Let them eat cake

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:00:59 -0700

SNL Chocolate Cake

Sunset on the Bakery Battle

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:51:53 -0700

I didn’t get a real weekend. Actually, it was a lovely weekend but there was just so much of it that I woke up really tired this morning. Saturday I delivered a wedding cake and told my boss that I’d work through the end of May and that would be it for me at the bakery. Just between us kids, I’ll likely still go back and help out here and there but I knew I’d never get a raise unless I left completely and then made that a condition of returning. And the girl they hired for me to train came in for two hours a while back and saw my work and tried to decorate a cake with the icing I use. I’ve never seen her since. She got totally intimidated but I thought I had really encouraged her strongly, so either I entirely missed that boat on what she was actually feeling or else the intimidation got the best of her. Either way, it leaves the bakery without a decorator and that’s not cool. But it’s not my bakery, and therefore not my problem. Though it is harder to leave without leaving them someone who can take my place.

Sunday we delivered a wedding cake to Luray Virginia which is an hour and a half from here. I’ve never taken a cake that far. It was a small casual wedding on a lake and we set the wedding cake up in a picnic pavilion. I had barely gotten started when the first bugs came and started to hang out on the cake. A prospect that I do not find appetizing, but that’s just me. It was a beautiful day with an incredible view. And the groom was absolutely adorable. It just seemed like a very casual and comfortable group of really good folks.

Boss Lady and I stopped at an artisan food place for lunch on the way back and the food was incredible. (I paid for my own!) I made the mistake of saying that I didn’t feel like I had worked, that it was more like a day trip. And she indicated that she was glad I felt that way and something about not needing to get paid for the hours I was in the car. She said she’d have the Business Manager Elf talk to me about that. So apparently she’ll sick the “pit bull” on me to see if they can get me to agree to not being paid for working on a Sunday. If they even seriously try that I will be furious. Sadly, not surprised, just furious. I made $50 (before taxes come out) for working Sunday, and spent $57 buying sugar cookies that I had decorated to take to two parties over the weekend. I got really frustrated with myself for not putting quite a few of those cookies back but BL was standing there breathing down my neck as I was trying to make up my mind. So I bought more than I should have instead of taking my time. I was really annoyed with myself for that. So if they try any weirdness, I’ll just remind them that whatever I earned that day I returned to the till by buying overpriced cookies because I was not at home where I could have made a whole batch for waaaay less. So with my lunch of $10 and the sugar cookies, I ended up with a net loss on that day. *grumble*

I’m already at my first job of the day and will head off to the bakery at 10:00 this morning. After work there I will teach a friend whatever she can learn in the way of cake decorating. Sadly, she’s leaving the area for culinary school and can’t take my job. I think she has a natural knack for it though, so I’m looking forward to that.

This is my last week at the bakery. After fighting with BL once a week for the last number of weeks over not having the equipment I need to do the job… the battle is about to be over. I will do my best to end things nicely and leave on an up note. There are three of us leaving at the same time so it’s a good time to go. I know I’ve been saying the end was in sight for a long time… I may have to be a real hard a$$ to accomplish that goal, but I really think this is it. I hope. I'm ready for the next thing.

I'll post photos of this weekend's wedding cakes when I get the chance.

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By Hook or by Crook (or "I shall move on")

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:05:02 -0700

Last Saturday I talked with the woman who is to become my replacement at the bakery. And she was supposed to come Tuesday morning and start her new job and I had agreed to train her. Only she has not shown up. She spent two hours with us on Saturday and got really intimidated, she worked with the icing and realized how different it was than what she was used to. And she decorated a cake that turned out looking pretty bad. And it’s in the case next to my work. And she saw the Shakespeare cake I did that turned out especially nicely. And I haven’t seen her since. She called and said she hurt her back. I don’t think she’s lying but I do think it very strange that she hasn’t turned up – if even to watch. It throws off the schedule I had in my head of having her trained in the basics by June 1. And the girl who makes icing will be gone after June 1 which means heaven only knows what I’ll have to work with after that. No one else has figured out how to make the icing the way she does and it drives me bonkers. But I guess I’m stuck another week in this job. I feel like it’s a safe and comfortable place to be, and that I use it as an excuse to keep from the next stages of my new business. (Though my evening hours are all about my work.) But I’m not happy about it. I’m not upset either. I guess I’m just trying to be patient and hope that someday soon there will be another decorator taking over the day to day stuff. That will leave me with the most interesting and challenging cakes and then only if I can fit them into my schedule. And that will leave me with no alternative but to move on.

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Wedding Cake

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:51:02 -0700

Peanut butter and jelly

This cake went by so quickly that I hardly remember that I made it. The highlight is the fondant bow on the top. I made the loops early in the week and they had powdered sugar dots on them. Boss Lady fretted all week that the powered sugar wouldn't come off and I just told her it would be fine and not to worry about it. (Like telling Bush to complete an intelligent sentence with proper pronunciation.) In retrospect I should have gone over and cleaned one loop off so that she could see that it was going to be fine and quit worrying about it but I didn’t. Anyway, the powdered sugar came off fine and the cake came together nicely. The colors were gold and burgundy but I called it peanut butter and jelly. The consensus around the bakery was that those colors weren’t anything special. But the cake turned out fine. With this cake and the one last weekend, I am really tired of doing swirls.

