K8memphis

In Tennessee, or rather here in Shelby County, you have to have commercially zoned property. You can spend several thousand dollars applying for a zoning variance but none has ever been granted. I mean the residential to commercial zoning change for the purpose of doing baked goods, ie wedding cakes, legally. A $3000 door would be a freaking bluelight special, bargain basement priced no problem-o. Hence, the tea-room...

Yes I already did fools rush in where angels fear to tread & all that good stuff. I finally found a great employee--I'm deliriously happy--now I can do some marketing. A friend of the family so kindly brought in his whole office one day for lunch--my waitress had called in that day--I still am stressing over that one--it's great though. I'm LOVING it. Yeah and now I'm legal for CAKES too Earl Grey madeleine??? who knew??!! Thank you so much for all the great ideas. When I get my basic menu as ramped up as it's gonna get, I'll be back for some insight as to how to do the exotic fruit dealies. Ah yeah, I am a product of a strictly coffee drinking world. I would have never thought about this until I got a complaint--I had to go look them up online to see what they are to give you a for instance as to how clueless about tea that I am. But I'm learning. I fell in love with some thirty dollar cozies--hahaha--so I found some ceramic things you set the pot ont that have a tea light inside that do the same thing and I'll be able to keep them nice & clean. Going forward I'll probably do better to make some cozies. You are right on about the cheese thing. I've been mindful to try & not cheese everything out, but it is a struggle. Yeah, I'm gonna do a chicken apple walnut salald mini cream puff sandwich, a couple of the white cucumber things because for the simple reason the first one I ever had was last week when I tried it out--so just for nostalgia and for anyone else who's never had them--plus mine rocks--I make it out of my cheese dip Now I never thought of artisanal breads but I did want to make some breads myself to use. What I'm doing is refining and refining my menu, keeping the same items but making each item better. Gonna keep it simple, and consistently good. Yeah, I'm on low carbs myself, so I've been mindful of that too--great point. HalloweenCat, thank you so much for your excellent & long reply. You either affirmed some of my own musings or enlightened me entirely and I can't thank you enough. Oh and yes, I'm keeping some heartier fare on the menus also for just the reasons you stated--you are right on!! Oh and nothing traditional really. I'm into whimsy, and comfort and peaceful, sit and chat--my plan is for the tearoom to break even and the cakes to take me over the top. Ok, umm, cream tea is exactly what??? The cream & sugar already is added to the pot???? Or they put the cream & sugar in their cup themselves, then pour the tea??? I have the half & half little dooeys you use for coffee will that work??? A full size tea sandwich??? Not cut into little triangles??? Not with the afternoon tea though, right. Just as a lunch item. Thank you, booklovingbabe, you've given me much to think about! I just had my first tea house experience last month and I have to second this. The pastry course was two snowflake-shaped sugar cookies sandwiching this gorgeous mound of whipped raspberry mousse/cream/something (with this thin coat of glaze and pink sparklies on the top cookie), a little dark chocolate cup filled with mint mousse and topped with this tiny sparkly little star -- no clue what it was made of, but it melted in the mouth, and then a buttery sort of bar. I loved the presence of the bar -- it had just a very stout, straightforward taste that was a great foil to the sweetness of the other desserts. It managed to somehow be hearty and delicate at the same time. For the sandwiches, in addition to the traditional cucumber on white bread we had ham on a heartier wheat-type bread and a Waldorf chicken salad. Again, a great balance of different flavors and textures. For me that balance and the variety of offerings in the three middle courses (we had both plain and sweet scones) was one of the most striking parts of the experience. Edited for the "Oh and!": If you're going non-traditional, you might think about including mini-cupcakes in the final dessert selection. I've been mad about cupcakes lately -- there are SO many different things you can do with them, and they're definitely whimsical and fun. (Er, well, I think that's a non-traditional choice anyway. Either way.) ← Mini cupcakes would be a lot easier than freakin' petit fours. Geez I'd a never thought of plain 'proper' scones --I just thought of the fruity ones. Hmm, need to make both. Thank you, Rachel! for seconding halloweencat's thoughts and for your insights. I've never made a macaron (that I can remember) so I really need to. Thanks Thank you, CanadianBakin'!!! Great stuff!!! Thanks so much. My husband saw this post and said "are you crazy? No currants in scones! That's how wars are started!" (Forgive him, he's English....) Here's a few things he like to see in a Teahouse that reminds him of home: 1) None of the plates and utensils should match. 2) Pasties, lots of pasties. 3) Sausage rolls and beans. 4) Scones must be accompanied by clotted cream and strawberry jam. Warm scones are a plus. 5) The selction of teas should include teas from the North of England (i.e. Yorkshire Gold). No tea bags. 6) All teapots should be dressed in tea cozys. 7) Offer a selection of tea sandwiches. Filling should be minimal. 8) Pork pie. Shepard's pie. Chicken pot pie. 9) Carry a selection of imported (from England) of Cadbury's chocolate and Walker's crisps. 10) Ploughman's lunch. 11) Cheese and crackers. ← Well, I'm glad to hear shepard's pie--I love it! I totally had chicken pot pie on my first draft menu. Now it's evolved into an artichoke chicken thing (YES with cheese, halloweencat!!!) served on a big fat cream puff. The whole clotted cream thing is very very British and equally unamerican and the word clotted is generally not associated with food at all. I do want to have it but I'm still in the valley of decision on that detail. No problem on none of the serveware matching Umm, I'm starting off with tea bags. I'll acquire some loose teas as I go along here but remember what a neophyte I am. I'm just going with the flow. Hey at least I got a selection. I have plans to do better there. I tell you what happened though, I was all, 'oh yeah I gotta get loose tea of course'--my friend who goes to England constantly, blew it forever when she told me that they use teabags in the teapot infuser dealies in England hahaha Busted! Halloweencat and I were actually on the same page for the food items. Umm, I'm kinda combining a bit of high tea (meat) with the afternoon tea nomenclature, but I'm serving from 11 till 2 ish anyways so...I'm making it up as I go Yeah good idea--plus I will have a sugar free desert and I already have a fat free one. Thank you, Chefette, great idea! It's not really gonna be totally British everyday though, its whatever I want every day. Americanized as well as K8icanized. Yeah, umm, I'm a bit of a cafe/tea room--leaning more toward tea roomy--but ultimately its all just a huge front for my cake addiction (that I have wanted my own cakery forever) Large enough tables--yes yes-- and I want to get a nice settee too--going forward I can get an additional room & do it all in little couches & settees with tables for tea. Thank you for your ideas. Portia, what is the definition of a proper scone? The pumpkin scone recipe in your post looks good but... I would end up adding a mix of spices as you would to a pumpkin pie -- cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice... Perhaps some pecans... I don't want to sell "triangular weird scone wanna-be things" -- I want to sell scones! ← Well I think the pumpkin thing is close to my idea of a weird triangular wannabe scone, doncha think??? I mean I would not hesitate to make it & serve it,but it seems to be in that class of 'unproper' sconelettes, that I frankly would truly enjoy.

