Thursday, January 30, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- "Hints for building your cake business"

>Fb1954 : Dolores & Pwd Sugar- advise on what to charge for cakes >DONNKIM : please let is know about pricing

Pwd Sugar: Did you bring your 97 Wilton yearbook for the chat tonight? We will do a little discussion about pricing and then do some specifics with the yearbook. The yearbook just gives us a common graphic for reference. Tonight our cake decorating topic is - Hints for building your cake business. 

Pwd Sugar: Don't forget to turn on your LOG to record our chat: TO DO: At the AOL opening menu, Click on FILE, then on LOG MANAGER, click on OPEN LOG...save it as any name anywhere you want. After you exit AOL you can use any word processor to read it. 

CHAT:

Pricing is a difficult area to advise you. First lets see what should be considered in your pricing of custom decorated cakes.

1. Call or go by the bakeries in your area to see what they are charging for birthday and wedding cakes. Look at what they do. Is it very basic? How do they taste? Do you know someone who caterers? If you know a caterer ask them about how the different bakeries cakes cut, are they moist and do people eat them or throw them away. Do a little research to find out what people are accustomed to and expect in your area.

2. Decide what is important to you. What do you want people to remember about your cakes. Is what it looks like most important to you? Or is the taste most important? If you just want to use cake mixes and do basic decorating you may have to keep your cakes priced close to what the bakeries are charging. If you are baking with doctored cake mixes and using expensive extra ingredients, and your cakes taste wonderful, moist, and cut like a dream you can charge more.

EmThomas: Pwd, Where can I get info on doctoring cake mixes? (FROM dolores : On AOL in 'Discuss cake decorating, look under Recipes. There are lots.)

Now if the cake tastes wonderful and your decorating skills are above the bakeries the pricing can go up again.

3. Everyone has to learn to price their own cakes according to their skill level and once you have done this for a while - your reputation will also figure into the pricing. REPUTATION - A big word for people passing the word to others about what you do. When you first start decorating, your friends and neighbors are usually the people who will let you practice on them. Volunteer to do cakes for people who know you in clubs or church. They tell their friends and they tell their friends, and etc. and before you know it you are running a small business from your home. If you are new at this - you may not be able to charge what your time is worth. Give yourself some time to learn and hone your skills for the first couple of years. A friend once said to me "I feel like I should pay them to let me play with this and learn more each time I do a cake." That will get expensive on you and your family. It will only be a successful business if you learn to charge enough to cover your expenses. Expenses means utilities, ingredients, time to go get those ingredients and your gas and time to bake, time to wash the pans and etc., time to draw patterns, make the icing, color the icing, fill the bags and decorate the cake. TIME is the biggest factor. You must charge for your time if you want to be successful at this. The more skilled you become - the more your customers will expect from you - and the time factor grows. The one way time goes down is when your skills become easier you can work faster. Don't ever undercharge the bakeries. Start somewhere near their prices and as your skills and reputation grow gradually work those prices up until you are comfortable with them. People who want the best expect to pay more. People who just want a cake - simple and basic will go to the bakeries. There is a place for all of us. The bakeries don't want to do what I do. I don't want to do bakery work. Please do not undercut the bakeries or you will have an instant enemy and they will try to shut you down.

4. Do you deliver the cake or do they pick them up? If they pick up the cakes you must also figure the cot of the box the cake goes in. If you deliver them - you have your gas expenses plus your time or a delivery persons time.

5. Where you live also is a factor in your pricing. A small town that has no bakery or large town that has lots of competition. NY versus Kansas. Texas versus California. In Texas where I live, I thought no one would ever pay for Gumpaste flowers - but they will. From the time we introduced fondant icing in this area it was many years before someone actually ordered a wedding cake with this icing on it. We had to practically give it away for someone to try it. In the New York area they expect to pay higher prices - but you have to remember they also have higher expenses. Lots of thought must go into your pricing. 30 years ago when I got into this by accident I think I charged something like 50 cents a serving. Now my base price for wedding cakes is 2 dollars per serving and they go up to as much as 15 dollars per serving. (That fifteen dollars a serving style is pure Lambeth and would take at least two weeks to do that wedding cake only.) Now that doesn't seem so expensive anymore - considering the time you will have to spend on that one cake. 200 servings X $15.00 = 3,000 for two weeks work. During the hectic season I normally do around $2,000 a week, so I actually would be losing money by doing that one cake. This is where my pricing starts. Regular buttercream - any flavor of cake - basic design - starts at $2.00 per serving Basic design in buttercream covers buttercream 104 ruffles, center arrangements of buttercream flowers, dots, basic borders, etc. Easy fast techniques. Cascades of flowers, a few gumpaste flowers and the price goes up 25 cents per serving. The more you add and the more time to create the more you have to charge. Rolled Fondant - any flavor of cake - basic design - starts at $2.50 per serving Basic design includes bottom border and simple piping on the sides. (Not elaborate time consuming embroidry or curtain work.) I know I still haven't given you specifics on how to price cakes.