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Shakespeare

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:11:59 -0700

Mary Baldwin graduates a group from their Master's Degree in Shakespeare program - both an MLitt and a MFA. And each year the bakery does a cake for the celebration. And they always want the names of the graduates on the cake. When the client came in she just kept telling me what they did last year and on and on over how great that cake had been. But when I asked her what she wanted this year she wouldn't answer, just told me to do what I wanted. Her only suggestion was to include the names and a fleur de lis. So this was my solution to the problem.

Shakespeare cake

I am supposed to train a new woman to take over parts of my Cake Decorating job. She’s from Martin’s – a grocery store chain. So she’s used to doing the big bloppy sloppy cakes that cost a fraction of what ours do. I hope it works out but I have my reservations. Anyway, I had started this cake and when she saw it you could see how intimidated she got – right off the bat. I really felt for her! Anyway, I walked her through the stages that I went through to make the face and that seemed to help her calm down a little bit. I’ve got to figure out a way to make it work with her because I want out of the day to day decorating there and she’s the only option that I know of at the moment.

I am really happy with how this cake turned out. And when the client saw it she was thrilled. She kept saying it just gave her chills. And I looked at her arms and she actually had goose bumps all over. Now that is a nice compliment if I ever had one. A totally unique compliment I must say!

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The Red Velvet Wedding (and the saga of the loser cupcakes)

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:54:05 -0700

The second wedding cake of the weekend was much bigger and was at a semi posh local hotel. There were only 250 guests planned, but we made a total of 600 servings of cake for them. The bride’s cake served 255 people, the groom’s cake another 100 or so and then they ordered 250 cupcakes on top of all that. They packaged the cupcakes in delightful little boxes for the guests to take home with them. What a lovely idea. (Unless you are the poor schlep making 250 identical cupcakes!)

Red Velvet Wedding

The Bride’s cake was a lovely red velvet cake, iced with butter cream and decorated in black colored chocolate swirls. (Red velvet is a pain to ice, it keeps wanting to "bleed" crumbs into the icing!) It was a striking look, the contrast of the colors was very pleasing. I think it would have been a lovely presentation once they started cutting all that red cake! I don’t like red velvet myself, I just feel like I’m doing something horrible to my body by eating that much food color (and it really takes a lot!) but there is no doubt that it is a pretty and delicious cake!

Pretty dining room

I got all five tiers set in place and all the details finished and then looked around for the flowers for the top of the cake. The florist had cut all the little orchids off the stem and my heart sank. What a stupid move that was, but they clearly didn’t know any better. So I started scouting the centerpieces on the tables to find stems of stuff that I could borrow for the top of the cake. I snipped a few twigs here and there and combined with the orchid blossoms, it turned out very pretty.

Side by side

The Groom’s cake was his frat emblem on a full sheet cake that was marble white/chocolate inside. It turned out nicely I thought.

Groom's Cake

And then there were the cupcakes. The Loser cupcakes. At every turn we screwed up this order!

The first screw up happened when the elves took the order. The client wanted an “L” on each cupcake, and the order said they needed to be made out of fondant. BL told me to use a cookie cutter to make them and it wouldn’t be a big deal. I took a look at that cookie cutter and I wondered to myself… it would look better for a child’s event than for a ritzy wedding, but I knew it was the only way to do 250 fondant “L’s” without wanting to jump from the nearest bridge. (Doing a bunch of “L’s” out of Icing would have been quicker and easier but someone up-sold the client fondant – so that’s what I was stuck making.) And with the amount of cake orders I had in addition to the weddings, I was about to pull out my hair anyway. So I started in making these infernal “L’s.” The bride’s mother happened by and BL picked up one of the “L’s” to go show her. I was about half way through making them and I stopped BL by simply saying… “Don’t ask a question I don’t want the answer to!” She looked a little surprised, looked at the fondant “L” in her hand and looked at me, realizing what I was saying. She laughed, put down the “L” and went back to work laughing. I made about 275 of those stupid things the first time around and had to come back and make more because they were fragile and I broke quite a few of them.

A bunch of fondant L's

Boss Lady is the baker and she just couldn’t keep up this week. (For good reason – because the bread elf is gone and the brownie/cookie elf was on vacation.) So I didn’t start seeing those cup cakes until it had already become crunch time. They were red velvet cake in silver cupcake liners. I had decorated the first batch and as I moved them some went flying off the board, like penguins into the ocean. Those little silver liners are slippery! I lost quite a few with that stupid human trick but it turned out that only one was beyond fixing. So I used some non-slip stuff (the same stuff that they use under rugs to keep them from sliding around) and worked late into the night finishing up the first round of cupcakes. But that was the beginning.

