I feel so lost right now. I work at a bakery part time on their custom cakes. They brought me in because of my attention to detail and the caliber of my work.

Lately, they have been making comments about the length of time it takes me to do the work. The pirate ship cake I just did, they sold for $250. They knew they were cutting it close. They told me that the cake was going to a location they don't normally service and that it was an opportunity to get a new account. Then they told me to be careful because the cake is only $250. Then they said, the client wants a sea serpent, rocks, buried treasure, 2 jack rackham flags, carnage, sharks, a skeleton, etc... They don't want it to look like BC *moderator edited.

It took me about 14 hours total to do the cake including all the detail work and the carving. I did not have to bake the cake or make the icing. Just carve, ice, and decorate. I had no help from anyone in the bakery. Is 14 hours too long? The last monster truck I did for them, I got done in about 7 hours including carving.

Am I a liability? Am I too slow or do they know realize how long detail work takes? They never did work like this before, no one in the shop does fondant and gum paste work other than making a bow or covering a cake. Is this an issue of the lack of a point of reference or does the issue lie with me?

Please... I need perspective. It's been a doosey of a week.

They don't know what the hell their talking about! I've seen you on here a few times with problems with this shop. Don't you think it may be time to look inot renting a kitchen. You could do so much on your own. I feel really bad for you & how it seems you are getting taken advantage of by this bakery. they can't do what you do.

I agree with LaBellaFlor.

Also, it's not your fault that they're not quoting high enough for these time consuming cakes.

Perhaps they should let you have a look at the design/order before they quote the customer a price. You could let them know about how long the cake will take with the details listed.....if they want you to spend less time on it then you could suggest leaving off some of the details.

good luck

"They never did work like this before" so they DON'T have any idea. They are the commercial equivalent of the cake civilians whose only point of reference is the 30 minute cake they whip up at home. Even tho' this is a bakery, their only reference is the assembly lines cakes that go in their refrigerated cases.

With each one that you do, it is a good opportunity to do a review with them and ask them to document their records with the time it takes to make a cake like that, so they will be able to price it properly. It would be unfair for you to lose your job because THEY didnt' price it properly, simply becuase they are not familiar with the process and just didn't know.

So educate them.

I think you need to rethink your level of work or if you want to work in a place that demands speed.

Most regular commercial bakeries and cake shops require speed. Time is money! 14 hours is a very long time for a cake, I could never imagine taking that long to decorate a cake in a bakery even the most fancy wedding cakes!

They told you it was charged at $250 so you then should have done $250 worth of work. If I was your boss I would not be happy after having to pay your wage on this cake. We would lose money.

If you want to work in this place I would have a talk to the boss. If they demand you to be faster then obviously the details will be reduced.

More volume = less fancy

I worked in one place where I was the only decorator, maybe up to 35 cakes a week including 4 and 5 tier cakes. I had to work out my time that had been charged for the cakes and make myself work to these hours. Do the job as good as you can for the set time and then move on. Next!!!

Of course some of the cakes didn't have the details that I would be able to achieve if I worked all day on them but I was not employed to do this.
If this is what you are after then you should look at moving on to a higher end shop where the cakes are more expensive.

From reading several of her post on this bakery they do want high end cakes, but with assembly line work procedures. It ain't gonna happen.

Your work is tops. Tell them to shut up. and charge more. LOLOL.

Mike

The OP should definately talk to the boss and revise pricing, set categories for cakes in regards to how detailed they are so the staff can charge correctly.


Also I hope the OP is buying in all flowers wholesale to cut time. Also advising staff of techniques for cakes that she can do fast and well so they can push those when consulting.
'this style would be perfect for your occasion, it is very fashionable at the moment, etc'

Good luck but be honest and upfront with your boss, don't waste time worrying about it, talk to them about the amount of time the cakes are taking and find a realistic pricing for cakes that suits everyone.

Sounds like they want you to produce results like Buddy produces (on TV's Ca-ke Boss). Tell them he has an army of workers (at least 3 girls that I've seen doing flowers alone), and even he takes hours and hours to produce a cake. What they see on tv is extremely sped up (and, IMHO, somewhat exaggerated as to time spent), and they can't expect you to produce alone what a team produces.

And they definitely should consult with you before setting a price, since you know what you can do, and how long it will/may take. If they insist on charging without your consultation, then give them the work that that much money will create. They need to know that your talent doesn't come cheap.

(BTW: I use a "-" in the word "Cake" so it doesn't link to the website for the business program.)

Seriously, open a website, and sell your carvings over the internet.

Mike

There can be a happy medium here. But it's the same old story--honestly, this is where the conundrum of home decorating meets commercial bakery procedures/needs.

You have to widen your horizons, narrow your focus and get with the program.

