ohmyganache

Wow, thanks for all the great ideas!

Anybody ever make or seen a divorce cake? We have a client that wants to buy one. We were thinking of doing a stacked cake with some sort of 'divorce' theme. Any ideas? Suggestions? Has any one ever even seen one?

I'm really jonesing for some Indian or Pakistani food. I San Francisco, all the places were low-end, nothing fancy, but really really tasty. All the places I go to on the East Coast are more high-end... white table-clothes, sterno heated dishes, fancy dress for the waitstaff. I just want a greasy spoon type indian joint. Are there any in south Jersey or Philly??? Other than that, what are peoples favorite indian or pakistani in general?

Hey. Not sure if this is the most appropriate spot for this thread, but... Has anyone ever heard of or used Wedding Cakes Across America to market wedding cakes to brides via David's Bridal? I spoke with a rep the other day, and the program sounds great, but it's pretty darn expensive, so I'd like to get some other opinions on it... The idea is that David's Bridal uses your bakery as a preferred cake vendor. Nice, because lots of brides go to David's Bridal even though they may not get their dress there. Cost is between $250 and $300 per month, depending on the payment plan. I'd like to start bringing in more wedding cakes! Help! Thanks!!!

Sweet. Thanks!!! I'll do some ordering soon.

What kosher cheese options are there for me? Cabot cheeses are kosher (and very tasty), but what other options do I have??? Thanks!

Ah, Paul. We went there every once in a whole when we lived in Paris... I'm dissapointed that there doesn't seem to be more! We're staying with Jill's godparents who will be taking us somewhere they told us about...

Hello! My wife and I are taking a trip to Ft. Lauderdale next week, and need to check out some good bakeries. We own a bakery in southern New Jersey, The Sweet Life Bakery. All help is appreciated!!! Thank you. -Stephen

Nice looking yule logs! Here's ours...

Hello folks. I feel like I say this every time I get on, but sorry I haven't written in so long! I'm sure everyone knows how much work it is to open and run a little bakery... but man, it really is a lot of work!!! The sad thing is that I don't get internet reception in the bakery, and I can't exactly justify sending the money on an internet connection at the moment. More important bills to pay... food, labor, gas, electric, marketing, my God there are so many checks to write. It's pretty crazy the amount of money that flows in and then flows right back out! We've been good at keeping a little extra in the checking account from all that cash flow, but we've still got a long way to go until I'm comfortable with the financial situation. Check out this e-mail I just got from a customer... --- "Hi Sweet Life, I'm writing to let you know about what my entire office thought about a birthday cake we ordered from you in November. We ordered a white cake filled with chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream icing for one of the girls at work. When I came and picked it up, it was so pretty! You put orange leaves on it and some little details since it was right before Thanksgiving and the "Happy Birthday" you wrote on it was done beautifully. When I picked up the box that it was in, I couldn't believe how heavy it was! LOL When I got back to the office, I had to weigh the cake out of curiosity. I made everyone in the office lift the box and guess what it weighed. It weighed over 5 lbs.!! We always get a cake for everyones birthday at my office and we usually just settle for a crappy supermarket cake. But, I had been in your bakery once before and bought some yummy goodies and thought we'd give you a try for a cake. What a great idea that turned out to be! The cake was absolutely delicious!!! The icing was something we've never tasted before! I mean, obviously your icing is what icing is supposed to taste like and we loved it!! The cake was moist and so good that we all had trouble describing how much we liked it. We knew at that moment that we could NEVER again settle for a crappy supermarket cake! So, with all that being said, you have definitely gained our business for future birthday cakes and any other yummy goodies we want!!! I wish you much success in your business and I look forward to doing business with you soon! (we have a xmas party in a couple weeks and we have another birthday coming up at the end of the month) P.S. We've been telling everyone we know about your bakery!!! The best advertisement is customer referrals!!! Thank you, Renee (manager for QC Labs in Vineland)" --- Oh that made my day! If anyone has any questions, please ask... I'll try my hardest to reply. Remember though, it is December... -Stephen

We have cake scraps at the bakery, and although we're finding uses for them, we still have a surplus. We dry them out and use them in the crumb cake topping, in the almond cinnamon swril filling... we're tried mixing them with leftover bits of buttercream and pastry cream, but they haven't been selling fast enough to make up the difference. We make rum balls. None of these actually use a lot of scrap, so I just don't know what to do and I HAVE throwing cake out! HELP!