There they are

When one of the elves came in the next morning and looked at the cupcakes with all those little “L’s” on them… she dubbed them “the loser cupcakes” complete with full tilt New Yorker attitude and sign language. The name stuck. BL passed an edict that the client must NOT know that we named them thus, so the name really stuck.

Gourmet hockey pucks

I was stressing because the rest of the cupcakes weren’t even baked and they are time consuming. So she started the first batch but forgot to add in the rising agent and she didn’t figure it out until they were in the oven so the next batch of cupcakes didn’t rise. They tasted a little strange and they were very short and dense. She didn’t have much time to bake replacement cupcakes but she finally decided that she would at least try. It turned out that we still had to use some of the red hocky puck cupcakes to finish out the 250, but at least they were finished.

Just some of them

The bride’s Mom and Dad came in to package up the cupcakes. Each cupcake got the royal treatment in a red box with tissue paper and a ribbon with the bride and groom’s names on it. Only the Bride’s Mom wasn’t crazy about my little cookie cutter “L’s.” I didn’t blame her, I didn’t think much of them by that point myself. But it was the morning of the wedding and there they were, all 250 of them. BL scoured the order to see if anyone had written “cursive L” anywhere but there was nothing. It was sad because making cursive “L’s” out of icing would have been so much easier for me. The Bride’s dad just shook his head and told his wife “It is what it is” and everyone decided to be happy about it. (He was a freakin genius!)

They wanted to move the cart that I had put all the cupcakes on. But then they realized that there was no way to get the cart through that part of the bakery, it would just be easier to move them tray by tray. So the Bride’s mom picked up the one tray with the extras on it (that didn’t have the non-slip plastic on it) and I had to catch cupcakes like I was Michael Jordan. Loser cupcakes just kept trying to jump.

Mr and Mrs L

It is done and over. I imagine that most of the cupcakes in their pretty boxes have been devoured. It was a beautiful wedding and I’m certain that the new Mr. and Mrs. “L” are enjoying a lovely honeymoon somewhere marvelous. On the other hand, I don’t want to see another red velvet cake for a very long time. And 250 cupcakes? Never again!

And just for the record, it's the cupcakes that were losers, not the people. The people were great. And if you happen to know the lovely couple, remember that I was sworn to secrecy. :) (for all the good that did!) LOL!

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Little Bitty One

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:30:38 -0700

Little bitty cake

This little bitty wedding cake that turned out so cute. This wedding party had about 15 guests and was in a local restaurant. The cake icing was tinted a ginger color to match a paint chip (yes a paint chip from the paint department) that the bride gave us. Then swirls of ivory butter cream finished off the look. It was a cute little thing, it almost looked like it hadn’t quite grown up yet. There was a medallion with a monogram on it that also went on the cake but I forgot to take it with me on the delivery, and then when I went back to deliver that element I forgot to take the camera. Oh well, it was cute without it. The whole cake wasn't much taller than 12 inches, plus the topper. It's an 8 inch, 6 inch and a 4 inch. I'm pleased with it. I think the folks at the restaurant were going to move it, so I hope they didn't destroy it doing that. Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't my problem if something happens after I leave.

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all in a day's work

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:14:02 -0700

Funky Floral Cake

For a bridal shower where the bride hates pastel colors. They asked for fun, funky and bright.

Antzy cake

I was finishing up the order and Boss Lady was standing there looking at the cake. And I said "Yah know, I'd just like to do a row of ants all the way around the border of the cake." She squeeled and laughed and told me to do it. And she promised to take the heat if the client complained. :D So those little black dashes...

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Chocolate Choo Choo

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:57:42 -0700

Choo Choo Cake

This was an interesting project. A woman brought in her cake pan from Williams and Sonoma. They make beautiful things, but nothing a bakery would ever touch just because of the impractical nature of the equipment. This was a case in point. The client wanted the end product to look like the photo on the cake pan. Well, it was naked cake with a few candies glued to it. Cute, but hardly practical. Let that baby sit out for an hour and it would be hard and stale and nasty to eat. Cute but nasty. Hardly the reputation a bakery really needs. So we finally settled upon the idea of making them from Chocolate cake and putting on a very thin coat of chocolate ganache to coat them so that they would not dry out. Some of the detail from the pan was lost but not too bad. So I went back in with the icing to bring out the details and the client was very happy with how it turned out. And who wouldn’t love a chocolate cake frosted in chocolate ganache? Yummmmm!

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Baby Shower Cake

nobody@vox.com(Artzy Carmen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:46:04 -0700

Baby Shower Cake

I made this cute little baby shower cake for a lovely Momma who was tall and blonde and really beautiful with her little baby bump. And they loved how it turned out! I took the designs from the napkin they showed me and made the medallion based on a scrap booking quote. "Little hands and little feet make our life so very sweet."

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