Keeping Up Appearances

May!  Wonderful May!  What a great month it's been!  And we're not just talking about the warm weather that's finally arrived in the Burgh (although that's wonderful too)!

Business has been booming, guys, and we couldn't be happier!  Between baking for the restaurant (more on that later), online orders, and fun "surprises" for friends, we cannot believe that we're already more than halfway through May.  Where has this month gone?

Today we had the opportunity to do something we've never done before: go shopping at Restaurant Depot.  For those of you who have no idea what RD is, it's similar to a Sam's Club in terms of it offers bulk food at wholesale prices.  However, unlike Sam's Club, which is tailored for families, RD is tailored towards, well, restaurants.  You can buy a 50lb bag of flour in one aisle, and then head over to the next aisle for a swimming pool of Heinz ketchup (slight exaggeration).  For someone who regularly flies through flour, sugar, butter, and flavorings, it was pretty much like Disney World on a rainy Saturday morning.

We ended up buying a 25lb bag of powdered sugar, which sounds like a lot, but that will not last us long.  Maybe we should've picked up another one.  Oh well, we can also go back.  We also picked up a tub of peanut butter you could fit a small child into, and a wonderful find of almond extract.

This picture above, we've added for comparison.  The bottle on the left is one most of you are probably familiar with, all major grocery stores sell it.  If it's on sale, you can snag that baby for $3.99.

The bottle on the right.  We bought for $9.14.  We could drink that bottle of almond extract, and the value is ridiculously good.  As we mentioned, the Restaurant Depot may be the best place in the world (don't get too excited, it's a pretty exclusive club...you actually have to own a restaurant to shop there.  Sorry guys!)

We need all this almond extract because we have been baking so much for our new restaurant deal.  It's definitely been an adjustment, baking every night getting stuff ready for our weekly delivery, but we have loved it so far.  And the feed back has been great...cheesecakes, pies, cakes, everything seems to be a big hit.

If you want to head out for some PSR treats yourself (and we think you all should!) you should head out to Champs Sports Bar in Penn Hills.  That's where everything available for you to buy and consume.  The address, for those of you up for a road trip, is 540 Rodi Rd Pgh.  If you head down, go for a meal, the food is good, and decently priced.  Just make sure you save room for dessert!! :-)  For example, this week this apple pie is on the menu (and trust us, it's amazing!!)

We will be updating later this week, we have a cake we're pretty excited to tell you guys about (it's a surprise delivery, so we can't detail too much here.  Just in case someone other than our mom reads this blog).  But check back, we'll be posting some pretty awesome pictures!!

Even though it's raining, enjoy the weekend!  We have two cakes in the oven right now, our work is never done!!  Talk to you guys soon!

Dull February

Man, it's been awhile since we updated!  Our apologies to the 5 of you who read this blog religiously!

It has been a slow February for us, and it's driving us slightly crazy.  We have a lot of "potential projects in the works" with people, but right now it's a lot of sitting around, doing inventory (the worst thing in the world!), and marathoning Parks and Recreation.

Sometimes when business is slow, it's hard to not freak out and rip your hair out and stress about the lack of business.  But we should be used to business being slow in February...it's February.  No one wants to get married in Pennsylvania in February, and the only major holiday, Valentine's Day, is a day dedicated to candy.  It's something we've become used to over the years.

For now, we will just keep working to create some more business opportunities for ourselves, and keep working on the 3 projects we currently have in the works for the upcoming weeks.

Stay warm, Pittsburgh!  We can't wait for March, and spring, and plenty of baking opportunities!

13 Things We Learned in 2013

Last year we wrote a semi-whimsical blog post about all of the things we learned in 2012.  In 2012, if you remember, we officially launched our baking business, and boy did we have a lot to learn.  Our look back at the first 9 months of our business proved to be humorous, as we made plenty of mistakes and slowly grew and learned from all of them.

A year later, we decided to revisit the idea of a look back, and to see what funny stories, lessons, and growing we did in 2013.  So, with no further ado...

