Pansari stressed that pricing these cakes is more about labor and less about material. His bakery starts with a minimum charge based on a 20-serving cake and then adds on from there, and price is not proportional to cake size–dropping from a 40-serving cake to 20-serving cake doesn’t cut the price in half.

Tola recommended charging separately for cakes that have several design elements. He sited a cake that had a wine bottle and a watch and he had a charge for both. And if a customers needs to cut the cost, a simple way to do that is to have them bring in a cake topper so you don’t have to sculpt it out of fondant or gumpaste.

Fahey prices her custom cakes as the cake cost plus the artwork, wedding cakes are priced per serving and sculpted cakes are priced as art. She also recommends finding out what is important to them about the cake and why. By knowing what is important to the customer, you know where you can cut back if the price becomes to prohibitive. Also, she isn’t afraid to ask the budget right off the bat. She also suggested giving the customer ranges of price and let them choose the elements they are willing to pay for.

But all agreed that sometimes the pricing science is off, sometimes you lose money and sometimes you make more than you expected.

No matter the division, competition cakes are in one of three categories.

1. Tiered cakes–Wedding cakes with two or more tiers and any sugar medium or technique can be used.
2. Novelty/specialty cakes–any non-tiered cake with a theme and any sugar medium or technique can be used.
3. Sculptured cake–a shaped cake in any theme and covered with buttercream, chocolate or fondant.

Many of the cakes in the competition are totally eye-catching, but I noticed several that featured one of my favorite things: shoes. These cakes were calling my name and I even found a cake that was eerily similar to a pair of shoes that I own. What these decorators had accomplished was grabbing a potential customer’s attention and knowing your customers will help you set displays that will make them stop in their tracks.

Zebra shoes and handbag

Lots of shoes

My personal fave, mostly because I own an actual pair very similar to this cake version.

But what is making customers spend? Parker presented three factors that cause them to open their wallets.

• Indulgence–they want a treat and they most likely won’t even remember how much it cost. Cupcakes fit well in this category since they cost more than  a decorated cake but more people are buying the cupcakes.
• Gourmet–they want to impress whoever is eating with them. Artisan bread, not crusty bread, is a good example of this sense of wanting gourmet food. Dipped fruit, such as chocolate-covered strawberries, also have increased in sales for the last three years with an average price of $7.24
• Niche–products that fit in with health needs or ethnic preferences. Flatbread and bolillos are good examples of niche ethnic products that consumers are looking for.

On the flip side, there are three things that don’t induce consumers to spend.

• Center-store substitute–hamburger buns and everyday cookies are examples. Customers can easily get a fairly identical product in the commercial aisle for less or more name recognition.
• Competition within the in-store bakery itself–customers getting tired of purchasing a product that hasn’t changed or been updated and are instead buying another product all together. Mini brownies are a perfect example.
• Breakfast items

Baking Team USA–Harry Peemoeller, Jeremey Gadouas, Coach Jeffrey Yankellow and Mike Zakowski.

Baking Team USA, made up of Harry Peemoeller, Mike Zakowski and Jeremey Gadouas, came in second place in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. Japan came in on top and Taiwan placed third.

While the team members may (or may not) be slightly disappointed in the second place finish, everyone else was very happy for them. It was a great culmination of almost three years of hard work for the three members. And they placed high enough for the United States to be invited back to the next Coupe du Monde in 2016.

Once again congratulations Harry, Mike and Jeremey! Your products looked awesome.

Supersized macarons

I have to admit that it is kind of nice to walk a show floor and not see a cupcake anywhere. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy the occasional cupcake and have even been known to make a cupcake run during a particularly stressful day. But in the U.S., cupcakes are everywhere.

At Europain, the macaron is the ubiquitous treat. I don’t know the history of the macaron in France, but I know it’s been around for a long while (it most likely has a few years on the cupcake) and it is everywhere. Whether its universal presence is a new phenomenon or ancient history, the macaron is everywhere. And it seems to be taking cues from its American counterpart.

I was surprised to see the macaron had been supersized in several booths. Displayed alongside the traditional macaron that is about 1.5 ins. in diameter were versions that were easily double in size (about the size of an American cookie). I would assume this would cause production nightmares for such a delicate product, but the larger sized macarons looked just as delicious. It seems that even the French may also want bigger sweets.

Individual macaron plastic container

I also noticed individual macarons packed in small, clear plastic eggs. Unique packaging seems to go hand in hand with macarons as almost every shop in Paris offers a cute box or distinctive bag for macarons as the perfect hostess gift. Although the single macaron egg was cute and showed the product to its best advantage, I have to admit that if I were to receive it as a hostess gift, I’m pretty sure I’d want more than one.

Harry Peemoeller's artistic bread design based on the theme "Bread: symbol of your country."

The years of practice and competitions paid off for the big event. Their day started a little before 5 a.m. and ended slightly before 1 p.m. During those eight hours, Harry had to complete a bread sculpture on the theme “Bread: symbol of your country.” He chose a Wild West theme with cactus, cowboy hat, locomotive and a wanted poster. New to the competition this year was the savory presentation of sandwiches which were incorporated into the artistic design element. Mike was responsible for the baguettes & bread category and Jeremy prepared the viennoiseries. All three worked together on the savory presentation.

As the last few minutes ticked away, the three’s movements became a bit more rushed but you could see the familiarity they had with each other as they eased around trying to finish on time. Their years of practicing together had paid off, their work was completed on time and they had successfully competed in the 2012 Coupe du Monde.

