How Does a Cake Decorator Spend a Workday?

Introduction

A cake decorator is someone who must have artistic talent. She spends most of her day baking and decorating cakes. Some places may employ a separate cake decorator, but most hire someone to both bake and decorate cakes. Many people think that a cake decorator's day is rather easy, but a cake decorator must know many things, especially if she is a caterer and runs her own business.

Basic Duties

A cake decorator who works in a restaurant or for a caterer will generally decorate cakes all day. This includes building cake towers and working with sugar-molding techniques, blending colors and creating shapes and figures.

If a cake decorator owns her own catering business, her workday consists of her normal baking, designing and decorating duties, plus all of the administrative duties of working the business.

Many people order tower cakes. This means the cake decorator must be versed in the physical elements of tower building (support and stability). To build a tower cake, the cake decorator must make the cake or torte, unless she works for a company that has provided a separate baker.

Administrative

While many of these things may not be done every day, they are all part of a cake decorator's day at least once a week. The cake decorator who owns a business must deal directly with the customers more so than a cake decorator working for someone else. While the cake decorator working for someone else does have some customer interaction, the cake decorator who owns her own business is responsible for advertising, customer service and dealing with customer complaints.

The cake decorator who owns a business must also make sure the kitchen meets the sanitation requirements and other code requirements (these depend on local and state laws of the various cities and states).

The business owner cake decorator must also hire and fire employees, do employee payroll, update employee benefits and make sure there are enough employees on the schedule to cover the day's work. She will also take inventory, making sure there are enough supplies to complete all of the incoming orders. Inventory involves counting all product on hand and ordering items that have reached their reorder level. Once the order is delivered, the cake decorator will count the inventory to be sure everything that was ordered was delivered.