13 Things We Learned in 2013

1. Cell phone calendars are the best invention in the world.  Seriously, it's amazing having your entire life organized in your hand wherever you go.  We've been blessed this year to have more and more business, and the only way to keep track of all the delivery dates and orders is with out cell phone.  No matter where we are, we can keep track of our business through our phone, not only with our phone planner, but with constant email contact and website communications.  How did bakeries exist before cell phones?
2. Wine makes even the longest days better.  Seriously, it does.  We work a full-time job and bake on the side.  Sometimes we're up until midnight, 1am baking, and while we love it, it does sometimes wear on us.  That's where a good glass of wine, a Netflix marathon, and a spatula fit together perfectly.  
   
   The combination has gotten us through many a long night of baking when all we want to do is curl up in bed and sleep.
3. Gluten-free is actually really tasty.  At least our gluten-free products are (not to brag or anything).  If you missed our post earlier this year, we're not ones to really jump on the gf fad, but we feel we've really perfected the art of making gf cupcakes.  And it's not just us...we had 6 people (friends and strangers) who have gluten allergies test out an assortment of our gf products.  The results were resoundingly positive.  For once, our tinkering in the kitchens paid off big time!
4. Cookie cakes were quite the fad this year.  Quite the fad.  We made a TON of cookie cakes this year, from simple birthday wishes to complex Minecraft ones.  Cookie cakes are fun and easy for us to make, so we had no problem whipping up a dozen or so.  We were just surprised that so many orders for them came in throughout the year.
5. Business cards end up in amazing places.  We had an email earlier this year from a customer we'd never met looking to order some baked goods from us.  They had received one of our business from a friend who had been at a party that we had baked for.  Sometimes we feel like we could wallpaper our home with the business cards we have stashed around, but in one case, it worked out for the best.
6. Having a good baking playlist is essential.  We have awful tastes in music (we've been told this by many a soul who has been trapped in the car with us)  We like 90s pop, Bruce Springsteen, and Ke$ha.  That's not a typo...that's the music we listen to.  Judge if you want, but we can't help it.  we love us some Spice Girls and Hanson and Third Eye Blind.  It regularly plays in our kitchen.  Sing-a-longs are not mandatory, but definitely encouraged.  And if you know all the dance moves to Nsync's Bye Bye Bye, well...you get to enter our coveted Hall of Fame.  
7. Creative baking is our favorite kind of baking.  We love baking in general...but we really come alive when we are given the opportunity to make some creative cakes and cupcakes.  Take a look at some of these creations we've made in the past year:  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   We can't say they've been easy, but the joy we get when they're complete...and the joy our customers get when the products are in their hands, well...that's what we live for.  We hope that 2014 gives us just as many opportunities to be creative.
8. Baking has its ups and downs.  Sometimes we have so much business we don't know how we have time to sleep.  Sometimes we are so bored we start re-watching Lost (bad choice).  It's frustrating during those times when we don't have business, but as we've learned this year it comes in waves.  We have to be thankful for the business when we have it, and thankful for the down time when we don't.  After all, Lost is better the second time around...right...??
9. Cheesecakes are fun!  We are always looking to expand our baking repertoire, and this year we delved into the cheesecake business.  Our first cheesecake was quite the doozy: a bacon toffee cheesecake for a friend's 40th birthday.
   
    It's a lot of prep work, and a lot of stars aligning quite perfectly, but what can we say, they're pretty fun to make.  Oh, and they taste amazing! :-)  
10. What is better than creative decorating?  Creative flavoring.  We made a bunch of fun flavors this year, and we love experimenting with tastes until they turn out quite right.  Our favorite creation this year had to be a chocolate whisky cupcake we made for a birthday celebration.  
    
