This is my superpower.....what's yours?

Although it is a pretty super power that I have, it’s not magic and it’s certainly not quick!  In the past few weeks a few of my Facebook followers expressed an interest in getting an insight into the process, so here is a little explanation. It will also explain why wedding cakes are seemingly expensive.

This cake that I made was all one flavour, vanilla sponge with a tangy raspberry buttercream filling, a white chocolate ganache shell and sugarpaste covering. This actually simplified the process slightly.  Sometimes my customers like to have a different flavour sponge and filling for each tier of their cake, and who can blame them, however this adds time to the baking process.

It actually took six hours of lining baking tins, weighing ingredients, mixing, baking, washing up….then more lining tins, weighing ingredients, mixing, baking and finally washing up to get to this stage.  All the sponges baked.  But they still don’t look like they would make that beautifully symmetrical and level cake do they?

Once all the sponges are baked they have to be sliced to level them, the rounded tops need to come off…… at this point I admit I used to eat a fair amount of those offcuts!  But I am reformed….two stone lighter than a year ago and shunning those offcuts!  But it’s not just a case of slicing the tops off, every tier of the cake needs to be exactly the same depth after it has been cut and filled, so a ruler is involved.  This job requires absolute precision.   As I am a bit of a perfectionist, this is a challenge I enjoy.  Look how level all my cut sponges are….accurate to the millimetre!

Once cut to the right sizes, then they are filled.  Once they are filled the level of each cake is checked.  I use a spirit level for this. You’re quite right my spirit level is rather big!  I am pleased to say I do have a new smaller one now.   

It is very important to make sure, at every stage, the cake remains level.  If it is not level, even by millimetres, it will make the whole wedding cake lean once it is stacked.  It will also be unstable.  Believe me a few millimetres will show in the end result.

The cakes are then filled and trimmed.  Once the cake has been filled it can either be covered in a layer of buttercream or ganache.  This is required to make a smooth base to put the sugarpaste on….and of course it makes the cake even more delicious.  This cake was covered in white chocolate ganache.  

Here is a picture of the first application of ganache, once this was set I went over with another thin layer to smooth it out (no picture of that though).  The base has to be smooth before the sugarpaste can be added.

So all this cutting, filling, levelling, making the ganache and ganaching the cakes took another five hours.  The hours are adding up now.  We are already up to 11 hours.

A further two hours later and the cakes are all covered with sugarpaste and dowelled.  The dowels are put in the cake to support the tier above.  Every dowel has to be cut to exactly the same size so that the weight of the cake above is supported equally, and level.  The trusty spirit level comes into play here again. 

Talking of the trusty spirit level….a fantastic wedding cake artist recently gave me a very useful tip:  Always check the surface you are working on with your spirit level first, especially if you are stacking the cake on site!  If you’re work surface is not straight, your cake will never be straight.  It’s obvious when you think about it really, but I admit I had never checked before.

Now we are up to 13 hours and we have a basic white iced, stacked wedding cake.  There’s a chance there are some more speedy workers than me, so perhaps an hour or two could be shaved off that?  Some cake makers might also buy in ready-made sponges and cut out the baking bit. 

This particular cake was decorated with tropical sugar flowers which I had made the week before.  Sugar flowers take a long time to make because there are several processes to go through, and at the end of each process we have to allow drying/setting time. Each petal is made separately, allowed to dry, dusted with colour, steamed to set the colour.  Once dry the petals can be assembled into flowers, stems taped, and posies made.  Although I didn’t record the amount of time it took to make these, I would estimate about 8 hours, spread over a few days.  

There are a few other little details that perhaps took another hour in total, like covering the horrid silver cake board with matching sugarpaste, trimming the cake and board with ribbons, etc. 

So the actual production of this cake took 22 hours.  But that isn’t the whole picture.  I will have spent time sourcing and buying the ingredients, sourcing the ribbon and food colourings/petal dusts to get the exact colour the bride wanted, and of course I spent a couple of hours delivering the cake and setting it up.  This was a two-person job too because a four tier cake is very very heavy.  Our new total now is 25 hours, and of course some petrol for the car.

So there we have it, I used my super power to turn sponges into a beautiful elegant wedding cake. 

The big question is how much I should be paid for my superpower?   Even at minimum wage of £7.20 per hour, the labour element on this cake is £180.00.  The ingredients and consumables cost around £85.00. That’s £265 without covering any of my businesses costs. 

My business costs include the following:   petrol for the car; electricity to mix, chill, bake, dishwash, lighting; heating oil to heat my hot water; public liability insurance; specialist tools and equipment; telephone; internet; stationery, printing; marketing, wedding fairs, etc.  So to cover all these things which are difficult to cost exactly per cake, I add a percentage to each cake and call it profit.    A while ago I had a heated debate in a cake forum about why you should add a business profit element to the cake price.  My response was, if you are employed by a company they don’t expect you to pay for their electricity, hot water, insurance etc. from your wages, it is paid for by the company from the profit they make.  This same principle applies to my business. My minimum wage would become even less if I had to deduct all these costs from it too!

Another cake forum debate is whether this superpower is a skill worthy of more than minimum wage?  I think it is.  What do you think?

I hope this has given you an insight into the processes and why wedding cakes are expensive.  It is far more than sugar, flour and eggs!  And hopefully, it will have helped some other cake makers starting out in business to understand the process of costing a wedding cake.