How to plan the kitchen when eight cakes are picked up on Saturday

The order of the work, what can be done a day or two ahead and what cannot wait. A plan from Wednesday to Saturday.

Eight cakes for Saturday is a good weekend for a small bakery, but only if the work is spread over several days. Trying to do everything on Friday ends with a night in the kitchen, crooked edges and nerves at pickup time. The key is to separate the work that can wait from the work that has to be done fresh.

First, write everything down in one place

Before you bake anything, make a table of all Saturday orders: pickup time, flavour, number of servings, type of decoration and payment status. You can see straight away how many sponges there are to bake, how many kinds of cream and which cakes need the most decorating.

Sort the orders by pickup time. A cake collected at 9:00 has to be ready on Friday evening, while the one for 17:00 can calmly be finished on Saturday morning.

What can be done earlier

Many parts of a cake lose nothing, and often gain, if you make them a day or two ahead:

sponges and cake layers baked on Wednesday or Thursday and wrapped in film once cooled; a day in the fridge does them good,
fruit inserts, jams and fruit creams, which have to set in the cold anyway,
ganache, which needs a few hours to reach the right consistency,
sugar paste and chocolate decorations, which have to dry,
packaging: folded boxes, cake boards, labels with the customer's name.

What cannot be rushed

Some things have to be done as close to pickup as possible:

whipped cream and mascarpone creams, which lose their structure,
fresh fruit and edible flowers on top,
lettering and the last touches to the decoration,
coating cakes that will stand on a table for several hours without a fridge.

A sample plan from Wednesday to Saturday

| Day | What you do | | --- | --- | | Wednesday | shopping, sponges for the chocolate cakes, sugar paste decorations | | Thursday | the remaining sponges, fruit inserts, ganache, folding boxes | | Friday | filling the cakes, first coat, cakes for Saturday morning completely finished | | Saturday morning | final decoration, fruit, lettering, packing by pickup time |

When planning Friday, count the space in the fridge. Eight cakes means eight large boxes, and the fridge is one of the most often overlooked obstacles in weekend production.

One task, one person

If two or three of you work together, split the work by stage, not by cake. One person bakes and fills, the other takes care of the creams and decoration. Everyone knows what they are responsible for, and tools do not travel between workstations.

> Leave an hour of slack in the plan on Friday and half an hour on Saturday morning. Sooner or later a sponge will crack, a cream will run short or a customer will ask to change the lettering.

How Lagom makes it easier

Lagom creates production tasks from your orders and lays them out on a weekly plan. Every task has a deadline and a person responsible, and the daily screen shows what is ready, what is in progress and which pickups are still waiting for payment.

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