    I mean, chocolate and whisky....is there anything better than those two things in this life?  Plus, when all was said and done we were happy with how they looked too for delivery.
11. Taking time to recharge is essential.  In August we went on what we call a North East World Tour.  In the course of 3 weeks we visited Ohio, Philadelphia, and New Jersey for vacations, family catch ups, and birthday celebrations.  We didn't think about baking for 3 weeks, and it was a wonderful time to recharge.  If you do something you love, eventually even that will burn you out.  Closing down shop for a few weeks was a breath of fresh air, and it let us return to the kitchen rejuvenated and excited to start up again.
12. Taste testers are everywhere.  It's a hard lesson for us to learn...we love to bake, and we love to share, but at the end of the day if we're not making money we're not operating a business.  Sometimes it's hard to turn people away when they're asking for donations.  But it's a lesson we had stick to this year, and our bank account is very thankful for it.
13. Blogging helps you get to know us.  Of all the things we did this year, we've received more positive feedback from these silly blog posts than just about anything else.  Apparently you guys like to read about our ridiculous baking world.  And we like to tell you about it.  It's a great give-and-take.  Honestly, this year if we learned anything from this business, it's that you guys like to hear about how it's run from the inside.  Thousands of you checked out our blog for updates, and got to see the fun side of starting your own business.

As another year ends, we are thankful for every one of you who has supported our business through the year, through business, support, advice, or free supplies (we always take free supplies).  As business continues to grow, we could not imagine being where we are today without any or all of you.

From our kitchen to yours, happy New Year!  May your 2014 be as bright as ours is shaping up to be!

Febru--ewwwwy

We're going to start off this post with a bit of honesty: we hate the month of February.  It is so cold, and so glum, and so confusing with the "Is it Leap Year, Isn't It??" drama, and seems like that last final hurdle between winter and spring.  How this month is only (usually) 28 days is beyond us, because it always seems like the longest month of the year.

The only good things about February:

     1. It's our half birthday on February 19th (and we have always been firm believers that you celebrate your half birthday!)

     2. It's Groundhog's Day, meaning the wonderful Bill Murray movie will be on TV again.

Otherwise, this month can pass as quickly as possible.

It's been another busy week for us here at PSR, although that is slowly becoming the norm.  We made our first tiered wedding cake, baked some delicious cupcakes, and managed to design a new logo.  Some wonderful pictures for you to drool over coming right up!

(the top photo is our raspberry lemon and the bottom is our breakfast cupcake, complete with freshly cooked bacon on top!)

So as we slowly build into a business, things have started to fall in place.  We came up with a name, thanks to a lengthy Facebook post.  We passed out PA SafeServ test.  We've bought new supplies and tools, and boxes, redesigned business cards, launched websites, wined and dined potential clients.  It's a very small snowball still, but at least it's rolling.

One thing that was bothering us was the lack of a logo on any of our products.  We're of the firm belief that branding, advertising, and logos help people to recognize your product (on a large scale: the golden arches of McDonalds.  On a smaller scale, we all know the commercials and advertising campaigns for Edgar Snyder and Associates). We feel we advertise fairly well, given our income, but we were still on the hunt for a good logo.  Online designs, while well priced at times, were a big game of "what ifs".  You paid for one design, and if you didn't like it, oh well.  We figured we'd rather pay a little more and make sure we had some say in the design.

A friend of the bakery is a graphic design student, and he does all that awesome stuff on computers we can only dream of.  Our computers are used for email, facebooking, and catching up on tv shows via Hulu.  We gave him a vague idea of what we were looking for: Color, definitely.  But elegance.  Also fun, we're a fun bakery.  The classic black and white theme works wonders too, though.  Feminine, but not too feminine that men run away screaming.  Honestly, that's almost word for word what we typed him.  He somehow made sense of all of that, and began working.  

8 revisions later (take that etsy and your "no-revision" policy!) we finally had a logo that I loved, he was proud of, and I could pay him for.

Ladies and gentlemen, our new logo:

Thoughts?  We personally LOVE it.  He somehow managed to incorporate everything we asked for in our email.  Fun, elegant, colorful, feminine (but not TOO feminine), and expressive of who we are.  You might see this popping up a little more often, as we slowly use logo placement to help you keep track of our business!