>Fb1954 : Dolores & Pwd Sugar- advise on what to charge for cakes >DONNKIM : please let is know about pricing

Now we are ready to get those 1997 Wiltons yearbooks out discuss some specific pricing. Remember we must all look at this pricing according to our skill level and our area. Lets start with the cover cake or page 32 bottom left. I will give a summary of what will be expected and then give you time to give your input.

1. A beautiful basket of pansies. Royal or dry buttercream pansies and leaves. They must have some hand painting for that realistic look. Make them out of Royal and no matter how many you make if you have some left, you can use them on another cake later. Buttercream extras will need to be discarded or frozen to be kept for an extended period of time. Basket weave is a time consuming technique but you don't have to worry about smooth icing that cake. This is a 2 layer 8" cake with a half ball on top - about 25 servings. I think this cake is worth every bit of $2.00 to $3.00 per serving or $50.00 to $75.00. Especially if they wanted to use a large variety of flowers if they are all royal icing.. Say - Pink roses, purple violets, daisies, assorted color pansies, etc. Gumpaste even more. Any questions? Now your input from your area. Please put your town, state, what you would charge and then comments. Then we can see the differences from all over.

2. The small tiered cake on page 33 is what I consider basic decorating. $2.00 to $2.50 per serving. Small number of royal flowers But, I would charge extra for royal icing filigree butterflies. If you are going to be making pansies from royal why not make the butterflies also. $5.00 each extra. The customer may want 3 on her cake and this allows her to know these take extra time and how much it will cost her. If she is willing to pay she can have as many as she wants. I try to not use the plastic "stuff" on my cakes. The small arches that the flowers are arranged on can be made out of royal, gumpaste, fondant or pastillage and dried over a flower former. Easy to make so I would not charge extra for them. Questions? 3. Lets go back to page 2 bottom left. This is a basic as you can get. I would have a hard time charging $2.00 per serving for this cake. A child should be able to do this cake. My basic price for Birthday (BD) cakes is $25.00. I just don't do a cake for less than $25.00. If this cake was a 10" square or a 9 X 13 that take one full batter I would still have a hard time charging that for this design. 4. Page 12 - Top left Esmeralda cake or any of the shaped character star fill in cakes. Basic skills needed - star fill in is very time consuming - 1 cake batter - In the first place you are NOT allowed to sell these cakes. They are copyrighted and are available for you to use for you own family and friends. You are not licensed to sell them. If you plan on using this pan for your family, I would make a pattern from the plastic head piece to use a few years down the road. These pans won't be available forever. If your plastic head and arms gets lost you can make a color flow piece to use with this pan. I have not seen these pieces yet. They look like you could mold gumpaste or fondant in the back of them. Have any of you seen or used them? 5. Page 18 top left - Gargoyles 35 servings - basic skills - 4 large and 8 small run sugar panels - Plastic figures The only real decorating that must be done just before pick up is the one layer 6" square cake. Everything else can be made in your "spare" time and just stuck on. $35.00 to $50.00 for this one. That is just $1.00 per serving. I find that people are not willing to pay the same for BD cakes in our area.

6. Page 23 bottom right - Baseball mit and ball Really a cute cake - The ball and cap are candy melts - I would price them separately at around $10.00. The mitt is buttercream icing with a layer of fondant on top. Easy if you follow their directions. Easy but it will take time to trim out that mitt very neatly. I also would put that cake pan with the fondant mitt in the freezer to chill and firm up before trying to remove it from the pan and put it on the cake. $25.00 for the mitt and $10 for the ball with hat. $35.00 as shown.

7. Page 24 - This cake is a nicely done rolled fondant cake. The only thing hard about this design is the bottom four 8" round cakes. They tell you to do those cut outs in the overlays before carefully laying over the pink fondant. You will need to be very careful to get this exactly the same on all four cakes. The little blossoms scattered on the top two tiers are made from the fondant and easy with the right cutters. Wilton's book says that this cake will serve 174. This is a Quincenanera (15th Mexican girl's birthday) cake not a wedding cake - so figure the top tier in the servings. Have you ever taken one of the Wilton pans and a washable marker and tried to get the servings that they say you can get with their charts? I did several years ago. I could not get that many servings. I made a new chart to use with my customers so I would feel more honest in what they were paying for and by that chart. My chart says this cake will serve 7" cake - 15, 12" cake - 45 and 4 8" cakes - 80 = 140 Servings total. The chart I made is on a spread sheet and I scanned it in TIFF format if you would like it. It is 2 pages and saves me countless hours in figuring sizes for a Bride. Please E-Mail me if you want this. At $3.00 per serving this cake would run - $420.00 without the flowers and the center figure. Remember my fondant prices start at $2.50 per serving.
Pwd Sugar: Would you like to continue the discussion on pricing next week? Do that or go to cake decorating online and then to discuss cake decorating. You will find lots of info there - addresses and show info address too. 

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