We are often asked about our baking process at All Things Cake. We put out so many cakes each week and people often wonder about when and where we bake them all. When we designed our new bakery, we separated our baking room from our decorating room to keep the heat away from the decorating process as much as possible. This has enabled us to bake as often as necessary to keep up with customer demand. In the past, we would have to wait until the evening to bake, so we wouldn’t heat up the kitchen during decorating hours. But with separate rooms, we can now bake anytime we need to!
We bake in large batches to keep our process as efficient as possible. We also bake to order, so if you order Italian Cream cake, we bake it fresh for you that week. We start our baking process with a baking spreadsheet which lists each cake pan size we offer along with each flavor we offer. We tally all the vanilla cakes, for example, and bake them all together. Each tier of cake is made up of two or three layers of cake, so each individual layer is tallied and baked to order. One 4-tier wedding cake would require 8 pans to be baked. You can imagine just how many pans (layers) are baked in the height of wedding season!
Once all the cakes of one flavor are baked, we move on to the next. We bake in commercial convection ovens, which circulate moist air throughout the baking process. Depending on the cake sizes, we can bake a couple dozen layers at one time.
Once baked, we pull each layer out and have it cool on a rack. Once cooled, the cake layers are leveled, wrapped and chilled overnight. The following day, the cakes are filled, crumb coated, iced and decorated. Freezing cake is not a part of our process at all. While some bakeries swear by it, we feel that it dries out cake.
Of course, with lots of baking, comes lots of dishes. We haven’t found a way to get around that yet!
Happy Baking Everyone!
