cakes due in one week and 3 dozen of cupcakes, how far ahead do you prep? What days would you decorate? If you don't mind sharing you're schedule. :)
AIt depends on what kind of orders you have. We would regularly have 10-12 orders per week, usually single tier party cakes and cupcakes. Deliveries would usually be over the weekend, and a typical week would be baking Wednesday - Thursday and decorating Thursday - Friday.
If orders for the next week were the same flavor as an order in the current week we would also make that cake at the same time and freeze it unfrosted.
We would make our BC in bulk, we'd usually have at least two large batches of vanilla (which could be used as a base to make several other frosting flavors) and one large batch of chocolate on hand.
I work alone nearly all of the time, and nearly all of my orders are wedding cakes. I cover cake boards and make items that won't be eaten (poured sugar beads and scrolls, hand modeled figures, gumpaste flowers, etc.) anywhere from days to months ahead. Mondays and Tuesdays are for making buttercream and gumpaste, and coloring everything. I bake late Wed. and let the cakes rest overnight. Thursday I torte, fill, ice and fondant. Friday I decorate and Sat. deliver. For multiple cakes I bake Wed. morning and torte and fill in the late afternoon. Thurs. morning is icing and fondant, then I have the rest of Thurs. to decorate. For Friday weddings I back everything up one day. (Totally throws off my rhythm.)
This site is so dead now, it takes a lot longer for people to reply. Almost all the older, very experienced members have run off, and it is almost only newbies now. I would rather have no answer at all, than the wrong answer ;-) At the risk of sounding like an 80 year old, I will say, back in the day, you could get a reply in minutes, but that usually isn't so nowadays. Patience is a virtue we all need to practice when asking someone to help us.
I typically have 3-5 cakes a week, generally a single tier, a couple 2 tiers, and a couple 3 tiers or more. If I have about 6-8 tiers to bake, fill, decorate, I will get stared Wednesday, but if I have 8-12, I will get started Tuesday, and if there is more, then I will bake Monday. I always, bake, fill, crumb coat, then freeze overnight (or more,, if I had to bake sooner) I will then make fondant, buttercream, and tint what I need, and make anything that needs to dry, then the day I need to decorate, I will take out and thaw, in the wrapping. (I work at night, so you may want to thaw the night before, if you work in the morning.) Then decorate, each one, and put in the box, and set it up on the shelf for pick up.
Right now, I am really slow, so I wait until Thursday to bake, fill, freeze, and make decorations, and then do it all on Friday.
AThanks for the replies! Say if you have cakes due Monday,Wednesday and Saturday what would be the master plan?
Can SMBC be made in bulk? Not sure how that would work.. any ideas?
Were have they all gone? YouTube of course haha!
ACustomer: You're going to make my cake same day correct? For freshness? Me: Screaming inside of my head SURE ILL MAKE YOU'RE 3 TIER TO FEED 120 SAME DAY, NO PROBLEM IDIOT! Lol of course that is not what I said :).
I always seem to get choked up when asked that, its only happened a couple of times but a couple is enough! :)
A
Original message sent by LovelyCakes4Us
Thanks for the replies! Say if you have cakes due Monday,Wednesday and Saturday what would be the master plan?
Wow. We really need the oldies back. Seriously? Le sigh.
SMBC can be made to fit the capacity of your mixer, and if you need a whole lot, you can make multiple batches in advance. No, a Hobart is not necessary to make a large quantity of SMBC. The bigger your mixer, the more SMBC you can make but don't go splurging the multi-million $$ you're making from your 1-6 cakes per month on a Hobart... at least not yet.
...........Say if you have cakes due Monday,Wednesday and Saturday what would be the master plan?...........
For me I'd do much the same as Jason & Annabakescake said. I'd bake as far ahead as I can in any downtime I have so there is as little as possible at the last minute . Depending on how/when the orders came in and how big they are one could bake as far ahead & freeze the layers as possible. Make & color your icing(s) Any other decorations, like fondant circles, people, flowers etc would be made when you have any down time - as much as several weeks ahead. Depending on which flowers even b'cream ones can be made ahead. Don't forget to prepare the boards needed to. When I had lots of boards to prepare I'd put each order's boards into a plastic bag and mark the name on it so I know which is which :)
Cakes would be removed from the fzr the night before wanting to work on them. (OR if working on them in the evening then pull them out in the morning.) Then fill, crumb coat & finish depending on time of p/u and how many you need to get done. Best to get them done several hours before planned p/u or delivery. If it's a tiered wedding cake I liked to get it done the night before delivery to let it settle. If any problems arise overnight you have time to fix. Hope that helps.