A loose mark to follow is one hour per $100 charged give or take. So this ship shoulda been done in 2.5 hours--maybe an hour leeway. That's how it would work in the shops I've been in. You just learn to work smarter.

I would not have made it in any of the shops I've worked in if I had those stats. They'd toss my butt fast.
There's no harm no foul to using some plastic stuff and taking some shortcuts to enhance the design and save time. Get some gold dubloon candy--pouring choco in a mold is fast fast for stuff like this.

Like pipe a skeleton on a cut out cookie rather than pipe a real one out of royal or make it out of fondant. Use a mold for the body and use an edible ink marker and draw it on. I don't know what carnage actually means so I can't think of anything for that.

Fish can be molded fast, the flags shouldn't take too long.

You do a little on the decor every day then slap it all together.

I know your's looked fabulous but you have to re-align things through the narrow prism of reality. Home decorating is not reality decorating.

A $250 cake gets $250 worth of attention not $2000 worth of attention.

Reality bites thoughts for you.

Kate is right on. We budget 30 minutes per $50 of cake for base price. We add hours of labor at $25. So by my reconing that cake would be around $500 here.

I have talks with the decorators all the time about remembering to keep the labor charges in line. The truth is, if everybody wants to keep their job, we need to be both creative and econimically viable. I busted a decorator the other day for spending two hours on a $140 cake. She came to me asking about adding another design element, and I reminded her she was over time already.

If you want to keep doing "fancy" cakes, you're going to need to communicate with your bosses better. When you see a $200 order that is going to take you 7 hours, you need to let them know ahead of time so they can talk to the customer about reigning in the design or paying more money. If you don't, I promise you it won't be very long before they bakery owners decide that it just isn't worth doing the "hig-end" stuff, because the risk of it running late or going over budget is too high.

It is always a challenge coming up with a new pricing matrix as add different types of products. Everybody underprices the custom stuff in the begining because a lot of times, we don't even realize what goes into it, let alone our customers.

I completely agree with most of what has been said and it's all been very helpful. At the same time, they did not hire me to produce the standard cake. They have someone for that. The ONLY job I have is the highly detailed cakes. I don't do anything else. I either make the gum paste elements for the other decorators to place on their cakes or I do the cakes that are specialty. In other words, if they want it to look "WOW" I get the cake or the detail work.

They hired me because of this cake I made for my cousin. http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1378591

There's no way in heck I could pull of a cake like this in a few hours. Not possible. Not for anyone.

They have standard decorators for those quickie fast cakes. I don't do them. I've never even iced one. I work 1 or 2 days a week only. And only to fill specific orders. If I'd have produced a cake with purchased candy pieces and a royal icing skeleton, the customer would have been furious because that isn't what they were promised and I'd probably get fired because that's not want they want me to do. They use my blog to show customers the work I can do and then they were promised that level of detail. I can't dumb down what they were promised.

I'm not in an assembly line. I don't have 20 cakes a week. I might have 1 cake or 4 cakes or no cakes depending on the orders because I only handle specific tasks.

I hope that helps clarify a little.

That cake is amazing! I hope one day you can be in business for yourself.

When I worked at that catering place, they hired the main pastry chef and me at pretty much the same time. Both of us were more experienced in "fancy" cakes than the previous pastry chef so we started offering alot more in the way of cakes.

So what they did is the girls who were taking the orders upstairs would come down and show us what the brides wanted and ask us how much more (above their regular rates) they should charge for the cake...and the pastry chef would tell her...because only the pastry chef knows how long it will take to do the detail work.

We did have to work as fast as possible though because we had the weddings due every week along with desserts....so there were definitely deadlines....if I wanted to go home, the work had to be done! haha.

So I'm thinking that if you get crazy orders, that they should come to you and ask you how much you think they should charge. For that pirate ship I would have charged probably $10/serving! And I don't have a bakery or employees to pay! And you are in my same area and I know for a fact people will pay it.

I hope this works out for you...I'm telling ya..... get that license!

Not trying to disagree or argue, just asking out of curiosity.

Snarkybaker everything you say makes sense. I'm not familiar how a bakery does things, only at home businesses. Just was wondering was that 8 hours for just decorating? And also, is it just one person doing the decorating or is it a few people working together on the one cake and getting it done in 8 hours? Just being nosy...

I agree whole-heartedly with Snarky Baker. My labor costs alone for your fourteen hours would have been over $300 (and that's not including any other overhead!!). Even though you were hired for the kind of work you do, you also have a responsibility to do it as rapidly and as efficiently as possible.