So on to today, and our busy weekend.  Business checks to cash, a sale to organize (read that and prepare yourself.  We're having a flash sale soon, on Facebook.  Amazing deals, extremely limited supply.  Keep watch, because it won't come around again anytime soon!!) and a pineapple birthday cake to make.  Any Psych lovers out there?  This cake is going to be for you!!

Have a wonderful weekend, try to stay warm.  March better come quickly, so we can get into the wedding swing of things!!  Cannot wait!!

Lis

New Year, New Stuff!

Well hello 2013, didn't you creep up on us a little bit...?  Still getting used to writing "2012" on my things, and now have to make that 2 turn into a scary looking 3 with a few well-crafted pen strokes.  Remember when time seemed to stand still when we were kids?  What happened to those glory days?

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!  We're excited that we can officially begin telling people, "Yes, we started our business last year."  What a nice ring that has instead of, "Oh, we started our business a few months ago, don't laugh, we're serious about making this work."  It sounds so much more professional when you can tell potential clients that you have successfully been in business since 2012 with no major mishaps.

This is all paled in comparison to the amazing news we have for everyone today.  For those of you who are new to the blog, or only read a handful of our posts, this past year has been operated on a shoestring budget.  As of right now our baking bank account has $162 in it.  We are by no means ready to trade on the NYSE. We're growing, though, which is evident in the fact that we even have a separate business bank account.  But this is still a shoestring operation until further notice.  We buy only what we need, everything in bulk at discount stores, and bake only what is absolutely necessary.  We use Facebook and this blog as our only means of advertising, as both are free.  We have wallpapered the Pittsburgh area with our business cards that someone gifted to us.  We have no working dishwasher, and make every order by hand with a small hand mixer and a few well-loved mixing bowls.

Until today.  Today, everything changes.  Today we can officially announce we have enough money to buy the one appliance we have always dreamed of owning, a professional KitchenAid Mixer.

For those of you who think, "Those things are only like $400, why haven't you bought one yet?" let me remind you of our shoestring budget.  While we do have a separate full-time job at a company, those funds are used to pay bills, buy food for us to eat, and pay down those dastardly student loans.  There's little left over at the end of the month for high-end appliances, and all the funds that are left over are saved for the day where we eventually do open our restaurant.  We believe in the theory that we use what we've been blessed with, whether it is a hand mixer with a questionable motor, cupcake tins from the Soviet era, or donated supplies from friends and loved ones.  Opening a business is a marathon, and well-planned finances help you finish the race.

So for the past 6 months we've been saving our coins and small bills in a jar on our dresser.  You know the routine, you get ready for bed, empty your pockets out and find 84 cents you didn't know you had.  Into the jar it went.  It's money we didn't even realize we had, so adding it to the jar was nothing.  Didn't even thing about it.  Every time we had $50 saved up, we would make a trip to the dreaded Giant Eagle (that's another story for another post) and buy a Visa gift card.  Slowly, ever so slowly, we were going to save up for this mixer.

We had help along the way.  Donations from friends who heard about our coined plight.  Gifts from friends and family.  We were once even paid for a job with a $50 gift card (totally unexpected but appreciated).  Slowly the number of gift cards grew.  Slowly we realized this would eventually work.

So as 2013 rings in across the world, we are happy to announce we finally have enough gift cards to buy that dang mixer!  The professional size, of course, we do have an image to keep up.  :-)

Now all we have to decide is what color we want.  Any suggestions?  Our flour/sugar/rice counter containers are red, yellow, and lime green.  Should we go with a color that compliments that like an aqua or pink or orange?  Or do we go with something classic and timeless like ivory or black?  Maybe we should consider which color is the easiest to clean...

Let us know your thoughts about color choices, or any other helpful KitchenAid mixer tips you might have.  And if you order anything from us from this point on, know that we did not mix it by hand!  We will soon be the proud owners of an amazing KitchenAid mixer! :-)

Happy 2013 everyone!

