welcome back to the cello suites kitchen

today we are discussing how to start

your own cake business from home so

we're gonna cover a few different topics

today including what permits or

regulations need to make sure that you

are safe to sell cakes out of your home

sourcing your ingredients and also

setting your price with your clients to

make sure that you're charging a fair

price but you're also taking into

account all the time and effort that

you're putting into your cakes of course

how to keep a steady business and how to

keep loyal clients also the equipment

that you'll need to be able to start

your cake business will also discuss

training and learn new techniques and

how you tackle that when your new Baker

or your a development Baker and last but

not least we'll discuss time management

which is super important because baking

is so labor-intensive you really need to

make sure that you're approaching at the

right waist but you don't lose your mind

in the process so I'll start off with

rules and regulations of starting your

own business so rules and regulations

can vary drastically depending on a

country you live in what state you live

in some areas are more relaxed and some

are super strict I live here in New York

and the standards here are extremely

strict so it's a lot harder to get

started in a state like this however

it's important that you look online at

the different regulations wherever you

live to make sure that you're abiding by

them and you're doing your best to make

sure that like here in New York you have

to have a food handler's permit which is

really important and there's a couple of

that in a lot of different areas and it

just helps make sure that you really

understand how food needs to be handled

what temperature foods should be stored

at and things like that so here if you

wanted to sell baked goods out of your

home you would need to have a separate

kitchen that's used exclusively for your

business and

need to be certified by the State Board

so it's extremely start area you also

can't sell at a farmers markets or

anything like that without a certificate

so obviously there are rules in place

because it's really important that you

know you're meeting certain health codes

and that everything that you're serving

is up to a certain standard here in New

York it's extremely difficult to get

your kitchen certified and the honest

truth that no one really ever wants to

say is that a lot of small businesses do

start out in their home and the kitchen

isn't certified so when you're just

starting out and you're selling to your

friends and family or people you know a

lot of times people do sell out of just

their main kitchen however as your

business kind of develops and you start

selling to people you don't know

or you start really having an increased

volume it is important that you look

into renting out a commercial space or

having some kind of space that you can

use it's exclusively for baking you kind

of have to assess that as your business

grows and kind of figure out what's

right for you so when I started baking I

was just making cakes for my friends at

my office and for my co-workers and I've

never really intended for it to be a

business so I made everything out of my

apartment and that's where I started my

baking journey so along the way I've

kind of transition into content creation

so I no longer sell my cakes so I do

everything in my apartment
this is my partner kitchen another thing

is that if you really do want your

baking company to be a business you need

to get a business license so here in New

York you get a business license based on

what borough you live in so I got a

business license from Manhattan and you

just go to your local courthouse and

they issue it to you I'm just not too

expensive I think mine was about a

hundred dollars or something like that

but this definitely varies from place to

place but if you do want to be official

that is another

you need to take so once you've done a

bit of research into the regulations of

where every live the next thing to

consider is pricing and sourcing of your

ingredients so when I'm talking about

pricing I mean pricing up cakes that

you're selling to your customers so this

is something that I get asked so

frequently there is a right or wrong

answer for this but in general you

should be pricing it as because of your

ingredients plus the number of hours

that you expect to spend on the cake

times your hourly rate or what you value

your taya so when I first started I

thought that I was competing against the

price of Supermarket cakes and I said oh

you know cake is $30 I'm making this

medium-sized cake my price should be $30

as well you don't have to keep in mind

that a supermarket cake isn't custom

made it's run in the middle and it's not

the same thing as what you're offering

so I guess kind of depends on what your

business structure is but I always took

customized orders so I can make a

variety flavors sizes decorations and

when someone asked me for that that

comes in premium it is worth pricing

your cakes more than a supermarket cake

because that is not your competition you

are offering a different product I wish

I had known that earlier but it is also

hard because when you're new to baking

you're not confident always in your

skills and you don't always see through

your time inside volleyball because for

me I used to look at it kind of as like

a practice cake it was developing my

skills and that is hard so when your new

bakery you know maybe you don't charge

as much for your time because you're

still learning or you might not be very

efficient and it might take you a long

time to do certain techniques I mean you

kind of need to consider that as you