The winner will be announced on Wednesday and hopefully, Harry, Mike and Jeremy will be crowned the champions.

A product display at Europain with a nice mix of colors.

It may just be my jet-lagged eyes and the fact that everywhere I look I see beautiful buildings and beautiful people, but the bakery products at Europain just seem to be prettier than their counterparts in the United States. If anyone ever doubted that bakery was an art form, they just need to walk a few aisles of this trade show. Everywhere you look are beautiful displays of bread and pastry. The colors are fabulous and the presentations are eye-catching.

This is by no means a knock on American bakeries because obviously the bakers stateside produce beautiful product as well, but it is an observation of the pride European bakery companies place on their product. They take bakery seriously and it shows. The compositions of the displays stop you in your tracks as they should. Display cases aren’t crammed full of product, rather the products are treated almost as works of art, properly matted and framed by neighboring products.

This may be a good time to take a look at your own showcases to see if your products are displayed like works of art.

Europain and Intersuc, which joined forces in 2010, will be together again this year and will focus on seven trends:

• Bakeries, new social venues
• Innovations – versatile processes and appliances
• Quality and innovation in organic food
• Creativity and sophistication in pastry-making
• Pastry-making, a never-ending source of inspiration
• Quality and innovation in industrial bakery
• Bread as a health food

Europain also plays host to the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, which pits teams of three from 12 countries against each other to see who comes out on top after three days of competition. Baking Team USA, made up of team captain Harry Peemoeller, Mike Zakouski and Jeremy Gadouas, will compete on Monday, March 5. The competition runs from Sunday to Tuesday. I will be there cheering on Team USA, and I hope to see you there as well. The awards ceremony will be Wednesday, March 7. Good luck to Baking Team USA.

But if you can’t make it to Paris, be sure to check back to the Baking Blog as I will be posting updates while I’m at the show.

See you in Paris!

According to Kirk O’Donnell, vice president of education at AIB international, troubleshooting for cakes requires benchmarking three categories: temperature (of both oven and final batter), specific gravity, and pH.

Temperature of the end batter makes a big difference in cakes that use double acting baking soda (which is most of them), as too hot of batter (in general, batter over 75 degrees F) will begin aerating the batter too early and not have enough aeration and lift during the baking process. This low gas production during the bake results in a deflated cake.

Oven temperature is important as well. No two ovens bake the same, and thermostats/thermometers can be significantly off, especially as ovens age. scheduled calibrations will help to maintain specific temperatures. Benchmarking temperature for both batter prior to baking and of the oven itself, and occasional checks against the standard, will save money on ingredients and eliminate waste in the long run.

A batter’s specific gravity is one of those things that many long-time bakers know intuitively, having developed a feel over many years for how high a batter should rise in a specific mixing bowl, or what hue of yellowish eggshell white denotes a batter that’s sufficiently aerated. But not every employee shares the years of experience needed to make such judgments. But specific gravity can easily be benchmarked by comparing the batter’s aeration/volume to that of water. Weight a standardized (say, 10 mL) amount of batter, then weigh the same amount of water.

By dividing the batter’s weight by the water’s weight, any bakery employee can arrive at a percentage. Some heavier cakes may be .95, or 95 percent the water weight. An extremely light batter, for, say, an angel cake, may be as little as 40 percent or less. The important thing is to measure what works for each formula. If a certain formulation does best at 75 percent aeration, that can be recorded as a benchmark and used as a yardstick to ensure future cakes are hitting the mark.

One of the easiest measurables in cake production, given the correct tool, is its pH. This measure of acidity vs. alkalinity should hit anywhere between 7 and 8.5 percent (slightly alkaline due to the basic nature of baking soda), and the alkalinity can have a difference on the flavor profile. Upping the pH, for instance, can really make a chocolate flavor pop–but too basic of a pH can result in saponification, lending a soapy flavor. These soapy-flavored cakes aren’t big sellers outside of the mother-of-a-foul-mouthed-kid demographic. A few hundred dollars or less should be enough to get a pH tester for the interior of the cakes. Establish a benchmark pH for a good flavor profile, and every so often, check to ensure the pH standard is being met.

The bakery decided to move away from an advertising agency and began working with a publicist to help take the product back to the streets through events and social media, Brian said. They bakery began a series of product campaigns, such as buying an Ocho Cinco cookie translated to a vote when the local football star was participating on the Dancing With The Stars reality show or a product war that featured two local television newscasters and customers purchased one of two versions of the product to select the favorite.

All the product campaigns are all low-cost and are a perfect filler between holidays, Dan said. The key to success is to cover the hard costs when do a product promotion.

The Buskens also started a “Cutest Busken Baby Contest,” where parents purchased an orange pumpkin face Busken Bakery onesie and took pictures of their baby in the onesie. The winning baby received free birthday cakes until the age of 18. The best part of this contest was how viral it went, Dan added. It was featured on the bakery’s Facebook page and the parents were talking about it on their own Facebook pages asking their friends to vote for their baby.

Using social media or digital marketing is very cost-effective and fairly easy to measure, but it does take time to manage it and bakers have to remember that it is an open forum and customers are going to say what they want. Some easy and successful digital marketing ideas include e-blasts that are emailed to your list. An example of one that Dan and Brian sent for their yogurt company was an email that contained a coupon, good for only one day, for one free cup of yogurt. The coupon could be forwarded to the recipient’s friends. The Buskens see up to a 60 percent redemption rate on the e-blast coupons. The best way to get new customers is to get them to actually try your product, Dan said.

The key to successful marketing in the new millennium is to allow people to interact with your brand, Brian said.