Small Business Saturday

Growing up, we tend to go through different spending stages in our lives.  There's those middle school and high school years, where all of our transactions are in cash, from birthday and Christmas money, and it's mostly spent on ridiculous purchases at the mall (for me it was always Claire's, or the CD store, or sometimes Gap).

 Then you hit college, where it's about the bottom line, and your spending habit becomes a daily math problem...I have $10, and need toilet paper, milk, Ramen, bread, and toothpaste.  How much can I buy, with the coupons I have, without sacrificing quality of living?  Wal-Mart, Aldi, Big Lots, they all become your favorite stores in the world.  Saving money becomes not only a challenge, but a way of life.

Following the college years are the "Oh my gosh, I'm on my own!" years.  These are years of rock bottom shopping, much like your college days, but with a flair for the extravagance...you want your parents to believe you're fine financially, so "splurging" on items like candles, dishware, and fun furniture pieces occasionally, to prove you're living on your own with no problems, becomes a way of life.  You become a staple fixture at the Target clearance end racks, pilfering candles and woven place mats at 75% off.

Then there's this moment you come to in life where you wake up and realize, holy crap, there's money in my bank account!  My bills are paid, my food is purchased, and I have money left over!  It's that true moment where you think, I finally made it to adulthood.  I'm going to make it through this thing called life in one piece!  There's usually some fist pumping associated with this moment.

And it's at that moment that you begin to spend your money is "wise" ways.  Some of it goes into savings for those unexpected car repairs and major life purchases.  Some of it goes to pay of college loans.  Some of it may go to help others, through child sponsorship, charity relief, or adopt-a-pet organizations.  And some of it we selfishly spend on ourselves, and our lives, upgrading them into a life we've always imagined.

When I was in college, Wal Mart was a second home to me.  I lived there because I could afford the merchandise they were selling, especially the food.  Everything I bought came from there or Ikea.

Now, I shop at places because I like what they sell.  I tend to avoid Wal Mart because I don't believe in their company policies as a general principle.  Shopping at small, locally-owned stores, something that was not even an option 3 years ago, is becoming an increasing part of my daily life.  Instead of looking for great mass-produced options that everyone has, I am instead looking for that unique, often original item that is unique to my tastes and home.  If evolving tastes is part of becoming an adult, I think I'm winning!

Why am I telling you this?  Because, simply put, I don't want a coffee maker you bought at Wal Mart along with 800 other people :-P  No, I'm just kidding.  I'm telling you this because I want to challenge you to look at your spending habits, and see if there are any places you could adapt or change how you purchase items.  I'm not telling you to give up big box stores completely.  Even I haven't done that.  But every once in awhile, if you can buy something at a chain store and a small, local enterprise, think about purchasing it from the smaller place.

If you've never done that before, tomorrow is a great time to start!  Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, the day directly following the mayhem that is Black Friday.  Black Friday is all about the rock bottom deals that the chain stores can offer us, and there's nothing wrong with trying to save money.  Small Business Saturday, though, is about giving back to the community you live in, and reminding local store owners that you support their business during the holiday season.

All Americans are encouraged to buy something local tomorrow, whether it's fresh produce, a handmade scarf, or even some homemade cupcakes(hint hint).  It doesn't really matter what you buy, the goal is to get out, find something local you love, and support businesses in your neighborhood.  It's a great time to find a perfect present for that hard-to-shop-for friend or relative.

This is the first year Pittsburgh Sweet Relief has been around to participate in Small Business Saturday, but we hope it is the first of many successful shopping days for us.  While we have no store front for you to stop by at, we still encourage you to consider us in your shopping needs as you're out and about tomorrow.

To help encourage you to try Pittsburgh Sweet Relief again (or maybe for the first time!) we're offering 10% off any orders placed on 11-24-12.  That doesn't mean you have to pick it up tomorrow, you just have to place an order with us tomorrow.  So if you've been thinking for awhile, "Man, it would be great to order a Christmas cake for when the family comes over this holiday season!" now is your chance to take advantage of our sale.  It's a win-win for everyone: you get delicious, home made baked goods, and we have the support of our local community.

So think about helping us out tomorrow.  And if baked goods aren't in your near future, consider donating to our "Go Fund Me" fund.  See that button on the right side of your screen...?  Click it, donate, and help us Build our Bakery!!

Have an awesome weekend guys!!  Don't shop too much!!

Lis

Price Comparison

Have you ever sat down on a weekend day off and price flour out by the cup?  It's fascinating work.

Let's do a math problem, shall we...