Nice demo. We're making them for the local Jewish Federation, and we're filling and then frying. It's working out well, and only a few have leaked.

The area that we are opening the business is in a federally designated Empowerment Zone... so we're getting our loan through the Cumberland Empowerment Zone (Cumberland is the county we're in). They get thier funding in conjunction with the Urban Enterprise Zone. I'm not exactly sure what the scope the UEZ is... not sure if it's only in New Jersey or if it's federal. What this boils down to is that the area that the bakery will be in is targeted for redevelopment, so there is money to be lended out at low rates to favorable businesses. Our bakery seems like a wonderful fit for the city's vision for the future, so we're getting support from the city, county, and state. Because there are so many government agencies involved, it's taking a long time... longer than we anticipated and longer than he hoped. Fortunatley, our landord is being super cool about the delays... although the same can not be said for the previous tennant and our real estate agents. But as we keep telling them, they're just going to have to wait like we are. We moved into an office today that is located across the street from the bakery. We're quite excited about this, it'll help us stay organized and it's big enough to use for storage of dry goods and paper products as well.

Hello all. Wow, I'm awfully sorry that I haven't written in a while. I know I should have been informing everyone of our trials and tribulations, but when it gets busy... eGullet is not high on the priority! I haven't even visited the site in God-knows how long... but I'm here now and I'll try my best to update what's been going on. First of all, let me say that we're not open yet. We haven't even moved into the space yet. It's still the same place that I mentioned several months ago, but because we're getting our funding through the State government... it's taking a very long time to go through the motions and paperwork and general crap that's involved in asking the gov for help. We should be getting the money in a month or so. Since it's taking so long, we went to our bank to request a short-term loan so that we can move into the space and begin the renovations and inspections. Hopefully, that'll come through late next week, but more likely early the week after. During this time, we've been sourcing out purveyors and farms. The network of farms in this area is pretty amazing. We're going to get a lot of our fruit from Mood's Farm, which is pretty close to us... about 20 minutes. They have (at various times throughout the year) sweet and sour cherries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, apples, pumpkins, grapes, apricots, plums, and more that I can't even think of off the top of my head. And most of these fruits are offered in several different varietals, so we've got options baby! The owners are very nice and the fruit is very good. We've also done general networking, spreading the word about our future bakery. Talking to everyone we know and passing out a lot of business cards has been a daily ritual. We've been directing everyone to our website, which was done by a small web design business in north Jersey. 7m Design Studios did an amazing job with the site, and everyone we ask seems to really like it. Super professional, and very nice... we're very happy with the work they've done for us. I'm glad to pass along their info, so please check out their website and don't hesitate to contact Kristi if you need some work done. Their site is http://www.7mdesignstudios.com/ We do have some concerns as we get closer to opening, which is understandable and not too surprising. There are doubts about the area that we're opening in, about how much trouble the city is going to give us in inspecting and licencing, about the bill we're going to get from the lawyer, about if we're going to be able to pay this loan back at the end of the day! But for every doubt, there are two instances of excitement and opportunity. There is definitely a market for our product, the downtown area is under heavy revitalization, there is a school/community center opening in December two blocks from us. The police headquarters and city hall and the school board and law and accounting offices are all hungry for pastry and thirsty for coffee. We're just getting very anxious to move in and start baking. We miss it. We miss the routine and the smell and the cakes in the oven and the feel of the piping bag in our hands. We're looking forward to meeting people and building relationships with our customers... and of course, at the end of it... we're waiting to make a little money!

The little cafe accepted our offer today! We're excited and nervous of course. We meet with the landlord on Monday to discuss the lease. The lease is up at the end of this month, so we need to figure out whats going to happen after that. We expect for the rent to go up a reasonable amount, but we'd like to not have to pay rent until we're actually up and running. The morning began with a meeting with the 'executive director of economic development' for Vineland. As well as the 'director of redevelopment.' Fancy sounding names... they gave us the phone numbers of the urban development zone people and the cumberland county empowerment zone people. We're hoping to obtain our investments from two small business loan programs, the cumberland county empowerment zone, as well as the cooperative business assistance corporation. Both provide mirco-loans to small businesses like ourselves... so we'll see what happens. The urban development zone lets us buy equipment and supplies tax-free, as well as only collecting 3.5% taxes from our customers (half the normal tax rate).

