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| Madam Buttercream |
A few weeks ago, I did a wedding cake. I calculated that it took 11 hours to complete this cake. I spent 45 minutes in Walmart shopping (plus driving to and from the store). I also took a trip over to Byler's in Harrington for some special types of sprinkles and sanding sugar I needed. That took 45 minutes. It took me a half hour to drive to the venue that afternoon to deliver and finish everything. I spent 4 hours baking cake and getting the kitchen cleaned up. I decorated partially at the venue and partially at home. Total decorating time took 2 hours at home (which included cleanup) and then 3 hours at the venue.
The worst part of all this is that it killed much of my weekend. I spent a portion of Wednesday shopping....then Thursday as well shopping. Friday evening, I spent 4 hours in the kitchen after working an 8-hour day. I got up on Saturday morning and had to spend 2 hours getting the icing mixed and decorating the portions that would travel well. After cleanup, I then had to get the car loaded and head to the venue, a half hour away, where I then spent 3 hours decorating. Part of the reason it took 3 hours at the venue was the decorating team who were not ready for me. It took time and I had to work around some things including helping to put the cake stand together and hot gluing the trim to the stand as they were busy working with other parts of decorating.
I left the wedding reception venue at 4 p.m.on a Saturday afternoon. This killed over a half of my weekend. I tend to undercharge for my cake, but then I stop and think about THIS....I gave up a LOT of my TIME. It's not just the ingredients. It's the TIME involved. After that 11 hours was all said and done and it was 4:00 p.m., I was standing in a parking lot a half hour from home with a box full of supplies and lots of stuff to take home and clean up and put away. So really that 11 hour total is not accurate if you add in the aftermath involved.
Cake has made me miss out on a lot of things in my life. Cakes are for celebrations....and because everyone has busy weeks with work, the majority of these celebrations happen during the weekend which means MY weekend gets affected to make YOUR weekend special. You can only work so far in advance. I want your cake to be as fresh and newly decorated as possible. People will ask me to do a cake a month in advance. I will, of course, agree because that's what I do. Then a week or so before the cake, an opportunity will come up where I can go somewhere or do something...but I can't because I agreed to do a cake. Just this week that happened to me.
I agreed several months ago to do a cake for today. It was all well and good until I realized that I hadn't thought about the baking time involved....and I had been signed up to attend an event with the ladies of my church at the beach. I had to skip the night at the beach so I could bake a cake. I also took on a house/dog sitting job. This meant I had to also shuffle my time between my house baking the cake and then returning to where I was house/dog sitting. I had plans last night to attend a play. I purchased my ticket in advance. I had no option but to get up early on a Saturday morning....not able to sleep in....to get started on the cake. It took 3 hours from start to finish to do a birthday cake that was only $35. That's not a very great hourly rate. It's much higher for a wedding cake, yet it's the same cake recipe....same icing....just different celebration attached to the cake. Nobody in their right mind would pay the wedding price for a birthday cake, though.
As much as I enjoy doing my cake decorating, since I'm not actually in a bakery, all I'm really doing is killing my own time when I take on cake orders, especially if it's not for a wedding cake because there's no profit in birthday cake. While I'm making back the money on the ingredients, I certainly am losing money on the time.
Last weekend, my kids were here visiting. They live with their dad. They came in on a Friday night to find me in the kitchen baking. I had to get up the next morning and deliver a cake an hour away. Fortunately my daughter went with me to deliver the cake. When we got back, I decorated a cake for HER birthday and because I wanted her to not see it until it was finished, I banished her from the kitchen which made several hours of time without her. Then I had to turn around and bake and decorate cake that evening for an event on Sunday. I spent an entire weekend in the kitchen. The kids were here and I spent time without them...or they were forced to be in the kitchen if they wanted to see me....and had to share their time with cake.
I'm thinking about the upcoming summer months and how I'd love to be able to spend time doing things I enjoy....and not spending it in the kitchen. Perhaps a sabbatical....
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