If the flour I buy comes in 5lb bags, and there are approximately 3 3/4 cups of flour per pound, and my recipe uses 1 3/4 cups of flour in every recipe, how many servings of cupcakes can I make with one 5lb bag of flour?

With some slight rounding (let's be honest, I spill flour from time to time), the answer you should have come up with is 10.  I can make 10 dozen cupcakes with one bag of flour.

To continue the math problem, if one bag of flour costs $1.39, how much do I spend per serving to add flour to a dozen cupcakes?  If you move the decimal point, you'll find I spend approximately 14 cents per dozen cupcakes on flour.

Is your head hurting yet?  Try doing this with every single ingredient in my recipes.  I might have just popped two Alieve :-)

In all reality, though, as much math crunching as I have done today, it's for a good cause...I wanted to make sure that what I'm charging customers is right on price point for where it should be.  I have been basing my pricing on local competitors, but never sat down and figured it out for myself.  Guess today's as good of day as any to whip out the ol' calculator.

My discoveries...??  My price is right on the money.  For most basic cupcakes (we're talking no thrills and frills, no gluten-free, no 20 hours of work) I charge $21/dozen.  Sometimes $20 if I'm feeling nice.  And calculating for supplies, electricity used, and time I donate, The total price for me to make 1 dozen cupcakes is $20.17.  That includes electricity to run the oven, boxes to store the cupcakes, money to pay myself, and cupcake liners.  Pretty spot on, isn't it ;-)

Calculating prices also helped me pinpoint where I can save some money too...the biggest expense in my cupcake baking is vanilla bean paste, a wonderful creation, but $8.99 for 4oz. of the stuff.  I've been dumping a tablespoon of it into my cupcakes, resulting in me spending $1.12 per dozen cupcakes just for vanilla flavoring.  Hmmmm....maybe this needs reworked.  So I'm going to play around with quantities a little, maybe swapping some of the paste out for vanilla extract.  I like the paste because it does provide us with actual vanilla beans, but as far as flavoring goes, vanilla extract does the job just as well.  So we'll play around with some volume, and hopefully get the cost down even more.

Number crunching is over for the day...pumpkin pies are in the oven as we speak, just waiting to be consumed by the holidays this week.  I cannot wait to eat them and share in Thanksgiving with friends and family this week.

If you're traveling this holiday week/weekend, be safe.  And to all I wish a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.  I am thankful for all the support, advice, and help you have offered to me in this past year!

Lis

Reviewing For You: Wilton Bake Even Strips

Product: Wilton Bake Even Strips

Claim to Fame: Will bake cakes more evenly, without the "dome" on top that we usually end up sawing off anyway.

Price $ ($0 - $10): It was marked at $8.99 for two strips, but I used my $40% off coupon that Joann Fabrics loves to throw my way every other day and bought two strips for about $5.50.

Testing Them Out: I'll be honest, when I was told these things existed, I was a bit skeptical that they would work.  You mean to tell me I wrap some fabric around the outside of my cake tins, bake them like I normal do, and magically the cake bakes more evenly without that dreaded dome?  Seriously??

I decided to give them a whirl when a lady I'm taking decorating classes with bought them, tried them...and loved them.  She brought this cake in, I swear, it was so flat you could've shot pool on the darn thing.  I knew right then and there that I wanted to try this out for myself.

So I bought some tonight, because I'm making a princess birthday cake this week, and really didn't want to waste half the cake to the dome sacrifice (like always).  I followed the instructions, they're not that hard, put my cakes in the oven, and waited.  Preparing the cakes with the Bake Even Strips was practically no different than without.  It took me probably an extra minute to minute and a half to wet the strips, squeeze the excess water out of them, and secure them around my pan.  Time wise, it's really no different.  The only part that was slightly more challenging was securing the strips with the pin.  It's not that the pin isn't up for the challenge, it's just hard to get a firm grasp on it when the strips are wet and the pan is full of cake batter.

The Results:  A half hour later I pulled two bright pink cakes out of the oven, and looked to see what had happened.  The results...

Not too shabby for my first try!  Now, as you can see, there's definitely a small dome forming on the cake, but it's much better than it usually is.  The camera angle might not be the greatest for this shot, but it's minimal at best.  Instead of hacking off up to a third of the cake I just baked, this will result in a much smaller portion heading into the garbage (or my belly).

Final Verdict:  Surprisingly simply to add to your baking, anyone who likes to bake cakes on a semi-regular basis should definitely invest in a set of these.  With the price so moderate (2 strips for $9), even the recreational cake baker could buy these, use them only once or twice a year, and still get a good value from them.

