Let me start off by apologizing for the long delayed post! It's been a crazy August but I'm ready to see what I can achieve in September! Can you believe mid Sept. is just around the corner?!
Staying consistent is one of the hardest things about holding these sales. Our menu hasn't changed much since we started these bake sales. I plan to slowly incorporate more specialized items such as infusing flavors into our cookies/cupcakes. It's a little tricky since its quite difficult to cater to everyone. Playing around with different flavors, shapes, coming up with new ideas has been a challenge lately since I have been in a creative slump. Most people that order always just want items that are "safe" such as ordering the chocolate cupcakes, red velvet, vanilla, etc. It's easy to get in routine and make the same things over and over again. I feel like making pastries and dessert its all about the creativity and the attention to detail is what makes this trade so special.
I've been trying to keep the vision in my head where we will one day grow into a full catering service. But as we go along this path sometimes we lose site of our end goal. This feeling has been all too real over the past two weeks. We received a few catering orders and I found it extremely difficult to manage my personal responsibilities day to day and at the same time try to maintain good standards for my customers so we in the future we would have a regular client list. Thinking it over I've decided not to take on so much and take a step back. Sometimes we need to take a step back to move two steps forward. I want to practice and learn more of my skills in order to give us the highest chances possible to be a profitable company. I've decided our bake sales will be held 2-3 times a month instead of every week. Along with that I've decided to stop taking catering orders until I've gotten enough experience in the industry.
What I know I am lacking it is the experience and that's a HUGE part what this project needs. I've been trying to flood myself with reading up on anything dessert so I'd break out of my creative slump faster! Slow but some progress is happening. I will be attempting some new creations in this upcoming week! I will be sure to take some pictures of them as time pasts.
Thanks for your patience!
Linda (:
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Second or third time's the charm??!
Sorry for the delay in this weeks post! This will be a two in one post! It's been a really crazy work week but we are back and ready to rock!
Last Saturday, we held our second bake sale. Our setup wasn't much different from the previous sale. However, we learned from our mistakes and stored our cupcakes in a cool and safe area. We brought them out one at a time whenever someone wanted to make a purchase. One of our baby cousins, Lily, was in charge of her little cupcake station and let me tell you she was in love with the responsibility! Super cute!
Sales last weekend was a lot slower but our awesome friends came and supported us by purchasing more cupcakes and oatmeal raisin cookies. Our menu changes on a weekly basis. Last weekend we were serving Red Velvet Cupcakes, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookies. So far the chocolate chip cookies seem to be the best seller. They sold out first! We had a dozen cupcakes left and a little less than a dozen left of our oatmeal raisin cookies. Those were shared with our friends and family members!
8/07/11:
This weekend's Bake Sale we decided to change it up a bit. Instead we opened up shop on a Sunday instead of our usual Saturday. We decided to change it up a bit for this weekend's bake sale. We opened up shop on a Sunday instead of our usual Saturday. We thought we'd try things out just to get a better feel of the crowds and such. On our menu this weekend we featured Blueberry Muffins with a Streusel Topping, Snicker Doodle Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookies.
As you can see we definitely upgraded our station a bit. First off, a big THANK YOU to my two cousins JENNIFER & ALYSSA; they handmade our poster and I am so grateful that they took the time to do this for us! Not only did we have a great poster to draw people in, we purchased some handy cookie jars to showcase our products. We still need to work on our display for our cupcakes/muffins and such but we'll take it one step at a time! The little cutie that's holding up our cookie jar is Lily. She's one of our little volunteers and helps us out whenever we do these bake sales. We also recruited her older sister Natalie but she didn't want to be in the picture. It's the little things that each and everyone one of my family members contribute to these sales that make me want to work harder at this and continue to make quality sweets for everyone to munch on!
I find that one of the most challenging things about running our bake sales is finding the balance between supply and demand. I'm sure for every new business venture this is what everyone goes through and this really makes me wonder whether our little weekly bake sales will grow into a full force catering business. Only time will tell. All in all I am very hopeful in this new project!
