I’ve been in the supermarket bakery biz for almost 25 years and I think I’m well qualified to give some insight both as a baker and decorator.
Cakes are the sole moneymaker in any in-store bakery. They’re the highest ticket items we sell. Bread, pastries, and cookies are cheap in comparison. As a bakery manager friend of mine says, “It’s the cakes that will get the customers into the door…and once that happens, they’re more likely to buy other stuff.”
Every chain sets their own price for different sized cakes. At Current Employer our prices went down a couple of dollars for each size a few months ago because our competition’s prices went down. In my area $20 is the average for an already decorated quarter sheet cake. The market simply bears that. At Former Employer we sold a single layer cake-in-pan a little smaller than a quarter sheet, already decorated, for maybe $12. They weren’t big sellers because there wasn’t enough cake for, say, a typical office party.
Somebody mentioned upthread that you’re paying for more than the cake. THIS IS TRUE. You’re paying for a decorator talented enough not to fuck it up. In a custom retail “wedding cake” bakery you’re also paying for the ingredients, the mixing/baking of said cake, the owner’s salary, the utilities, everything. Most people don’t realize this when complaining about the prices and it pisses off most bakery people, including myself.
The biggie, for me is people wanting something for nothing. I don’t want to hijack this thread into a rant, but yeah, it’s a big thing not just with cake decorators, but also anybody involved with a creative/artistic pursuit. Customers expect the moon when ordering a cake from us because “I’m sure as hell not going to pay $$$ at Retail Bakery Down The Street because, after all, it’s just cake.” NOT EXACTLY. You’re also paying for the decorator’s expertise with those dollars. We don’t do overly complicated cakes because the chain isn’t going to pay us $$$ nor provide all the ingredients for us who already know how to do those type of cakes to do those cakes. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve had to explain this. Sidenote – generally, the more $$$ the customer has, the more they’re going to complain about prices. Don’t get me started on another rant.
There’s also the convenience factor. Some chains in my area don’t have decorators per se – they order their everyday decorated cakes from an area wholesale bakery. They come in frozen, they’re put out in the case frozen where they gradually thaw. The quality varies with whoever the wholesale bakery is, and if you’re in the business like me you can look at one of those cakes and know where it came from At other chains, like mine, the cakes come in frozen and uniced – we thaw them then ice/decorate them. The only time you’ll find a scratch-made cake is at one of those “wedding cake” retail bakeries, and even then they probably used a base mix. Ingredients can get expensive if you use, say, real vanilla or Belgian chocolate, which is what a retail wedding cake bakery will use.
Mass-produced cake may be cheaper than scratch baked, but somebody’s got to pay for the flour, sugar, etc. If commodity prices spike, the price of everything made with that commodity also rises. Simple economics :shrug:
The only cakes I’ve seen ready to grab off the shelf (that are rectangular) are 1/4s or 1/8s. Never a 1/2 sheet. 1/4s are the usual size for most people’s needs.
While there is skill and talent that may go into a cake, at our factory they really just took whoever the temp agency sent them. If they could pick up the technique within a couple weeks, they stayed. If not, they moved on. Think Jesse Pinkman learning to make meth from Walt. Jesse may not understand the science or reasons behind the process, but step-by-step, he was able to learn how to go through the motions and make a comparable product.
On another note, I see a lot of laughable people that claim they can make a cake, but their product really does look like crap. Those bakeries open and close constantly around here. Just because you call yourself a cake decorator, or dog groomer or gunsmith does not make you one.
Sometimes it’s not that, it’s that you are a good baker or gunsmith, but you don’t know how (or don’t have the time) to run a business.
When people want to start a business, I often tell them to read this book. What it comes down to (and what I’ve mentioned on this board many times is, if you want to bake cakes, go work at a bakery because if you say ‘I LOVE baking cakes so I’m going to open a bakery’ what happens is that you have no idea how much time you’ll spend running the business and how little time you’ll spend baking (or you’ll spend so much time doing both you’ll get burned out) OR, you’ll find out that you don’t know how to run a business. It doesn’t matter if you make amazing cakes, it’s still really easy to run your business into the ground in a hurry if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve seen that happen plenty of times. Great product, zero business sense.
That’s because 9 out of 10 times they don’t want to hear anything business related. It’s all about the cake and “artistic vision”, if you will. They’re the cakes which end up on Cake Wrecks
Absolutely, if you want to go into business for yourself, work in a bakery first BUT understand that your decorating skills will probably be no match for production decorating. We currently have a decorator who’s in this dilemma, and as much as we want to help her succeed, sometimes there’s just no time to do so.
We’re given X amount of time for each cake we ice and decorate, depending on the size and whether or not it’s a special order. We need to produce the absolute minimum number of cakes to meet our projected $ amount goal for the day. Our hours are based on how much overall production is done vs. how much is sold. If we produce more than the minimum because it’s a slow day, we’ll lose those hours next week because the computer will show that we overproduced. Conversely if we don’t produce enough cakes because it’s busy and we’re already short-handed, we’ll also lose hours because the computer will read it as “well, you’re not selling that much on X day so your hours are cut”. Doesn’t matter if there’s a sudden rush or bread is on sale and you’re stuck at the slicer…all that matters is the # of cakes produced/not produced.
I just baked a cake. It was so much trouble (although it came out okay) that I was reminded of why I buy birthday cakes at the store. OTOH, they cost less than at the OP’s bakery, apparently.
If I go into their store, I can’t see their books and I don’t bother to monitor their customer flow. BUT I can see the finished product they are presenting, and if it is a lop-sided, shaky-handed mess that was supposed to be symmetrical but wound up with an uneven border, I CAN see that.
People and their cakes, they’re serious about what they want when they order them. Especially if they’re paying inflated prices at a small store that doesn’t have the buying power a big grocer does. They come up with fancy pictures from the internet, and if you don’t make it look exactly like that, the word is out that you are doing a crap job and then your business is out.
At other chains, like mine, the cakes come in frozen and uniced – we thaw them then ice/decorate them. The only time you’ll find a scratch-made cake is at one of those “wedding cake” retail bakeries, and even then they probably used a base mix. Ingredients can get expensive if you use, say, real vanilla or Belgian chocolate, which is what a retail wedding cake bakery will use.