Blog #21: Independant Component 2

Literal

(A) I, JD Pabon, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(B) My Sources were my mentor, Ashley McNeal, head cake decorator at the Cake Mama's.

(C) Daily Duties at the Cake Mama's.

(D) At the start, I learned the importance of getting ready way ahead of time for big events. I also learned how to take orders in a way where I can make connections easier with clients. During this time, I learned new business/ consultation techniques, like not to say words like, "No" or "can't".


Interperative

        This was a very fruitful independent component actually. I already knew how to talk to customers, but throughout the component, I learned that talking to customers about cake orders is a completely different ball game. When I first started taking real cake orders, I usually would jump straight to the point, but when Janelle, the owner, confronted me about what I was doing, she told me that I should not jump straight to the point, but talk to them about what they like and what they are looking for so I can get a better idea of what the design should look like.
         Also, I had learned a lot more about the process of doing orders, and singling out things that can be done immediately from the things that take more time to do, like sculptures. Usually I had seen the cake decorators do one order at a time, tackling things at once, but now that I really focused on it, I saw that they took apart the order piece by piece, and did in time increments.

These are the cake push-ups we had prepared for an event at Nordstrom, in Brea Mall. This became a great opportunity to advertise about the bakery and tell people what we are capable of. I had to do 200... by myself. It was TWO DAYS of non stop cake push-ups. I hope I don't have to make those again for a long time.

     

These were some of the random colored fondant discs I made. I had to create about one tray of each color. I think I at least went through 5 full trays, leaving almost none for the rest of the bakery. I felt bad because I constantly thought, "What if they need these? Well, at least I know I used them for a good purpose!"

These are dog biscuits. I was kind of freaked out because I had never thought I would see the day when the bakery would do dog treats. They were really greasy and tough, but I guess the dogs will like them right?

This is going to become a mickey mouse hat for a Disney cake that we were preparing for . The rise krispes were really gooey and difficult to work with but I eventually got it into the right shape.

Applied

         This was a very useful component, for the most part. It definitely helped me with my third answer "Customer Relations". The fact that I got to work with customers all the time and improve my speaking skills was a big plus because I actually got to see my research and studies on customer service into action. Also, I saw things, like breaking apart the orders into sections, in greater detail because I never really paid any attention to it. Now I got to see that organization and communication between everyone in the bakery is crucial for the the business to run smoothly. Helping prepare for the events was also something new that I wish to research. I hope to find things about advertising and reaching target audiences with those events.

Productive day at The Cake Mama's

Today was a very.... Productive day. When first entered the bakery, I was greeted with the smell of fresh cake coming out of the oven. The air was sweet with sugar, and I was ready to tackle the day.
Ashely had started me with a simple task of making some edible images, which I did with haste as I knew there was going to be a lot more fore me to do. The edibles I had done were quick and I ha jumped to the next task of making numbers the rest of the time. I had to prepare numbers from zero to nine.
During that time, I was ale by the financial officer, Corrine, to work on an order that she had just taken. I had to create forty-two disc that had '900' written on them. That task was relatively easy, but was still took up a lot of time.
After finishing that order, I ha continued to work on numbers, but unfortunately, because of how many numbers I had to prep, I did not get to finished them, but ashley that it would be ok because I can continue them the following day when I walked in.
The rest my day was consumed with cleaning dishes in the kitchen, frosting cupcakes for the front of the store, and helping customers. I think that this day was a relatively useful day because I had talked to Corrine about how I am doing in the bakery, and she had tile me that I am doing a great job, but that I needed to work on my focus so that I may get tasks done faster, and be able to focus on the task at hand instead of scattering my mind from the front of the house to the back.
So now I am learning how to focus on focusing on one task at a time and when it is a good time to jump in and help at the front/ back. Hopefully, they see improvement and decide to keep me.

Getting Ready For another Event

         On April 18th and 19th, the bakery had started to get ready for another event at Nordstrom in Brea Mall. We have been preparing a lot of items to sell, like Cake push ups and cake in a jar. We spent most of our day making a variety of items, but the one item I focused on making was the Cake Push Ups. My Mentor mentioned to me that doing these kids of events is great publicity for your business.
          Hopefully, I will be able to work on more of these events and learn a lot more.

Blog #20: Three-Column Chart Rough Draft

Link to chart:

Three Column Chart Rough Draft

Blog #19: Senior Project and ESLRs

1. I think that the ESLRs that I have excelled in the most are being an effective user of technology, effective learner, and effective communicator.

2. I believe that I am a successful at being an effective user of technology because I am learning how to use new types of technology at my mentorship, like using new settings on the somerset roller. Also, being able to communicate with the customers I help and the students that I teach at classes proves the fact that I am being an effective learner and communicator because I not only had to talk to these people, I also had to be trained in order to fulfill these jobs, when assigned by my mentor.

3.

This is a photo of a group of girl scouts that I had taught a class too.

This was my first time making a sculpture for an order by myself. I had to input all that I had learned from Ashley when making this.

Blog #18: 2 Hour House, Answer 3

1. My essential question is:
What is the best way to create a decorative art themed wedding cake?

2. The third answer to my essential question is simplicity.

3. Examples/ evidence:

- Ex. If we were having a wedding, and it was a simple black and white theme, you would not want to have fireworks made of fondant and the whole cake covered in flowers, it would not only look like a hot mess, but it would also look to busy and complicated for anyone to really enjoy.

- Evidence: My interview #3, with my mentor, Ashley McNeal. She had mentioned to me that we want to keep things nice a beautiful, but at the same time, keep it simple and clean.

- Ex. Simplifying as much as we can in an order for a cake is one of the best ideas because we want to be able to do the order without having to call and bother the customer by calling them if it seems to complicated to the cake decorator. We make sure that is the case in all of the orders we do in the bakery.

4. The main source that helped me reach this answer if my mentor, Ashley. She always tells me that when we take an order for a cake, that we want to stress that keeping the design simple is important so that we do scramble in the bakery, and get confused on what is written down on the order itself.

5. I plan to study more on other cake decorators styles to broaden my horizon about different cake decorating styles. I hope doing this helps me find my niche in cake decorating.

Blog #17: Interview #4 Questions

1. What is the best way to create a decorative art themed wedding cake?
2.When you sculpt, is their any process you have that helps you with complicated sculpting projects?
3. When their is confusion with an order, what is the best way to solve the confusion?
4. What is the best part about doing a new order?
5. When you take an order, what do you usually talk about with the customer?
6. What is your mentality when cake decorating?
7. Do you personally think that improvisation is an important skill to have as a cake decorator and why?
8. How do you determine the price of a certain sculpt?
9. How do you keep up with all of the orders that you do?
10. What is most interesting about doing wedding cakes?
11. Have you ever had any orders where you had to improvise and why?
12. Do you think that simplicity can be a good thing or a bad thing? Why?
13. Why do you think that color is such an important factor in a cake order?
14. Have their been any instances where you had to do change what you were already doing on a cake order? What happened?
15. I have noticed that you put ribbon on the bottom of some of the cakes. Why is that?
16. When you cover a cake with fondant, what is the most important thing you make sure of?
17. Can you tell me one of the best experiences you have had when doing an order and why?
18. When you finish an order, what are some feelings when you give the cake to the customer and why?
19. Besides being able to sculpt, are their any other important skills that a cake decorator might find useful?
20. What is the best piece of advice you can give to an aspiring cake decorator?