Funny that you ask... I was just coming back here to update what's going on (I haven't been on eGullets in a while...). We have found a spot that we like located on Sixth and Landis. It's currently a small cafe, called the Rise and Shine Cafe. The owner is selling it because she can't work in the restaurant business anymore (too hard on the body). They have some equipment that we need, but we'll have to buy a few things. Some minor renovations will need to be done. The space is SMALL, but will actually be perfect for us because it will be super efficient. It's already kitchen-ready, which is key. It's located in the same building as the Vineland Downtown Development Project headquarters, and is right across the street from some development that is going on. (We're actually serving on two of the committees that help to guide the revitalization process and will likely be in charge of the farmers market in the summer) It's three blocks away from a $40 million dollar revitalization on East and Landis, and is two blocks from a new school that is under construction. It's also in the immediate vicinity of city hall, police headquarters, law offices, accountants, and retail shops. Landis Avenue is in the middle of a revitalization project, which we hope will continue to be successful. We went to the Small Business Development Center in Atlantic City for a once over of the business plan, and they seemed pleased. We spoke with our real estate agent a few hours ago, and we will be putting in our bid on Thursday. I have to run, I've got a million things to do! I'm sure there will be questions and comments, and I promise to TRY to answer them all... Ciao.

Ok, here goes... We've spoken somewhat with the director of the federation about these topics, and we're meeting with the Rabbi on tuesday. From what we understand, they do not want us to be super-strict when it comes to all the kosher and jewish laws. A dariy bakery is fine, they just want a parve option or two for people who are having meat for dinner. We will not need to be closed on Saturday or during passover. They want us to do what we're doing now, just tweaked a little bit. They don't want us to alienate the customers we have now by branding ourselves as a 'Jewish bakery.' We'll be a bakery that happens to be kosher. It doesn't sound like the jewish population here is very hard-core in thier laws, but that's what we're meeting with the Rabbi for on tuesday. We want to make sure we're on the same page. I love hearing from you, you keep me thinking real! As I mentioned before, we're keeping the same basic concept, but with kosher items thrown in the mix as part of our menu items. Bread will be a part of it, but it will not be all that we'll do. The carb thing hurt bakeries a few years ago, but is over now (from what I've seen and read). We are planning on having a few tables and offering some breakfast/lunch items. The only issue is that if we're kosher, we can't have any meaty items. There are no vegetarian restaurants in the area, so that's what we're leaning towards right now. And I make some killer tofuna salad and hummus sandwiches. Charging a lot sounds like a fantastic idea, I just need to do some research to find out similar prices on kosher items... Thank you so much! So maybe 'scraping' was too harsh a word, and perhaps I didn't explain well enough. But like I mentioned a second ago, we're still going to be doing mostly the same stuff that we're doing now. But the business plan is going to take some modification... maybe that's a better word! So yes, this is still what I want to be doing in a year, 5 years, etc... Thank you for bringing that fact to my attention though... On another note here, as Jill and I were leaving the kitchen today, Rosa (the owner of the restaurant we were in), introduced us to the owner of a bakery in town. He's looking to sell his place (he didn't say which bakery, but I figured it out). His friend owned the original bakery, but passed away a few years ago. Before he died, he told his friend to take care of his nieces who worked at the bakery. So he bought it and they moved the bakery into Vineland proper, got a nice little storefront up and running, but there were problems (apparently). It seems as though the nieces don't really care for the job of actually running a bakery, and it shows because their quality has gone down down down since they opened the new place. Everyone is town has said this. The gentleman I spoke with said that the girls just don't care anymore and they want out. So he's looking to sell... We're meeting with him to discuss...