That said, I agree also that I have read here about the many problems you have with this employer. It sounds to me like you need to find the cojones to have a good talk with them about their pricing system. The priate ship cake was way cool and they should have charged plenty more for it.

i suspect its about time this bakery set a $500 minimum on any of the cakes you do. So the simplist would be $500 and the more detailed, more, They also need to consult with you on the fancy orders. What will happen when they get the reputation for being able to provide these fantastic cakes and then you give notice your leaving. Im sure that will freek them out. I agree it is time to educate them.

My suggestion is that you stick it for as long as you can, WHILE looking for other options. Have a thick skin, as this recession is like nothing I have ever seen. Clearly the owner of the bakery is not a decorator or she would know that quality takes time. I interviewed at a very well known cupcake shop in Miami. The owner had me dress a cake for the interview. It took me 2 hrs and I thought it was beautiful. She wrote me the most scathing email after my interview telling me that her decorators could make 7 cakes in the time it took me to make one. I repeat - quality takes time. Wishing you all the best.

On the other head, it's not right to dismiss decorators who are fast and CAN do seven cakes in two hours as shoddy, jerry-rigging, mediocre rubbish.

Just because someone is slow does absolutely NOT mean that their product is of a higher quality than someone who is fast.

What it comes down to when you are working for someone else, is that you have to make your cakes economically viable.
Get the boss to buy a selection of moulds from somewhere like First Impressions.

Beautiful designs in a flash.

You need to work smarter and more efficiently. If you want to keep your job that is.

I had a look at the pirate cake. I wouldn't have taken more than 3 to 4 hours to make that. No wonder the boss is pissed. The trained bakers I know would be able to make this cake, not just cake decorators.


Acetate stencil for the skull and cross bone flag hand cut then airbrushed. Fast.

You say you are different to the bakers who don't do this kind of work as though you are above them. As you are the only one who does this work you can take as long as you like?

I think you could learn a lot about speed by seeing the baking side and cheaper cake decorating. Perhaps it would be a good idea to work a few days with the bakers and see how fast they work.

Even though it is gumpaste, fondant whatever it should still be done at rapid speed.

My humble opinion as a trained baker who used to have a boss who would stand behind me shouting 'faster faster, too slow too slow!'

It starts to get little confrontational.
My question is - does the OP know the price of the cake before she starts to work on it?

I would talk to the bakery. I would want to know the price of the cake they want from me at the same moment as the other order details. According to what was said, I would get how many hours the cake should take based on this price and how many hours will it take me. Often you see at the first glance if it is possible or not.

If the bakery is totally unrealistic, the OP needs to point it out and discuss possible solutions - make the design simpler (or easier to do) or increase the price. At the same time - do take few minutes of your time and think it out. We (the home bakers or started as home bakers) usually choose the most complicated way to go around it. It produces really detailed cakes, in the "luxury category". But they should be priced accordingly. A bakery won't do it, thus you need to work smarter. The customer will hardly notice a difference where a professional could. I was looking through some books and there were some simply stunning cakes with the WOW factor, where I looked at it and though - this I could whip up in a hour, but it looks better then my overcomplicated design. I wish I could envision this "simple but stunning" design at the first try. I can't and I have to work on it

I see problem on both sides - the bakery needs to price better but you need to learn some shortcuts and let from your highest of high standards. Not saying it is forever - but till you get paid for the cake what is it worth - be it directly or through the bakery, it is necessary.

Good luck to you!

Shill, are they paying you an hourly wage or by the cake?

I'm a "one woman show" licensed home baker and sure when I started out I used to take 10 to 15 hrs just to decorate a complicated cake.... UNTIL I realized I was making about 1/2 of what the current minimum hourly wage was at that time.

I certainly couldn't charge the customer double the labor just because I was a little slow.....ok I was a LOT slow. LOL!! I had to work quicker and keep up the same high standard of work.

The more you do the quicker you'll get, but I agree with the others you'll need to figure out some ways to take shortcuts.

Time is money whether you're working for a bakery or for yourself.

I asked your opinions and I'm getting it. ha ha Tough pill to swallow. I certainly have lots to learn.

Hard to believe I'm faster than I was. Go figure... I really need to learn to step it up. Some of the suggestions are really good ones... molds, stencils... etc. Thank You.

Boss is not "pissed" though. They've said that they think it is beneficial to them to keep me on to learn speed because they think it the future it will really pay off. However, they have made side comments on occasion. Not to be nasty. But I think to remind me that I'm slow. I've only been doing cakes since March of 2008.They are aware of that and for that reason they try to be nice about it.

I just needed to know for myself... because of the occasional side remarks...

You have a tremendous spirit. You can do this.

You know your folks and so temper this of course with that knowlege, but I would recommend communicating some of what you are processing here. Let them know you understand.

Just a 'in the process of breaking the sound barrier' thought for you.