I taught myself how to do de schhhtrudel dough and was so surprised it was soo easy. Had a good book, I think it's called, "The Complete Book of Pastry, Sweet and Savory --of course I cannot find it right this minute and it's either by James Beard or won a James Beard award--but I always wanted to do a picture tutorial on de sscchhtrrudel dough 'cause it's so amazing, so incredibe that that little lump of stuff will stretch across the friggin' table and have a handfull leftover. You can see the flowers in the tablecloth underneath. It's awesome schtuff!!!!!!!!! Did we get the recipe for the spinach one??? I put cherries in my apple one edited to say, wow de schhtrudel would be cool in a tea rom huh?!

All opinions/ideas welcome. What goodies/specialties would you like to see or do you already enjoy at your local tea room like for lunch??? What would you like to see for Afternoon Tea?? Afternoon Tea being the one person serving on a little three tier tray with one tray of tea sandwiches, one tray of scones, cream & jam and one tray of desserts. We can Americanize this a bit of course. I'm more into shabby chic and whimsy as opposed to tradition & formal. But tea parties for sure!

All of them

Wow wow wow wow Wow! Too awesome!!! A hint for you for not working down to the last minute. It's just a hint. After 30 years of this stuff, I still get it down to the wire too often but this is how I try to avoid it. I try to do the last things first. Like for example for the next airplane cake maybe, do the box and pin stripes in advance of baking. I make my icings before I bake. Kind of change up the order of things--just a thought for you. Fantastic work!!! One other idea, set a timer to go off like every 15 minutes to keep you aware of time--because when a person is in creative mode, they are in the side of their brain where time does not exist. yes, I'm certifiably crazy. I've pulled too many wedding cake all nighters thinking about all this stuff way too much.

Fyi--You can use mayo too.

Oh my my my these sound soooooooooo good. Ok lemme get this straight. Choux batter (but maybe use that one recipe that chepeon said was her favorite by Pichet Ong---it has sweetened condensed milk in it) Oh oh oh, I was thinking you baked them, then filled, then fried. But you make the batter, pinch unbaked batter around frozen ganache balls then fry??? Do you freeze the ganache filled batter balls??? Could you??? I think Chefette says yes. Oh these sound wonderfully dangerous--ho ho ho fried chocolate!!! I can't wait to try these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, umm, what is the size of the finished product-ish?? I'm thinking about the size of a large donut hole????

