Interns

Interns have helped me out a lot, actually most of my staff is composed of former interns. They work hard, don't get any money and are an incredible asset. Unlike a lot of places, the interns actually do cake baking and decorating. They also do mopping, washing and take out the garbage, but they really get their hands on experience with decorating. Almost from day one they are frosting and doing simple birthday cakes and very quickly move up to wedding cakes and carved cakes. The interns that I've had, have been extremely creative, I feel very lucky. 

Keri, my assistant that I lean on for so much of the design elements, is phenomenal with figurines and piping. Travis, who still works here on and off (a lot more on during the summer) can frost a cake as smooth as can be and his fondant work is just as smooth. And Emily... Emily is my current intern, her last day is this Friday and she will be missed. (although I'm hoping to snag her for some summer gigs!) She was responsible for the Sunset cake for her final project (I posted a few blogs ago). I asked for a beach themed cake and was expecting some sort of cake with shells on it. Instead she delivered a beautiful cake that invokes the sea shore, love, relaxation, weddings on the beach... really unique and innovative. I owe a debt of gratitude and a big thanks to the above people and my other former interns, Tiffany and Jess, as well.  

Alisha will be joining us in a few weeks and she has some pretty big shoes to fill. 

Ocean Cliff Wedding Show

Last Saturday Keri and I went to the Ocean Cliff wedding show. Wow, this one was so much better for us than last time. We were able to go down and set up the day before, allowing us to get there a bit later on Saturday, so we weren't as tired. We took Keri's French cake and her Blue Sea Shell cake and Emily's Sunset cake. We decided to go with really different, unique cakes to showcase, and I'm glad we did. 

The show started off slow because it actually started at Rose Cliff, then people were bussed over to Ocean Cliff afterwards. Around 1:30 it really started to pick up, we were swamped. We passed out all of our cards and gave away every cupcake (a bit of a cupcake problem occured, but we'll discuss later). We could have used about 2 dozen more cards, but we were right on for the cupcakes. We booked 6 tastings from the show and had 4 pages of sign up sheets! 

Clean up was a breeze we were out of there in 15 minutes. 

There were a few problems, but nothing major... our red velvet cupcakes were dry. We didn't refrigerated the cupcakes this time because (my theory, not proven) is that the wrappers pull away from the mini cupcakes due to the moisture in the fridge, and we didn't want this to happen. So we left them out... the chocolate bourbon and the chocolate chip cupcakes were fine, but the red velvet cupcakes had all the moisture sucked out of them by the cardboard box. The bottom of the box was dark grey with oil. I've never seen anything like it before. Obviously, refrigerating them keeps them moist and holds in the oil/butter. You learn something new every time! 

The other problem (ok, not a problem but an annoyance) was the other cake vendor. You know how you have a big sister who was there first, who all your teachers already know, who has a good reputation? You admire her for paving the way for you, you like her, but you also kind of don't like her... You are struggling for your place in this world and are fighting to not be overshadowed by her good name and reputation. You're finally confident in what you do, and she shows up and you start to doubt yourselves again? That's my relationship with another local cake company. 

They are good, they are well known, many of my friends had their wedding cakes made by this company (before I was around, of course) and the owner even talked to me personally when I was contemplating going into the business. I have high regards for them, and will refer people to them, when I can't do the cake. But still, I'm trying to make my way in the business and every where I turn, there they are. 

When we showed up on Friday to set up, we didn't see a table for any other cake vendor and we were syched! The area is set up so as you walked in the door there is a smaller round room that leads to the main room. When we arrived on Saturday the first thing we were greeted with was the other cake vendors cake dummies... a lot of them. They had that whole front room! They had the same 6' table we had, then a large middle table under the chandelier with 3 or 4 cakes on it and a photo book, then they had 3 or 4 other cakes on the piano. People were walking in and sampling their cakes right away! UGhhh!!!! There wasn't anything we could do and their cake dummies were more traditional than ours, so it was good we decided to go with the unique cakes, but it was frustrating! Oh well, I'm going to run into them time and time again, I just have to get used to it! 

I'll post pictures later... until then, eat some cake! 

Boxes, I Heart Providence and Cakes

First, the cakes.... Massie's M&M birthday cake.... (Keri did the M&M guys)

Then Charolette's 100th Birthday Present Cake ...

Tuesday night we were part of the I Heart Providence Event.. here's our table.... 

The event was ok, we met a lot of people and got our name out there, which is really important when you're first starting out. People loved the samples of red velvet, chocolate bourbon and 2 of our truffles, the coffee caramel, and the raspberry chocolate truffle. Many came back for 2nds and 3rds... but we didn't sell a lot. We had our 4 pack of truffles, some of the heart cookies and 6 packs of cupcakes. We were told that there might be 400 people, so we really baked a lot... 60 cookies, 18 packs of cupcakes and 60 boxes of truffles. I think we sold 1 pack of cupcakes, 8 0r so cookies and about 9 boxes of truffles... I wanted to sell more because 10% of the proceeds were going to the Genesis Center. We'll bump up our donation a little. 

And here are our boxes... aren't they cute? This is our wedding truffle box which hold 2. You can use them as place seating holders too.... They reverse to red... 

And these are the devil tail box which holds 4-5 truffles depending on the size of the candy. 
Devilishly cute. 

Lots of Cakes

Even though it was a slow week for the business we kept busy... 

   

Here are the cookies we're working on for Valentines. These will be available at the I Heart Providence Event on Tuesday as well as for purchase from us during the week. 

Here's (finally) a picture of Keri's Oh La La cake

Our intern Emily had her final project due and she did a new type of "Seaside" Cake. I think we'll call this "The Embrace" 

Keri did another version of a seaside cake that used sugar paste shells, giving the cake a nice clean crisp look while still giving you the feel of the ocean. 

And this is the birthday cake we did for Alexia. 

 

Valentine's Day Menu....

So I've gotten the Valentine's menu out to most of my customers. Why do I always feel like I'm under the gun! I'll post it here as well if any of you are interested give me a call. Oh... and my good friend Mike Ritz wanted me to mention that many of the following truffles will be available at the I (Heart) Providence event next Tuesday at the State House. You can get more information here.... 

We are previewing our 7 Deadly Sins and our 7 Heavenly Virtue Truffles line with 4 delicious truffles... 

Gluttony - Caramel with Sea Salt

Wrath - Three Pepper Caramel 

Diligence - RI Coffee Milk Truffle

Humility  - Chocolate Raspberry 

A box of 4 (1 of each) in our signature Red Devil Tail gift box is $9. 

A large 5" heart shaped, iced and decorated cookie is $4

A 6 pack of cupcakes decorated in pink and white with hearts is $12 and available in the following flavors (1-3 flavors per box) Red Velvet, Chocolate Bourbon, Yellow, Spice, Chocolate Chip and Princess (a pink cake with cherries and almond flavor) 

Call or e-mail orders by Thursday 2/12. Pick up available 2/9-2/14.