Daria & Travis Wedding Cake

Daria n Travis Wedding Cake, a photo by Baking Jeannie on Flickr.

This cake was delivered to The Ancient Spanish Monastery, North Miami Beach, FL for the wedding of Daria & Travis.

Lemon cake filled with lemon curd and Swiss meringue buttercream then covered with fondant. Gumpaste orchids and flowers along with fondant drapes decorated the cake.

Andrea & Christopher

Andrea, a photo by Baking Jeannie on Flickr.

This buttercream covered wedding cake was delivered to the Pembroke Falls Country Club, Pembroke Pines, FL for the wedding of Andrea and Christopher. The display was made of champagne and amaretto cakes filled with Swiss Meringue buttercream and covered with American buttercream.

New Kitchen Tools: Email & Smartphone

 

Imagine this: getting a wedding cake order; decorating and delivering the wedding cake without ever seeing the bride or groom!  Impossible? Well, in this day of  instant messages, text and email it can be done…and in style too.

Each week my mailbox is bombarded with request for wedding or specialty cakes and a few of them are like this “…I need a wedding cake this weekend…!!!” Being a custom cake shop where our cakes are made to order and having a shared kitchen where customers can’t just ‘drop in’ without an appointment, I have learned to find ways to meet my clients needs using the best technology on hand: my Blackberry Torch 9800, QuickBooks and a Dell Inspiron 17R. They are tied to me just like my apron.

So when a client emailed me from the Middle East and asked if I could do her wedding, I was a little hesitant but felt better when I realize it would be in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. However, the wedding was in three weeks and she was going to New York, then California before coming to Florida the Wednesday before the wedding! I was like, “yikes!” We shoot emails, to each other with description of cake, the flavor, the buttercream and where to deliver; send invoice and get paid via QuickBooks within clicks and taps on a keyboard. How easy can that be?

Here the bride and I exercise blind faith and trust in each other. She is trusting that I will do a good job on her cake; where I am hoping I will be paid and the cake is worth what she paid. Anyway, I would not recommend this for all cakes.

Walk good and happy caking.

Lavender Bows & Roses Wedding Cakes

 

The cakes to the left weighed over 70 pounds each! It was a fruit cake covered with almond paste and fondant. Usually I would make the cake myself, but this time the two brides had their mother bake the cakes and had me decorated them. It was a challenge to how much I could lift.

Wedding Cakes–Summer of 2011

May and June were our busiest months this summer and we had more than enough cakes for our small operation. Can you believe that July and now August we purposefully took less orders in order to get a break? Well, July I took time to spend with hubby celebrating our anniversary as well as taking the time to focus our energies.

Here are a few of the cake we made:

Ariael & Brodrick’s Wedding - Fort Lauderdale, FL	Kathy & Marwan’s  Wedding - Fort Lauderdale, FL
LaToya & Markis Wedding - Sunrise, FL	Nancy & Joey’s Wedding - Pembroke Pines, FL
Fireproofing Your Marriage - Calvary Chapel Sawgrass Church, Davie, FL	Kendra & Steven’s Wedding - Boca Raton, FL

Fireproof Your Marriage

Another of my all-time favorite cake for our Fireproof Your Marriage class at my church, Calvary Chapel Sawgrass in Davie, Florida. It’s usually a black and white theme and Bonnie gives me creative freedom with the cake design.

The cake was for a small group of eight couples, hence the small cake. Flowers are white roses and hydrangeas made using the Wilton Gumpaste which I love to use for making sugar flowers. I found it dries quickly and can roll very thin. I made the cake four alternate layers of white chocolate and chocolate (to reflect the black and white theme) cake filled with French Vanilla buttercream and chocolate fudge.

Apryl’s Baby Bump Cake

 

This is another first for myself and Chef Deloraine, a baby bump cake. Deloraine carved the cake and I decorated it to resemble the dress Apryl wore to her Baby Shower.

When Apryl asked me to do her baby bump shower cake I was excited as usual because it would be my second baby shower cake for Aprly. We first met about four years ago when she and Aubrey were having their first child, Austin, who’s cake I made. Ever since she has always celebrated their family’s events with one of Blue Ivy Cakery cakes.

The bump was carved using a 10-inch round, eight-inch round and the boobs from two halves of the Wilton Ball pan. The cake flavor was coconut with Swiss Meringue buttercream. By the way, Apryl had two cakes for her baby shower: the baby bump (above) and a tiered lady bug theme cake (below) to welcome Baby Alyssa Rose to the Davis family.

Graduation Cake

 

A cake for Krystal’s graduation party in Cutler Bay. Red velvet and vanilla bean cakes covered with Swiss Meringue buttercream  fondant with frosting sheet animal prints. The pompom bow made with sugar paste. Another fun cake for a very happy client.

Answering The Tasting Question

It's difficult turning your beloved hobby into a business. Since it is not easy separating doing the things that feels good from the more practical thing which makes a business operates profitable and become prosperous. For me one of the challenge is answering the tasting question when potential clients call. There is a big difference between a custom cake shop and a bakery...I bake cakes to order, therefore I consider my business a custom cake shop. Cakes are not bake daily and placed in a glass case awaiting customers. My service is customized and personalized for my clients.
 