Well if you got it all figured out math-wise, you could thread white string through evenly spaced little holes in the cardboard bakery type boxes. Dip the end of the string in wax to make it threadable. Or even thread it through a needle with a big head. ??? Going both ways to criss cross & hold securely--you just have to do the math. Just a wild random thought. It really wouldn't be that hard though. 'Member back in the old days when all baked goods would be wrapped up in white string??????

Whoo hoooo! Where's the high five smilie face??!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I hope to visit you there someday!!!!! LOVE the name!!! love love love the name!!!

Tweety, When I do a wedding cake, I control the size of the serving because I am controlling the price. It is not my concern if they serve other desserts or not in this regard. My wedding cakes are priced to serve the traditional size serving that Cheryl discussed. If the bride wants to serve a larger serving for whatever reason she orders more cake from me . I do not take it upon myself to grant larger servings based on their budget or their particular menu issues see what I mean?? That's just me. So I use my cupcake calculator. You need 150 servings. Each recipe or box mix of cake will make x amount of cupcakes. I use the figure 25 cupcakes per box mix or recipe because I round up at the end--25 is an easy number to calculate with for me. Just nail that detail down for yourself. How many cupcakes per mix do you want to calculate with.* Because I figure that each wedding cake serving is about the same size as a (deconstructed) cupcake--filled with filling & a nice load of icing--same square footage so to speak. So let's see by my calculations 150/25=6 you need approx 6 recipes or box mixes--maybe round up to 7 or 8 to allow for leveling etc. Now figure how much batter that will make. You can take that amount of batter and pour it into whatever configuration of pans you want. This chart from Wilton will tell you how much batter fits into which size pan and a bunch of other stuff. This chart from the awesome and legendary Earlene Moore is also an industry standard amongst cake deco people. To me, doing it where you pick the pan size first is like buying a random sized dress then trying to fit into it. You gotta figure if they are serving or keeping the top tier. I deliver a wedding gift with the cake of a 5" decorated cake all boxed & ready for the freezer so they can serve the whole enchilada at the extravaganza. Market this as a gift to her--she will love you for it. And there's other little gritty determinations like umm, if they serve different flavors people will want seconds. If there's a grooms cake factor that in. Stuff like that. If they are drinking, less cake will be eaten... *This (my) "cupcake calculation" works because you are communicating to non-cake savvy people. They can easily grasp that a 9x13 will make 24 cupcakes and that that plus fillings & icing is the size of the wedding cake serving that they are purchasing from moi. Easy peasy. Size of a cupcake. Also I say that if Aunt Louise's twin 14yr old girls are serving the cake, then order more servings because they will not cut it right. Or if she has someone responsible cut the cake accurately she can order the exact amount. Stuff like that...

I worked for a wild french baker* and he dribbled his "Grand Marnier stuff" (a l'orange extract ) simple syrup stuff, btw--Margaret Braun calls it a 'splash'. He just put his thumb over the opening and sprinkled, dribbled it out. So I adopted a squirt method where I just fill a squirt bottle that has a narrow opening and it's easier for me than brushing--I feel I have more accuracy & control. *This comment is in reference to one exact person who I used to work for. I always told him that Polish people (like moi) were better bakers by far than the French. He said, "What are the Polish famous for baking???" Ugh, agh, umm, I said, "Danish!!!"

I'm finding this discussion very interesting. It seems to say, 'don't go near the water till you can swim'. Of course there's a fair amount of devil's advocate going on to. However... Nothing worth while is easy. You never know till you try. One baker's failed chocolate cake is the next baker's brownie. Let your passion be your guide. JfinLA has a post about whithering bakeries. Oh my yes. The demise of the mom & pop bakery is legend. So if the owner will still do some catering, or is open to doing it going forward, and knows she needs a lunch counter, bistro type thing going, needs to multi-task as we love to call it, then it certainly has promise. Of course most new food establishments fail in the first year. That's why you do a market study, have a business plan and enough money in place to survive without showing a profit for x-amount of months, even 12. Doesn't mean the sky really is falling. It just means you gotta watch where you step. But apparently if you throw it on the wall hard enough often enough something is gonna stick. Fred Smith got a "C" on his thesis for a package delivery business. He is the founder of Fed Ex.

That's so awesome! Thanks so much for doing this for us all!!!

