How Long Does It Take You To Decorate Cupcakes?
Baking By nelheartscakes Updated 11 Mar 2013 , 4:38am by Apti
Hiya Guys!!
So, I'm starting to slowly but surely establish my business by making cakes and cupcakes for friends and family such as the ones pictured below. I make and decorate each item from scratch by myself and also whilst attempting to occupy a 2 and a half year old!
My husband however, has very often commented on why i take hours and hours to make decorations and that I am too slow!
Some decorations that I make do take quite a lot of time such as flowers, butterflies, pearls etc... But when I do make the decorations I always make at least 3-5 times more than i actually need which cuts my time down when I need similar decorations for different cupcakes.
All in all, making the decorations in itself can take up to 2-6 hours depending on the complexity of it.
A batch of about 20-22 cupcakes can take a maximum of 2 hours from start to finish to make, bake cool, and frost (with no decoration).
What I would like to know is, how long does it take you all to make cupcakes from start to finish? And also what about if you are making decorations? Especially if you are making something similar to the ones below?
I just want an insight so that at least I know whether I really do take too much time to make decorations, or is it just an art form which does require time?
Thank You!
Well, I don't do cupcakes that fancy. Just a swirl and maybe sprinkles. Let's see, I do this mostly on autopilot, but 10 minutes to mix, 22 minutes to bake, cooling doesn't take but a few, icing made while the cupcakes are baking and 1/2 a second to swirl some bc on top. So two dozen, using one oven, total about 45 minutes give or take.
I'm trying to keep batter and icing frozen so assuming I can remember to take it out of the freezer, I'm in scoop and go mode.
AThat's what I was thinking Leah. They look very involved and pretty. Hopefully those are very special occasion cupcakes and not everyday cupcakes.
Hiya!
I actually meant 1 hour to an hour and a half! Because I put all 20-22 cupcakes in the oven in one go! That takes about 25 minutes
then cooling time... i ike to give them about 20-30 minutes purely because i once frosted them after 15-20 minutes and even though they felt cool, it still made the frosting go funny!!!
And then a few minutes for decorating with frosting. but thats usually the hardest bit for me when i have my daughter chasing around after me for cupcakes!!!!
and yes, here in the uk i actually under-charged for this box of cupcakes as it was for a very good friend and to spread the name of my business! ... it equates to roughly over $5 that i charged her eeek! but i would charge roughly $7 purely because of the time it takes to make cupcake decorations!!
Welcome to the forum! Those are gorgeous cupcakes. Since you are in the UK it is difficult to talk about appropriate pricing in US dollars; however, Leah's quote about $6-$8 USD per cupcake sounds good.
Making 24 cupcakes probably takes about the same amount of time for most bakers. The 1M swirl on top only takes a few seconds. The handmade fondant decorations and hand placement of individual elements like dragees---that's where the time comes in.
(Don't forget about your prep time, the time needed to prepare your icing, color it, prepare the piping bags, pulling out the gum paste tools, cleaning the tools, putting the tools up for next time, storing extra decorations, clean up, packaging, etc.)
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