Being the owner of a very small custom cake shop I receive call and emails daily requesting quotes for cake and cake tasting. It's exciting getting calls and emails with the potential of getting new business, but the cost of cake tasting, when I was doing it FREE was killing my bottom line. I found I was baking more tasting cakes than I was baking cake for serious business. I was offering a delicious cake at a price reflecting the work that goes into my product, however, those requesting tasting would rather pay less for good work. When I have done that I found I was working twice as hard for far less doing more work which was not appreciated, not even with a "thank you" email later. For a while it was a turnoff because there was no way I could justify to my husband that I could make my business profitable if I ran it the way I was doing it. After getting tips from other decorators and planners I changed my operations.

First I realize I was not competing with the local supermarkets for cake business because my cakes are made from scratch. Next, I am offering my services to those wanting a special type of cake at their event because they have certain preferences, relishes the fine taste of a cake baked from scratch with their own personalized decorations. Plus they are willing to pay the cost for this type of service. In the process of marketing my business, it became clear to me last December that I was really under valuing my work. I took my album with pictures of some of my cakes to an event planner and he was very impress with my work (especially the sculptured cakes) and asked what my prices were. He was shocked when compared with cakes other baker created for some of his events how I was giving mine away!

Now I'm charging for tasting appointments and offering the purchase of tasting cakes if they want a specific flavor. The result, serious clients who are not wasting my time wanting five different flavors, sketches and loads of other stuff then later gives the business to someone else. I am getting more clients who book their weddings and parties after the tasting and consultation because they love what they tasted and would love to have more. That's how I see it.

In essence it is looking at the value I place on my work and less about the cost of tasting. What are your thoughts?

Inserted from: Dreamers Into Doers--Martha Stewart.com

Copyright by Jeanette Jackson of Blue Ivy, LLC. If you would like to post any of my photographs, please contact me. Thank you!

Jordan Is Two!

 

Happy Birthday Jordan! This was a cake made for a very sweet young man called Jordan who celebrated his 2nd birthday on Saturday. He celebrated it at Chucky Cheese in Pembroke Pines, FL with his family and friends. White chocolate cake with American buttercream and fondant decorations.

Until next time, happy caking and baking. Walk good.

Baking Jeannie

A Big Heart for Baby Christian

This weekend I had this greatest pleasure of doing a baby shower cake for a baby who has a remarkable story. The short story is, he has been adopted into a family far larger than is mommy and daddy. It’s into the heart of all those who hears the miraculous way God placed him into the arm of a loving couple and into our hearts.

After I had setup the cake and took two other pictures that I noticed this huge heart over the cake table. Celia said she had it from a wedding and thought how appropriate it would be to have it hanging over the cake table. It was like one of those ‘aaawwwe’ moments (seeing the Big W in the movie, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963).)

Hope your weekend was filled with the grace and love of God in the same way we embraced baby Christian in our lives.

Happy caking and baking. Walk good ‘till next time…

Baking Jeannie

Bumpy Delivery–Red Roses Wedding Cake

For those days delivering cake when you don’t feel like a Cake Boss!

No matter how you try to deliver a cake in the best condition possible, some times the ride can get really bumpy for delicate cakes.

Last month I worked hard on over two dozen red roses and buds for a wedding cake which was delivered to the quaint Redlands Golf and Country Club down in Homestead, Florida. If you are familiar with South Florida and South Miami-Dade the Redlands is considered “rural” since the area has a number of farms and livestock. Travelling from Broward County we took the turnpike, then west on Kendall Drive and south on Krome Avenue. During our drive I believe I counted us going over three set of railroad tracks! That can’t be good for a stacked three tiered buttercream cake even if I was driving a Cadillac.

About three blocks from the club, the unthinkable happened…one of the dowel skidded on the greaseproof cake board that the bottom cake was on causing the two top tiers to collapse onto the bottom tier. When I asked Rena, my able assistant with this cake delivery, to check on the cake in the back, I went into shock when she shouted: “Oh my! Jeanette…the cake!!!!!” That was enough to cause me to take my eyes off the road and look behind to see the nightmare any cake decorator dreaded happening to them. The smell of sweet buttercream and the aroma of fresh cake mingled with my panicking “Ooohh nnnooooo!!!!” was enough to make me pull the vehicle over, yes on very rough swale, that was . You maybe wondering if I took pictures of the catastrophe…no, I didn’t that was the furthest thing from my mind. All I was thinking about was, how am I going to fix it in time for the wedding. Thank God I usually plug a bit of extra time in the event something like this happens. However, I do have pictures of the cake before the collapse and what I actually displayed. The chef at the club humored me when I was busy patching the two damaged tiers by saying that he felt like he was watching Cake Boss. At that time I did not feel like Buddy but I asked he for two aspirins for the headache (LOL).

This is the cake before we started the drive (below). Notice there are four tiers…

This is the cake we displayed (below). Ooops! We only have three tiers where did the other go? Left in the kitchen to be cut and server. Yes, I know it’s an expensive bad habit I have, but I always make more than enough cake, for this very same reason (LOL).

Since this delivery I am no longer takes cakes stacked before setup unless I am travelling in a hovercraft or we are in the real space age.

Happy caking and baking ‘till next time so walk good…

Jeanette “Baking Jeannie” Jackson