price out of cake so I think the pricing

cake also comes down to your demand and

your clientele are so here in New York

people are willing to pay a pretty penny

for customized cake and especially if

you are willing to deliver it so I tried

to separate delivery fee as well however

if you don't get very many orders might

be more difficult to to charge a higher

price because you might look like you

need that order or you don't want

something to go to someone else because

you're too expensive and that is hard

and at the end of the day it really just

comes down to what you value your time

at because you don't want to spend hours

and hours making a cake that you're not

getting paid for I mean if you are

really trying to just focus on improving

your technique maybe that's an

investment that you're willing to make

but in general you should be pricing out

that time so don't undervalue yourself

and make sure that you really are

charging what you're worth so on the

other side of pricing is sourcing all of

your ingredients and trying to get the

best deal right because you want to have

the biggest margin that you can so for

me I love here in Manhattan and this is

literally my entire kitchen it looks

bigger than it seems I promise so I

can't have huge bags of flour bought it

Costco or Sam's Club I was left to and

that's definitely the best place to get

a great deal and the best way to find

savings but since I can do that I really

try to focus on what stores have the

best deals so for me I really like to be

on my flour and sugar at my local

grocery store where it's cheapest but I

actually found that butter and vanilla

are the best deal at Whole Foods so I

think it's kind of getting to know your

different stores around you and finding

out what brands you like working with

and where you can get the best

it is hard because you know you always

hear basically the finest ingredients

that will make the best baked goods but

it kind of is a delicate balance between

how much you want to spend on your

ingredients like you don't want to spend

like twenty-five dollars on rare aged

vanilla when you're trying to make a $50

key so you do have to take that into

consideration when you're buying your

ingredients another thing to keep in

mind is if you need something like a

unique extract or edible gold or

something along those lines

I really recommend trying to find it

online I or almost all of those types of

things on Amazon and it comes quickly

it's reliable you can read reviews to

make sure that you're getting a good

quality product and it almost always is

cheap and you can find it at a cake

store or a craft store so that's another

great way to find savings so once you

figure those things out it's time to try

to create a steady and loyal client base

so there's a few different ways you can

go about doing this number one that I

think the most important thing is to

have really great thanks goods or cakes

when I used to accept cake orders I

would get tons of returning customers or

people that would say I was at a party

and I tried one of the cakes

I loved it can i order one so word of

mouth is really great and making good

quality baked goods is a great way to

get your name out there every time you

send out a cake into the world to a

party or an event tons of different

people are trying that and if they like

your cake and they have a party coming

up there and who made that cake let me

get their business card

I'd love to order from them so we think

about that every cake you send out could

be targeting all kinds of new people

new business so having a really great

product is a great way to build your

business other than that if you are just

starting out and you aren't getting tons

of orders it's really great to leverage

your friends and family and I know that

sounds so simple and so basic but it's a

really great way to start because again

the markets you get on the world the

more people are trying your case and the

more people are becoming aware of what

you have to offer of course social media

is also a great way to get the word out

about your business but it's not that

easy to grow on social media especially

in this day and age you know it's hard

to get traction so I'm actually going to

do a part two of this tutorial which is

going to be how to grow your cake

business on social media it's a whole

different animal and I'll go into all

the details of that so stay tuned but

for right now we're just working on

building their base business so the next

question that I get asked a lot is

around the equipment so when you're

first starting out it can be kind of a

big investment and a big undertaking

trying to buy everything that you think

you need there are so many tools in

making and a lot of things are easier if

you have the right tools but at the same

time when you're just starting out you

might not have a ton of capital or you

know money sitting around to invest so

when I first started I got the cheapest

everything and you know I didn't I have

just started baking I didn't have a ton

of orders and I didn't know how serious

all this was going to be so I just

wanted to get you know some functional

tools that works that I could get the

job done with and you know I didn't want

to spend a ton of money and that's

totally fine you don't have to get the

nice as to everything when you're first

starting out this is my first cake stand

you can hear it kind of like makes noise

as it spins and it's not super smooth

but I think

thirty dollars and it worked great so a

couple years and I decided I wanted to

upgrade and I've been making money from

all the cakes I've been selling so I

invested in this at Echo 6:12 and I have

never looked back it's fantastic

so my guidance to you is if you're just