Customer: You're going to make my cake same day correct? For freshness?
Me: Screaming inside of my head SURE ILL MAKE YOU'RE 3 TIER TO FEED 120 SAME DAY, NO PROBLEM IDIOT! Lol of course that is not what I said
.I always seem to get choked up when asked that, its only happened a couple of times but a couple is enough!
Yeah well guess what? Someone I "know" claims this very thing, that they bake ALL their cakes on the same day for ultimate freshness. Makes ME want to scream. None of my recipes would behave well enough for me to use them the same day, let alone how dangerous it is cramming all that work in one day, not allowing any time for potential disasters. If she's even telling the truth.
Please address the thread topic at hand:
What's your timeline/schedule for multiple orders?
Veering off-topic in negative/snarky ways doesn't help anyone :-)
Umm...that was mean. Might be why the "oldies" left. If you don't have anything nice to say...then don't.
No sweetie, that is called correcting misinformation.
Back on topic: I try to pool what can be done together. So I would dedicate one day to making all of the SMBC I would need for a particular set of orders. I tend to make my SMBC last after everything else is made so typically I make it on Thursday for fondant cakes or the day before (Friday) for BC cakes due on Saturday. Boards and decorations are done the week before. Typically bake on Wednesday or Thursday back to back, I feel like I can save up on energy by getting all the baking done at once rather than cooling off the oven and starting all over again the next day. Besides I like to get the baking out of the way so come SMBC day, there's no hot kitchen to mess up the texture.
For each stage, I try to do all the cakes due on the same day together. Tort all cakes, fill all cakes, cool/settle each one so that by the time I'm done with the last, the first cake is ready for ganache or fondant or whatever else I need to do to it. That way I'm only cleaning up once for each stage. e.g. after torting all the layers I can clean up the crumbs and move to the next step. No coming back to set up for another torting session.
That said, this process still needs major refinement because I often find myself up almost all night caking before the weekend. I'm getting better with practice though.
You can bake up to four days ahead of the day the cake is being served, as long as you wrap it air tight.
The next day, I would base frost.
The following day, decorate.
Adapt this schedule as needed - you can base frost and decorate in the same day.
Lisa
Yeah well guess what? Someone I "know" claims this very thing, that they bake ALL their cakes on the same day for ultimate freshness. Makes ME want to scream. None of my recipes would behave well enough for me to use them the same day, let alone how dangerous it is cramming all that work in one day, not allowing any time for potential disasters. If she's even telling the truth.
Yeah, there's no way I'm doing everything on the one day. My cakes would fall apart if I tried! I bake, leave to settle overnight, cover with fondant, leave to firm overnight then decorate. Decorations are done at the start of the week ready for placing on the cake.
AThank you all for sharing your schedule and tips!!
Haha a cake made in the same day doubt she is telling the truth! If so coodoo's for her!
The same-day baker is lying. No doubt about it.
I prep everything at the beginning of the week, bake two days ahead of when the cake is due then decorate the day before.
Do I count as an oldie? My back feels like I should, most of the time.
I'm a big fan of spreadsheets and plan out my busy weeks and try and lump together similar tasks as much as possible.
I make whatever fondant/gumpaste decorations I can far in advance. Icings/fillings are usually made on Mondays/Tuesdays. I read on here about using dummies to dry fondant on (so the pieces are curved like the cake) - genius! And for cupcakes, using saran "tubes" that you can plop into the piping bags is probably my favorite tip :)
Cakes I bake 2-4 days ahead of time, cupcakes 1-2 days ahead. I wrap tightly in plastic til I'm ready to work with them. I don't like to freeze, so the baking time really dictates the rest of my schedule (not bashing freezers, just saying I don't).
Torte/fill/crumb coat on Thursdays. Final coat/decorate/photograph/box on Friday night (sometimes Saturday morning....).
I only work nights/weekends (have another full-time job) so planning out tasks and estimating timetables is really important for me. I did 5 cakes and 25 dozen cupcakes once in a weekend. It was tough (and definitely my limit!) but do-able.
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