See you soon! (:
Linda
Last Saturday, we held our second bake sale. Our setup wasn't much different from the previous sale. However, we learned from our mistakes and stored our cupcakes in a cool and safe area. We brought them out one at a time whenever someone wanted to make a purchase. One of our baby cousins, Lily, was in charge of her little cupcake station and let me tell you she was in love with the responsibility! Super cute!
Sales last weekend was a lot slower but our awesome friends came and supported us by purchasing more cupcakes and oatmeal raisin cookies. Our menu changes on a weekly basis. Last weekend we were serving Red Velvet Cupcakes, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookies. So far the chocolate chip cookies seem to be the best seller. They sold out first! We had a dozen cupcakes left and a little less than a dozen left of our oatmeal raisin cookies. Those were shared with our friends and family members!
8/07/11:
This weekend's Bake Sale we decided to change it up a bit. Instead we opened up shop on a Sunday instead of our usual Saturday. We decided to change it up a bit for this weekend's bake sale. We opened up shop on a Sunday instead of our usual Saturday. We thought we'd try things out just to get a better feel of the crowds and such. On our menu this weekend we featured Blueberry Muffins with a Streusel Topping, Snicker Doodle Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookies.
As you can see we definitely upgraded our station a bit. First off, a big THANK YOU to my two cousins JENNIFER & ALYSSA; they handmade our poster and I am so grateful that they took the time to do this for us! Not only did we have a great poster to draw people in, we purchased some handy cookie jars to showcase our products. We still need to work on our display for our cupcakes/muffins and such but we'll take it one step at a time! The little cutie that's holding up our cookie jar is Lily. She's one of our little volunteers and helps us out whenever we do these bake sales. We also recruited her older sister Natalie but she didn't want to be in the picture. It's the little things that each and everyone one of my family members contribute to these sales that make me want to work harder at this and continue to make quality sweets for everyone to munch on!
I find that one of the most challenging things about running our bake sales is finding the balance between supply and demand. I'm sure for every new business venture this is what everyone goes through and this really makes me wonder whether our little weekly bake sales will grow into a full force catering business. Only time will tell. All in all I am very hopeful in this new project!
See you soon! (:
Linda
Thursday, July 28, 2011
EXTRA EXTRA HEAR ALL ABOUT IT!
The idea behind "You had me at dessert.." is simply serving and selling good homemade pastries/dessert. Here we will share our journey. We want to one day grow into a full force catering business! We decided to start off with a...BAKE SALE!
It was held last weekend right in front of our home.(City is really strict with permits. This way we could still be on our own property and enjoy our time selling!) It was literally a small table and our cupcake and cookie display was so unorganized. We opened up shop around noon.
Our baby cousins even helped run the show! We didn't know what to expect and we weren't sure what we prepare for. Heck we didn't even have the right table to sell out little goodies! But with each bake sale we will gain more and more experience! I will admit this is one of the worst setups I've ever encountered myself! But I strongly believe we HAVE to start somewhere and NOW is the time try! (:
Until next time!
Linda<3
P.S. If you're wondering we did sell out of our cookies. They were the crowd favorite. But my brother did not know cupcakes met in the sun.. let's just say they didn't make it and R.I.P. to them. :X
Our baby cousins even helped run the show! We didn't know what to expect and we weren't sure what we prepare for. Heck we didn't even have the right table to sell out little goodies! But with each bake sale we will gain more and more experience! I will admit this is one of the worst setups I've ever encountered myself! But I strongly believe we HAVE to start somewhere and NOW is the time try! (:
Until next time!
Linda<3
P.S. If you're wondering we did sell out of our cookies. They were the crowd favorite. But my brother did not know cupcakes met in the sun.. let's just say they didn't make it and R.I.P. to them. :X
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)