GretaRodgersHawkenProjects2022

 The first few days of our final week at Nothing Bundt Cakes have been spent going and helping where needed. They have been a little short-staffed, and we are happy to help in any area. Now that we have a basic understanding of working both the front and the back, our mentor Amber can place us where we will be most helpful. This means we have been doing a little bit of everything, from crafting, to helping customers, to helping out in the back. We have fallen into a routine at the bakery and feel very comfortable with many things that first felt a little nerve-wracking. For example, taking complicated cake orders has shifted from something we dreaded, as we were worried about messing up the order, to something we look forward to because we can help customers pick out different decorations and colors. In addition, we have improved at crafting many of the cake decorations and are finding it more and more fun. We have also formed deeper connections with the employees at the bakery who...

 This week we started baking, which was very exciting. I have always loved baking and being able to bake was the biggest reason why my group and I decided this opportunity would be perfect for us. It was a little more nerve-wracking baking in a professional setting, especially because the batches are so large, so if a mistake is made, then a lot of product could potentially be wasted. However, after joining the bakers and frosters in the back, our worries were quickly put to rest. The environment was very welcoming and the employees wanted to help us. In addition, there were also some employees training to bake and frost as well, which showed us that not everybody is immediately good at certain tasks. It was very interesting to see baking on a professional level and how large the operation is. Everybody focuses on a small task and works in an assembly line fashion to remain as efficient as possible. In addition, it was cool to see the flipside of where we had been for the past week...

 The start of our second week at Nothing Bundt Cakes has been very exciting as we have been able to take on a lot more responsibility. We have been able to begin helping customers, and even though at first we needed some assistance, especially with more complicated cake orders, we have become much more knowledgeable about the products and significantly more efficient at serving customers. It has been really nice to have conversations with customers about the different events in their lives that they are celebrating.  We have also been learning a lot about the business side of running a bakery, even from just working up front. Firstly, Nothing Bundt Cakes is a franchise, which puts a lot of limitations on the bakery. Recently, corporate discontinued the flavor Pecan Praline, and even in our short time of being at the bakery, several people have come in every day asking for the flavor. This was interesting to me because even though it seems to be a fan favorite at the South Eucl...

 For the last few days of our first week at Nothing Bundt Cakes, we continued working on different cake decorations, and we also began to learn more about interacting with customers. We worked closely with an employee named Hilary who is training to become the bakery manager of another location. She has baked, frosted, and worked in the front, so she has become a great resource and friend to us. She's helped us become more comfortable with the system they use, Toast, for transactions. We even practiced taking each other's orders to familiarize ourselves with the system. It has been incredibly insightful to see more into how the front and the back of the bakery work together. Since Hilary has experience with both, she has helped us learn what we can do to keep everything running smoothly. For example, if we sell a large cake from the case up front, we have to let the bakers and frosters know so that they can replace it. We've also become more comfortable navigating the baker...

  Our first few days at Nothing Bundt Cakes have been incredibly insightful into what it takes to run a bakery. The majority of our time has been spent making different cake decorations. It was surprising to me how many are handmade because I didn't realize how much time and effort went into the little things that are often times easy to forget. I had originally thought that many decorations came to the bakery already made, but I learned that not only do the employees have to assemble the decorations, but it is often something they do in between helping a rush of customers or bringing in a shipment of ingredients. While some of the decorations are a bit more tedious than others, assembling them allowed me to not only gain insight into this detail of running a bakery but also allowed our group time to chat with the employees.  They were very kind and shared different tips and tricks with us. Some of the decorations we made included cutting down small dowel rods and putting stic...

The biggest inspiration for this project was our love of baking and our desire to learn more about baking professionally. We also were very curious about the business side of running a bakery. Personally, I plan to continue developing my interest in business at college and beyond. I had previously felt like my love for baking and my interest in business had to be separate, however, I realized that this project gave me the perfect opportunity to combine a more practical interest with a lifelong hobby. We were incredibly excited to have the opportunity to work at Nothing Bundt Cakes because we had all tried their cakes and enjoyed them before. In addition, all of our pre-project communication with our mentor, Amber Hamilton, has shown us how much value we believe this experience will hold. Our initial hope for this project was to learn about both the baking and business sides of running a bakery, however, we knew that this might not be practical for a bakery who had already agreed to acc...