I'm back. Sorry to have kept everyone waiting for so long. I've had several people mention to me that they're waiting for the next posting... So a lot has happened since I last wrote. We're moving out of the restaurant that we're in on Friday. When we moved in, the owners said that, just so we know, the bylaws of their shopping center do not allow two businesses to be run out of the same space. But not to worry about it, because no one will care... well somebody cared, and we're so we're leaving at the end of the week. We're disappointed, but it'll work out. Working in this spot got us through the busy Thanksgiving/Christmas season intact, with a little money in our pockets and some new customers in the wings. We also had the opportunity to develop a better idea of what the Vineland market needs, which will help us out in the long run. A few weeks ago, the director of the Jewish Federation of Vineland came to us with an offer. Apparently, there are no kosher bakeries in the area, so the Jewish community goes to NYC for baked goods, or gets stuff mailed from Toronto of all places. We sat down with her for a meeting, and she said that her group would be willing to help us open a Kosher bakery, by providing support in terms of a lawyer, real estate agent, rabbi, financial assistance, and advertising within the Jewish community. Jill and I researched the kosher deal and asked a lot of questions, and it turns out that having a kosher bakery is not as difficult as we were expecting. We can do almost everything that we're doing now, with the addition of having a few kosher options to sell. We don't need to market ourselves as a kosher bakery, but we are for the people that care. For instance, the bakery Bread Alone in upstate New York is Kosher, which I never knew until I started researching online. And of course, this means a market on the Jewish market in South Jersey. They have a few items that they specifically want, such as challah, rye bread, and some pastries, but we don't have to do only kosher items or Jewish pastry. Since they want bread though, the concept of The Sweet Life is going to change dramatically. If we're going to introduce a little bread into the mix, we need to offer a substantial amount of bread to cover the costs of getting a bread-ready bakery. And we keep hearing a lot of requests for bread in the area. There are no good bread bakeries anywhere in the area, and we keep hearing the steady hum of 'a need for bread' from our customers and restaurant alike. All this means, scraping the original business plan and starting a new one for the 'redesigned' Sweet Life, which is what we're doing now. So like I said earlier, perhaps our having to leave our kitchen now is good thing by allowing us to focus on this new concept. If anyone has thoughts or ideas for us, please let us know. If you know anything about Jewish baking, what to eat on certain holidays, or any special recipes you have... please let us know! You all rock! Tonight, Jill and I are going to a cooking demonstration at Bellview winery, where we will be conducting a demonstration of our own on Valentines Day. It should be fun... I promise to write again sooner than last time. Ciao.

wow, thanks! I'm going to have to read this one a little more carefully and craft a repsonse to it. But it's full of good info, thanks a bunch...

srhcb, we tried out your recipe this morning. We'll let it set up tonight, and we'll roll it out and bake it tomorrow. Thanks... K8memphis, we'll try your tomorrow. Thank you. SushiCat, I'd love to see your recipe with the butter and almonds. Since it has almonds in it, I'm not sure if it would be cost effictive to use on a decorative house, but it sounds tasty... Thanks all for your help!

Hello all. Wow, it's been a long time since I posted over here in the B&P section...! Does anyone have a good recipe for gingerbread decor dough? It's the time of the year again for gingerbread houses. I've never found a recipe that I've totally liked, so I'm putting up to you all to supply me with a sturdy, easy, and cheap dough that does not spread when you bake it. Thanks!!! And I shameless promotion here... check out the thread on my wife and I opening our bakery in the New Jersey Forum. We're going to be making a gingerbread house for the restaurant that we're working out of...!