Rating: **** out of *****  It's an easy solution to a problem that has plagued bakers for years.  These strips definitely earn their name.  They'll earn the full 5 stars from me when they make it easier to attach.  The pinning is a little tricky at times, especially when you have a pan full of cake batter.

Deep In the Heart of Texas

Did you ever take on a challenge and think to yourself while you were agreeing to it,  "This might be more than I can handle?"

That was me this week.

On Saturday night, I was asked by a friend to make 150 mini cupcakes for a birthday party this Friday.  Mini cupcakes means less batter, but that still meant 150 cupcakes I had to fill, bake, ice, and decorate.  Wow.  But I'm new in the business.  This is the "Whore yourself out" phase where you will agree to just about anything for publicity, growth, and new business.  So of course I said yes.  And, on a normal week, this wouldn't be a problem at all.  But this was not a normal week...

Monday: ServSafe exam starting at 7:30am.  Ran all day.  That evening, had to bake gluten-free cupcakes.

Tuesday: Election Day.  Found out I'm not a citizen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (that's another story for another blog).  Ate free ice cream and had a date with the movies.

Wednesday: Back to work. After work had a dinner date.  Baked from 8pm-midnight.

Thursday: Worked all day.  Baked from 7pm-11pm.

Friday: Worked, party.

So, I had very few hours to prepare all of work.  I was like a mad assembly line.  Fill, bake, cool, ice, decorate, box.  Over and over and over and over again.

Sometimes situations like this can stress me out.  Sometimes I get myself into a pickle like this, bite off more than I can chew, and learn a very valuable lesson about time management.  Not this time, though.  This time, this challenge was a giant success.  I made all the cupcakes, everyone loved them, I got additional publicity, and booked two separate gigs (not from this, but still...)

I won't make this a habit, but I'm glad I made this happen.  It worked out well for everyone.

Happy weekend!!!

Lis

The Weekend Warrior

What a crazy weekend this is shaping up to be.  Lots of baking.  Lots of bakery-ing.  Little time to blog about it.

Yesterday was my first actual decorating class, and boy was it interesting.  For those of you who don't know, I've never taken a baking/decorating/business class in my life.  I am what the French call "Le Self-Taught".  But since I'm trying to open up a bakery, and convince people to buy my goods, I feel I should do everything in my power to get as much training, practice, and information I can about baking, decorating, business, etc.  So I signed up for a beginner's decorating class.

I was a little hesitant to sign up for this class, because, let's be honest, I do know my way around a kitchen.  I can fill a pastry bag and decorate cupcakes and cookies and cakes.  I can make delicious icing, in a million different flavors, and easily ice a cake.  I can roll and dye fondit, spread it on a cake, and decorate fun designs all over the top.  So a beginner's decorating class seems a little...redundant.  But, at the same time, I have to be humble with my skills: everything I've learned, I've taught myself or Googled "How to..."  What if I learned something incorrectly?  Or could do something more efficiently   I needed to start at the beginning, to make sure I didn't miss anything.

How many holidays did I celebrate with my cookie cutters this weekend?

The class was pretty dull, because it was the first one.  We learned how to fill pastry bags, how to make icing, and how to ice cookies.  Pretty slow.  But next week we're going to start in on some actual skills: creating leaves and vines on a cake, torting a cake, making a floral display.  None of which I've actually done.  So I'm trying to keep an open mind, because I do believe there are some things I can learn from this class.

Last night I had a huge blessing, for which I couldn't be happier about.  Ever have a pretty stressful week where you think, "Honestly, can I NOT catch a break this week?"  That was my week.  I was feeling pretty bummed out, and then a good friend came to me with several gifts.  Not only did she decide she wanted to donate supplies to my Christmas fundraiser (flour, sugar, powdered sugar, butter, etc.) but she needed me to make 150 cupcakes too.  Yay!!  Business, and supplies, and a way to keep my mind off of the craziness that is my life.  Talk about major blessing!!

Now it's time to study, and study hard.  My ServSafe exam kicks off in less than 24 hours, and I'm nervous about it.  It could either go really well, or really awful.  A lot of it is common sense (for example, do not put food in chemical bottles), but then there are all these small details I need to remember, like the distance shelving units need to be from the ground, and the height that a sneeze guard needs to be at on a salad bar.  Time to memorize, memorize, memorize.  And maybe write out a few flash cards too.

So, it's time to turn on the Office, throw in a load of laundry, eat a sugar cookie or 10, and get studying.  Par-tay!!

Lis