cakes – little favors

From time to time I get requests to make custom cakes, perhaps it’s because I’ve made some for certain people, but the truth is that these custom cakes were made purely from spontaneity and the trust from these people that I could make something based off a vague idea.

I am by no means an artist – my true passion lies in creating flavours, not designs. It may be extremely hard to understand for someone who has never made a cake/cooked before, but creating custom designs takes up a lot of planning, practice and time.

I get it, most people want to see what they get before they purchase it, but something that is custom means that it has never been made before, therefore, there are no pictures to show. Because of the nature of nature, which I derive my designs from, it is impossible to replicate the exact same design. This is human made work, not something made from a mould.
This also brings up the other issue of people coming to me with ideas from other cake shops and asking me to replicate it exactly. I really can’t do it based off integrity, I always direct them to go back to the original place they got the design from.
Unlike other “custom design shops”, I don’t have a catalogue to browse through. Making these catalogues means investing a lot of time and money into the process.

The process of a custom order usually involves creating a proposal/draft of the idea and I use pictures from other sources to guide me through the process for a rough visual idea. Perhaps it’s a new process, but when I don’t receive some semblance of an idea, I really can’t make something out of nothing. It is a process that requires the client to put in some effort too into figuring out what they want for their cake so that I can birth that idea.
To begin the process, I ask for some pictures, a description of what they want, a color scheme or a mood board of sorts so that I know that we’re all on the same page.
And a reminder, I am NOT an artist, as in, I can’t draw to save my life I can only use my creative spark to guide me to arrange things on a cake which nature provides. I can’t sculpt flowers/figurines, draw cakes, nor do I intend on picking up any of those skills at this juncture.

Another thing is that because it is such a long process of planning, conceptualising, building, the amount that people are willing to exchange for the service often doesn’t translate into the amount of hours put into the process. A tiered/custom cake/custom request will likely not be less than $200, it could possibly reach into the thousands. That is just the truth of the matter.

You aren’t just paying for the ingredients. If for example, I had just been doing it as a favor to a friend way before I started making cakes as my full time job 10 years ago, perhaps I would have only considered the cost of the ingredients and then the time spent as a gift. But the reality is that there are MORE costs behind the product.

Here is a rough list of costs behind operating a cake business:

TIME – planning (so much back and forth between the client and business to come to up with a plan) sourcing for packaging/materials (sometimes having to go down to pick up the speciality one off items) and the actual hands on work of building the cake which takes up to 3 days (more if you make the decorations) – also I just want to say that after all the time and effort put into drafting up proposals, clients sometimes don’t reply (it’s okay to say no but most of the time, we don’t get replies!) or they take the proposals to someone else which is really a wasted effort – very common problem in other industries too like interior design, so I’ve heard.
Utilities – electricity (ovens – some items take longer to bake than others, stoves, lights, etc.), water (SO MUCH WASHING!)
Materials cost – purchasing speciality ingredients/decorations that possibly cost up to hundreds of dollars and this is just the cost price – to make money we have to mark up the price.
Packaging cost – have to purchase specialty cake boxes in different sizes that costs 10-20x more than regular packaging as they’re sturdier
Other running costs like website fees(~$120/month)/transaction fees (takes up a percentage of the price of items)/bank fees(~$10/month)/telco fees/printer ink fees/printing materials/etc.
Delivery fees/time – this is not free as delivering tiered cakes especially costs x2 more than a regular cake in order for it to arrive at the destination safely. We also have to make time out of our schedule to deliver cakes (depending on the size) at certain timings that may clash with pick ups.
Opportunity cost – which leads me to the next point of O.C.
These larger cakes take up much more time to make and space in the fridge where our cakes are stored and quite like booking out the restaurant for a few hours, you’ll have to pay a minimum fee to compensate the restaurant for its opportunity cost lost. If I could fit 8 cakes that require less of my time and sourcing for ingredients in the space that fits one large cake that takes up more time to make and space, these factors are considered too in the price of the cake.
miscellaneous costs – R&D cost (if it’s something totally new, trials will be run before the D-day which means that there’ll be wastage), kitchen supplies (parchment/foil/piping bags/cling wrap/cleaning supplies), upgrading skills/ideas through courses/travels, equipment costs
Salary, because this is a business. We don’t work for free.

It is really a lot to consider and most people don’t see these breakdowns.
This is just like any job/business where you get compensated for your service.
Basically, when you buy a cake, you don’t just pay for the ingredients.
If you buy an item that is made, you’re paying for the service of it being made. Just like an office worker’s time is compensated through their salary, likewise, any additional expenses incurred is claimed through the company.
My point is that, all these costs are properly compensated through the price that is set when we put prices on the items.

This process of making a custom design cake has been extremely hard for me to streamline and I’ve therefore decided to abandon it until I can figure out a better system that is a balanced use of my time, one which properly compensates the process monetarily and doesn’t burn me out.

On that other note, we have the general market’s expectations of what a cake should cost based off large scale company’s prices. e.g. getting a mango shortcake off the shelf at a large scale bakery may cost slightly less than what we would charge, but the scale of it allows them to purchase in bulk therefore reducing their ingredient/material cost and something that I found out recently was that by producing in excess to meet the demands of the general public, it also comes with wastage, but that wastage isn’t an issue as long as the profit is great. E.g. if I make a 10% profit out of 1mil vs 10k, that profit is substantial. To achieve that 1mil, more outlets are required to open to increase the output and reach, but with more outlets being open, it means that the accessibility is greater and wastage is higher. It is just a truth that there is wastage in these types of operations, there is no way around it. You can only predict based off general numbers, but the goal is to serve as many people as possible. I just can’t bear to see precious food going in the bin and I honestly can’t sleep at night knowing that there are hungry people out there who don’t have proper meals for days.
To meet the demands of large scale bakeries, the most efficient way to reach the end goal is often used. And that may mean using premixes like custard powders or whip topping “creams” that are made with an emulsification of water, PALM OIL, LOTS OF STABILISERS, sugars and barely a trace of dairy. Sure, it’s more stable, but it doesn’t taste good!!! Why do you hate “cream”? Probably because of this product that yields an unpleasant greasy texture and oily after taste that dairy cream does not have and is not.

So why do we do what we do? It’s because of a very simple idea – we just want food to taste good and feel good eating it. Does anyone resonate? I was honestly so tired of eating a bad slice of cake or an overpriced and underwhelming plate of food and after living in San Francisco and tasting high quality, fresh produce, it was really hard to turn back.
We know what goes into the items and are able choose better quality ingredients (that costs way more, but in return tastes better) – ingredients that may be what a fine dining restaurant uses to meet our personal expectations of what a dish should taste like and also we choose more whole ingredients.
Along with that, we’re able to control the wastage and curb that issue of wastage.

Is it something that needs to be talked about? Yes! Absolutely, if not the state of things won’t ever evolve.
I always believed that if you want better products, it comes with a price.
If you’re ok to settle on something that you can afford or just don’t appreciate, that’s also fine, just a different market. But I also believe that we should not expect something that is made better to cost less.