Sorry it’s been a while since I wrote ya’ll. We’ve been busy, of course, since it is that time of the year. We did our first ‘Sweet Life’ wedding cake today, and we felt it looked pretty good. We were happy with it, and I hope the couple was as well! The reception was small, but was at a nice local restaurant. We dropped it off and met the owner, who was very impressed with our cake and us. She was super excited that there is a place for people to get specialty cakes in the area now. There really was nothing… she was telling her guests that Shop Rite or Acme were the only options. Well no more! She also wants us to come by later this week with some samples of cakes and banquet desserts… We also are working on making some desserts for an Italian deli down the street from us. They’re looking for some simple Italian stuff, nothing crazy fancy, and that’s just fine with us. In addition, we’re talking with the chef at another restaurant in town about doing banquet stuff for them. We did move into that kitchen I mentioned a few weeks ago. The Monday before thanksgiving was spent setting up, moving in, and getting ready for turkey day (or should I say pie day). It’s so so so nice working in this kitchen. It’s not perfect of course, but we’re pretty happy with it. We’ve been going in quite early in the morning, getting our baking done before the restaurant crew comes in between 10 and 11, and it’s been working well so far. They’re not too busy for lunch, so it’s not a big deal if we still have stuff to do. Which brings up a little worrisome point. It doesn’t really seem like they’re ever busy. And a lot of people we talk to say stuff like, ‘oh that’s good you’re there, maybe it’ll bring them some business. They’re always so slow…’ So we’re a little (tiny bit) concerned about how well they’re doing... What else?!? We ordered jars and received them a few days ago. We’ve going to work on some dessert sauces. Chocolate Caramel Sauce, Chocolate Merlot Sauce, etc… Which reminds me, we’re doing a pastry demonstration at a local winery. It’s at the place where we made the tiramisu in October, Bellview Winery. They were so impressed with the tiramisu that they invited us back for this Valentines Day demo. We’re doing three courses of cheese and dessert, and we’re incorporating some of their wines into the desserts as well as pairing some with each course. We went in a few days ago, did some tasting, and we’re good to go! We did our final ‘craft fair’ of the season last night. It was good. Not great in terms off money made, but… we did meet a lot of people, gave out a lot of menus, and made some good connections with potential customers. It’s so funny working these fairs… the people that we meet are so interesting. The women with the scary makeup and hair, the many people that are on diets, the diabetics, the kids (who ALL want to grab a brandy ball… ALL of them). The people who totally ignore us, and the people that literally hang out around the table for half the night. The other crafters that we’ve met at other fairs, and the monotony of doing the same spiel tons of different times. Like I said… interesting. Things are doing well though. Of course, we’re not making any money now and its kinda stressful and all, but for the most part, we feel pretty good about everything. Thanks again and I’ll try to get back sooner next time! The wedding cake tonight. A cute cake we did the other day. Happy feet!!!

No offense taken! lol We had a wedding cake consultation last night. We are making our first 'Sweet Life' wedding cake on December 2nd! Hooray! It's pretty small, only 40 people, and a simple design, but it's been paid and we're happy about getting into the wedding cake circuit. Just thought I'd mention...

Here's my take on it... We want to convey professionalism (the whites, the nice looking pastry and display, the photo album of our stuff) so that people know we're legit, and not some betty homemaker... But, we want to still project a feeling of being down-to-Earth and not being too fancy. Remember, we're in farmland here and not in the big city. We're doing pretty simple flavors (aside from the brown butter perhaps), but simple flavors done really well. The corn says, 'yeah it's fall and we're in the spirit.' It creates a warm feeling for people walking by, which is important to us. We don't want to scare people off too badly (our prices do enough of that with some people!). This was the first time that we used the little placecard signs, and next time we'll print them out so they look nicer. Also, when the spring season starts back up, we'll need to invest in a nicer looking sign so we can ditch the whiteboard. There's only one show left this season... The kitchen that I mentioned is looking like a done deal. They offered to let us move in this weekend, although we're going to put it off until next weekend due to us being at the food show in NYC this weekend. It's going to be great timing though... the week before Thanksgiving! And the orders are still coming in for both Turkey day and Christmas. We got a tentative order of 15-dozen drop cookies for a gentleman in Cherry Hill. Yes! We also are going to push (starting next week) our canned goods. We've been playing with a chocolate caramel sauce and we're pretty happy with it at this point. And we have the apple butter of course. So we'll start visiting some craft stores, christmas stores, and gourmet food stores to see if they want to sell them. We're still trying to figure out a good package for the brandy balls, and we want to start playing around with peanut brittle and fudge... we'll see how that goes. And curlz, I did not know the chocolate show was this weekend... oh well! Thanks though...

Hello again. I forgot to mention that Jill and I are heading up the New York for the food show at the Javits Center this weekend. Two things... Where should we stop for bakeries or general good eats along the way? We're going to Cherry Hill before making our way towards the City. Next, is anyone going to be attending? We'd love to meet up if you are... Okay, goodbye again. -Stephen