12 Things We Learned in 2012

Man, what a year!  365 days ago PSR was just a twinkle in our owner's eye.  It was a far off dream, lacking in skill, time, money, and hope.  Sure we liked to bake, but to actually sell what we made to people?  Book weddings and stuff like that?  Really?  Sounds unlikely.

And here we sit, 365 (366 for those keeping up with their leap years) days later, in awe at what has happened in this past year.  Are we where we ultimately want to be?  Heck no.  But we are much closer to our end goal than we ever thought we could be last December.

To celebrate the past 365 days of awesomeness that 2012 has brought our baker, we present to you a list simply entitled

12 Things We Learned in 2012

1. It is never too late to try something new.  We say that only being 26, so maybe that sounds a little funny.  But 4 years ago we graduated college with a degree in history and secondary education.  And now we're trying to start a new business.  It's amazing the path our lives take if we simply open ourselves up to possibilities.

2. Baking is not as simple as following a recipe.  There's so much more to it than that.  This is not a simple "Follow steps A-G" business.  This is artwork, this is creation, this is pure joy and love.  If you don't love baking, and you're a baker, your customers will see it in every piece you create.  My pieces may not be 100% perfect, but you can tell I put my heart and soul into each one.

3. Practice makes perfect.  I've had some pretty big mess ups this year.  Some of which people still lovingly accepted.  Some of which I quickly pitched.  But working at something until I get it, it's such an amazing feeling when you can pull off the unthinkable.

4. Powdered sugar has a way of ending up in really strange places.  Always wear an apron and never wear an outfit that you look at and think, "Hmmm, maybe I could go out later tonight in this."

5. Never bake on an empty stomach.  The customer will suffer, as will your waistline.

6. Put yourself out there.  Take risks, be adventurous.  Don't be afraid to say, "Hi my name is Lis and I run a small bakery!"  You never know who might remember that one line later down the road.  We've been selling that line for the past 6 months, and have booked 1 bridal shower, 2 weddings, and several parties.  It feels great to know that my enthusiasm for my business has lead to a steady growth in business.

7. Take your finances seriously.  Don't put your business money in with your actual money.  Open up a separate account, and act all "adult-y" with your funds.  Spreadsheets, finance trackers, find a way that works for you and stick with it.  You will only regret it later if you don't.

8. Find your weakness and educate yourself.  I'm not a business woman, never have been.  So I took tons of classes, read books, and asked for advise from business professionals in the area.  It's amazing what I've learned in the past year about running your own business.  It's hard work, that's for certain.  But if you're passionate about something you love to do, make sure you learn all the ins and outs of it.

9. Always thank those who help.  Starting a business takes a little luck, a lot of planning, and a mountain full of help from friends and family.  When help comes from loved ones (and it will), make sure you acknowledge how much you appreciate their time, services, and support.  I have a stack of cupcake-themed thank you notes that I constantly use to let people know how much I appreciate their support.  You can't open a business by yourself.  Make sure you take time to let those who have helped know how much their helping hand means to you and your business.

10. It's OK to make messes.  Just remember to clean them up.  No matter how tired I am, everything at least gets rinsed out before I go to bed.  Waking up to dirty but rinsed mixing bowls is much better than waking up to dirty mixing bowls with dried on batter.  The bed can wait 5 more agonizing minutes.  The dishes cannot.

11. Be open to new opportunities.  This is a hard one for us to remember sometimes, because we have a dream idea in our head about how our business should look 5 years from now.  It's good to set a plan, but keep yourself open to new opportunities.  We never know where it might lead.  Personally, I started out as a teacher, but allowed myself to slowly be lead to baking.  Who knows where I might be if I hadn't allowed myself the chance to try something new.

12. Have fun or get out of the kitchen.  Baking is an absolute joy for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  If the time ever comes where I think, "This isn't any fun for me" I need to either readjust or hang my apron up.  Good baking comes from the heart, not from a recipe card, and I need to remember to have fun each and every day I step into the kitchen.

There you have it, 12 lessons from 2012.  Keep following our bakery in 2013, we have some amazing things planned for you!!

Happy New Year, readers!

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

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