It's true that learning from other people is invaluable. However it is not required to stay in an extended teacher/student mode in order to succeed. You have a very choice opportunity--it is not that premature. Forty-five bistro tables yeah, you might wanna hire in some helpers. Hell, the average Momma could handle 4-5 bistro tables. Don't over think this. You've got a gig--get excited!!!! You've already gone to school & externed. Are you fast??? Can you get faster??? Sure we all could. Can you still learn?? Oh my yes. If your kid was 2 years old, that'd be a little different although still do-able if you want to. Four to five bistro tables plus pastries & whatever else, you sure can do. You're gonna hate yourself if you pass this up for some noble, 'I am not worthy' thought process. If all other things are equal. Ask me what I really think Yes, read Mel's bakery thing but realize that you are not the owner like she is. The owner of your bistro may only be able to afford you 40 hours a week. And they will use worker bees who get a smaller hourly wage to fill in the gaps as things get rolling. Take a deep breath, plan your work, work your plan, one step at a time, watch for how you can improve your process for next time. Here is a problem though, "How confident are you in your organizational abilities? This, I am good at. But, just because I am organized does not mean I will be able to get it all done." Why cancha? Start it today & finish it tomorrow then. Make something else. Yes you can.

Sweetside, Sweetie, Cheryl, you can do anything you want to do. What else could you ask for in the way of a sweet pastry job??? If you did not take this job, what would make the next offer better???? Getting in over your head is the best way to learn how to get it done if indeed you would be over your head at all. You would get to grow with the business--invaluable opportunity. How is your mise en place??? Are you fairly quick??? Are you quick at all??? That's what you wanna major in. You can fake or learn all the other stuff--you need to be organized and able to produce. Can you intertwine tasks??? Like while the bread is kneading, package up the cookies, set the bread to rise, start pies & scones, punch down the bread, get the pies out of the oven... blah blah blah??? If the owner wants to take a chance on you, take the chance that is offered. Nobody is in the league of everybody. Be your own league. The only thing that I question about what you wrote is that for me, I make beautiful no holds barred desserts/cakes for my family. At work, I am under someone else's thumb and under their budget restrictions as well as limited to the products that they are able to buy too. I'm too old to be very idealistic--while working for someone else. Which is why I wrestle moment by moment almost about starting my own place. But I still say go for it. I mean the mediocre desserts sold well if the volume was decent. It is about selling.

I promise, I can smell that pie every time I scroll by...snifffffff, ahhhhh.... ...scrolling left-handed that is...

That reminds me, I went to the doc yesterday--ironically I have no ill effects like carpal tunnel from eons of cake deco but I have a chronic tennis elbow from clicking the &%$@ mouse. Tennis in the elbow is not a pleasant thing so I treated me to a wonderful bag of sugar free orange slices--the jelly kind y'know--well well well 4 of them are only 60 calories-- shoot, I ate the whole bag, 150 calories. I was soo friggin sick with cramps and et cetera et cetera et cetera from the malitol or whatever -ol stuff it was. Sooooo unmercifully freakin' sick. But the orange slices were amazing--deadly good in fact. (oh the pain! And now back to your regularly scheduled no holds barred vicarious dessert eating ...

I have a digital thermostat on the oven itself here at home. Jeez if I didn't loose SEVENTY FIVE degrees making some cakes... I got the oven heated up 25 degrees too hot, opened the door, shoved in the cakes, quickly poured boiling water into the two water baths, shoved back the rack, closed the door, >>pant pant<< turned the oven off & then right back on to see the temp--lost 75 degrees--so I was still fifty degrees off so just opening the dang door can kill yah. I need to put some stones in there too.

Perhaps americanized it's pronounced, 'choc-La-teer' and the french pronounciation is the pretty one like filipe so aptly spelled out for us. And Filipe, the 'ti' is like the do re me fa so la ti type tea, right? shoh coh lah tee ay Is the emphasis on the shoc oh lah TEE ay or the SHOC-oh lah tee ay??? I LOVE doing the pronunciations of stuff because for the most part until food tv, I've only read the words, never or rarely heard them.

Sometimes they are iced in it... When I was a little kid and we 'went to town' we would eat lunch at Walgreen's if Mom was flush. They had cakes in a display case right at my eye level--the icing on the German chocolate's always looked kinda mottled camo greenish brown, lumpy & scary. I was morbidly fascinated by them, but I didn't want to get too close to the case either, when Mom paid the check up front. I mean, come on, did it not look like the smelly stuff the janitor poured the powdery stuff on at school when my friend got sick??? I could not figure out how they got the cakes in the display case and why they would put those freakish ugly ducklings in there with the pretty ones. I was always relieved that they were behind glass and I couldn't smell 'em, all things considered.

No offense to anyone but tres leches, even looking at it, makes me ill. I just cannot deal with all that sweet milky soft wet stuff. I don't think I could even make it if I had to. I cannot deal with certain grains & sugar--like no rice pudding for me. I eat savory oatmeal too with salt no sugar. But I'm eating dark chocolate right now and drinking my Black muscat dessert wine that chef-boy got me for Christmas. I've gained friggin weight for the past two days too. Must finish wine quickly.

Raise it to four (copies)??? Maybe get someone to translate it for you just on a one to one basis.

Thank you, Neil, that was awesome!!!