starting you don't know how serious your

cake business is going to be just get

the basics you don't need super fancy

things however if you want to do this

full-time you see yourself making a ton

of cakes it's worth investing in the

good quality equipment from the

beginning if you're able to another

great example of that is my KitchenAid

so when I first started baking I had a

regular hand mixer that I think was

twenty dollars that I got at Kmart and

it works just fine it got the job done I

wasn't making tons of cakes and it was

great and then after my cake business

became a little more serious I finally

treated myself to a KitchenAid which was

such a good investment I use it all the

time it's super reliable there's nothing

wrong with starting off with a hand

mixer so once you have all the tools you

need then you have to tackle all the

different techniques that people may ask

you to make when they place orders so

this can be difficult and I think that

it's really a challenge when you're

first starting baking because when you

take an order you know you want to push

your your limits and your boundaries and

you want to push yourself to become

better but you also need to keep in mind

your abilities and you don't want to

take on something that you can't

accomplish so it's a really delicate

line that you'll have to work with and I

think you'll definitely learn as you go

if you do take on that project that's

too big or too challenging so for me I

really I didn't get too many crazy cake

orders but I would get some emails that

would ask for a four tiered cakes and I

don't have a car so when I deliver a

cake I gotta deliver

on foot or take a taxi there's no I had

to do a four-tiered cake so when I

didn't order like that I would just say

I'm sorry I can't do wedding cakes or I

can't make a cake that's that large not

only was delivery a problem but also my

kitchen like I couldn't store for tears

in my fridge at the time my freighter is

much smaller so it's important to keep

in mind what you're able to do and what

you're capable of when you are accepting

orders but that doesn't mean that you

should say no to anything that's new or

scary because you're gonna learn by

doing

at least that's how I did so I have no

formal training I kind of learned as I

went and I watched a ton of YouTube

tutorials to learn how to do different

techniques so I really do believe that

you can be self-taught and learn along

the way however if you are really

serious about cake decorating and you

want to learn all the basics right up

front you can totally enroll in a basic

cake decorating class of what they're

offered all over the place and they also

have master classes online that you can

pay for and wash so there's a lot of

different avenues you can go in terms of

learning new techniques and also in

terms of practicing and the last topic

that I wanted to touch on was time

management whether you're in school and

you're trying to start baking you work

full time and are trying to make both

side here's what I do or if you're going

to do this full-time but you plan on

taking a ton of cake orders time

management is so important and I found

that it's really great to try to plan

ahead as far as you can so you can make

you know cake layers in advance or you

can make a double batch of your cake

recipe or you can make frosting in

advance and freeze it a week before you

can know you have a really busy week

ahead of you or you have a ton of cakes

coming up it's so helpful so I think

that planning and really trying to I

like to make lists of what I need to do

every day which is so type-a I know but

it really helps me visualize what I need

to get done and make sure that I'm

managing my time correctly so that way I

can have extent on time time management

is also really important for keeping

your sanity which sounds silly but you

know a lot of us take on so much that we

don't have tons of extra time so if you

can't find efficiencies in any way in

baking especially when you're making

everything from scratch it's really

important because you still need to you

know see your friends or see your loved

ones or spend time with your kids you

can't have baking be your whole life you

know you have to have other things as

well and I definitely have had trouble

with that so I had to the point where I

was working you know in public

accounting I was working 50 hours or 60

hours a week and I was making a cakes

week Pro scratch and just even you know

emailing back and forth of clients

determining you know cake details

delivering cakes or arranging pickups

and of course making the cakes

I just wasn't sleeping and I wasn't

seeing any of my friends I was miserable

and I really had to take a step back and

kind of reassess my life so it's really

important that you make sure that while

you may love baking and it's great when

you're making money from it and you've

tons of orders you also need to always

work to keep some semblance of work-life

balance that is my biggest tip to anyone

who's trying to start a cake business

because it can be all-consuming and

especially when so many of us are kind

of like type a perfectionist you spend

hours on a cake you know just to get

just sew or just write and make sure

that you don't burn out so that is all

the advice that I have for you guys

today about starting a cake business

from home if I didn't cover any

questions you guys have

feel free leave them in the comment

section below I try to answer as many as

I can and also stay tuned for the part

two of this series which is going to

discuss how to grow your cake business

on social media so thanks so much for

joining me today you guys hopefully I'll

see you guys again soon for my next

video see you later