VAA 25th Anniversary

My mom asked that I make a cake for the VAA's AGM that was this past weekend. I felt quite excited to do this and a little apprehensive, didn't want to mess it up either :oP She presented me with the crest that she helped to design and I took it and blew it up to an 11x17 to fit on my 12x18 sheet pan. I love buttercream transfers, if you can colour and trace, you are pretty much unlimited to what you can draw with icing. Here is a shot of the logo being piped:

Here was the finished cake:

My yellow cake(vanilla/lemon flavoured)with homemade lemon filling and buttercream icing. I try to go thinner on the icing so the extra layer of the transfer isn't too much for the palette. I talked to my mom today and it sounds like everyone enjoyed the cake, and other orders may follow from other VAA locations. Could be great! I'm still concerned about my price point, as other local cake decorators are charging $120+ per layer/tier of cake. $65+ for customized cakes. Hmmm maybe I need to revamp my pricing more; I still want to stay competitive with SOF, Sobey's and Safeway, at the same time their idea of the logo and mine are on two totally different wave lengths. Most likely they would use the edible paper and scan the image, where as I hand piped the image that took me a better part of the afternoon and into early evening to achieve.
I also got a call from my Baking Bingo winner and will be working on a cake for her for this Saturday, I'm so excited. Not to give you any hints, but I feel honoured to bake a 'Welcome Home' cake for one of our troops. That is so touching. :o) Thanks so much for considering my talent for your reunion cake :o))

River City Treats Goes Beyond Family & Friends

Who knew that this Baking Bingo donation would pay off, but it did. tee hee hee
On the weekend I got a call from my babysitter's mom, whom also attended the Bingo and saw my portfolio, to ask if I could make her younger daughter's cake for her 13th birthday. Green w. blue polka dots, I can certainly handle.
Since then I have been devising a way to price out these cakes without pulling a number out of the sky, like I did with the hippo, and was grossly under cost. I figure if I don't, the chances of making money at this are pretty slim. I'm excited, as I already have a sketch, but am meeting with the daughter next week to confirm that my direction is what she wants. This 10" round isn't needed until the beginning of May so I've got plenty of altering time.
The next cake project I got was from my mom for the VAA 25th Anniversary party this weekend. Simple 12x18 sheet cake w. a buttercream transfer, similar to ones I've done in the past (Elmo, Scooby Doo for my kids)This one just on a much larger scale. Tuesday I tried drawing the VAA logo out on paper, but I was concerned with my proportions on the wild rose, so I opted yesterday to get the image blown up to an 11x17, which is about as big as you get on a regular photocopier, without going over board on buying poster size. I traced it onto wax paper last night and plan to ice it and freeze it for decorating tomorrow afternoon's pickup. I plan to pretty much have everything done today and put it together tomorrow.
So with all of this professional cake project booking, I thought it was high time to get business cards made up as well as actual invoices. I just back dated the last eight projects that I have done and have the two new for a "Current" file :oP Why do I suddenly feel like I am playing office :oP
My pricing is finalized for cakes, as well as cookies and cupcakes. I actually have a four sheet XL document that I punched out over the last four days, that also includes flavours and fillings charts. I think I've remembered everything. I even got business cards made up, I love modern technology - 250 business cards for $13.99, whoot, and I made them all by myself on my printer:o) I had to make up it's own template in the label wizard but I think they turned out well, and it keeps with the theme of the voucher I sent to the Bingo.

I'm probably going to revamp this site a bit to, to reflect this connection between my so-called business and this blog. Now to finish up as I have a busy day ahead of me and two boys coming to play with Stirling this afternoon from 2:20-4:30, fun fun. I just hope the weather stays nice so they can play outside:o)

No Baking to Share - but the Cookie Jar is Full

It feels strange not really having any real baking feats to share so far this week. Don't get me wrong I have been baking and puttering around my Kitchen-aid as usual , but no noteworthy items. Finally our cookie jar is full again, my usual chocolate chip cookies, so full we all had to eat a few so I could close it . Last night I used some more of the leftover cake pieces from the hippo cake and made strawberry shortcakes for desert. I almost took a picture, but I ate it instead tee hee hee. D saw its size and thought I was crazy - surprisingly he managed to eat it all too, and loved it. I took the cake and cut it in half horizontally and filled it with the strawberries and whipped cream that was leftover (I had to chop and whip of course)- still fresh as the day I bought them :o) Very delicious.
My baking bingo contribution, to our community league, for the grand prize, was a success and I look forward to making the winner the cake of her dreams when she calls! I just hope I'm given enough notice.
I'm itching to bake as there isn't really any cake in the house at the moment, other than a small piece or two of hippo - why is that making me nuts? It's almost an obsession, all in a good way. As Janel said - I'm starting to dream in cake :o)