Nothing can break a young woman with a plan....
At least once she gets the plan done.

I have been working on Apple-Butter Bakery's Business plan for about 2 years now. Of course it shouldn't take that long, but hey. Just like a typical woman, I change my mind... and often. The concept for the bakery has changed at least 7 times. I'm still not too sure if I've got it down yet. Private cake studio? Cupcakes? Cafe? What I want isn't necessarily what my customers want so back to square one. We NEED a bigger space. We have adored the past few years at the market and it will always be a dear place for us, but we are producing well beyond what our space can handle. So as we develop the concept for Apple-Butter Bakery, I'll be updating you all... our support system and loyal customers. Thanks for tuning in :)

Carrot/Cream Cheese and Oreo Cupcakes

I am in to all things cake on television! Recently, I have become quite addicted to Cupcake Wars on Food Network! More inspiration for the bakery! We are working on some delicious flavor combination including Sweet Georgia Tea, Margarita, Hot Sexy Mexican, and Maple Bacon. Visit us at the Market (660 Irwin St, Atlanta, GA 30312) to see what we have today!

June 19th marks the date for Sugar Artist, Shellane Pickett's first Cake Decorating Competition. The cause was a philanthropic one, to celebrate and raise money for Hands on Atlanta's 20th Birthday. The event raised $35,000 for HOA's various community service projects. Shellane and her assistant, Franky Capobianco of Capobianco's placed Runner-Up in the competition but a few judges personally ranked their Triple Chocolate cake a "perfect" 1st place entry. View the judges blog entries on the competition and pictures of the competition below:

Chris of Mele Cotte
Angie of Bankerella

As promised, whenever we update our policies, we will notify our customers via our blogsite. This new update changes our tasting/consultation policy. We are committed to providing the best customer service around! We now welcome tastings at 1pm and 3pm Tuesday-Friday  While Saturdays may be most convenient for many, they also happen to be our busiest days for deliveries and are typically our wedding dates. It is recommended to schedule your appointment 2 to 3 weeks in advance to ensure your desired date and time. Requests for alternate consultation days will be considered on an individual basis and honored as time permits.

Also beginning April 1st, 2010, there will be a $10 tasting fee per person for all non-bridal consultations. This fee is paid in advance via Paypal (or mailed check/money order) and will 50% will deducted from the final cost of your order once placed. This is a decrease from the $25 tasting fee implemented last year. Each tasting includes a variety (4-5) of our most popular flavors. The purpose of our tastings is to experience the quality of our cakes and not necessarily to decide a flavor. All follow-up/additional consultations are $10 and will not be deducted from the final cost of the cake.

Please email shellane@applebutterbakery.com to schedule your upcoming tasting!

Welcome to the family, Sydney and Megan of iKONiK Relations! We are so lucky to have these fine young ladies help us grow our brand throughout the city. They have been wonderful thusfar in suggesting ideas to catapult ABC Cake Shoppe into a realm only I could dream of. They are reliable and professional so I am officially trusting them for all my PR needs. If you would like to email them regarding marketing or PR opportunities for our Bakery, please shoot them an email at PR@abccakeshoppe.com or follow them on twitter @Syd_iKONiK and @megan_iKONiK.

Well, not exactly! We are going to be making a GORGEOUS Wedding cake for a very beautiful couple Valentine's Day weekend. With such a strenuous production schedule, we will be unable to fulfill any Valentine's Day orders. (Bummer, right? I know). But, you can tell your someone special you love them ANYDAY! Remember that... then call us at (404) 602-0090 to have us help you!

I was fortunate to take part on a panel amongst young, successful entrepreneurs yesterday at Georgia State University. The event was called "Campus CEO: The Student Entrepreneur's Guide to Launching a Business". I started Apple-Butter Bakery my senior year in college. I was 21. I had been teaching cake-decorating classes for a few months and I hadn't acquired a job offer for post-graduation. I figured I'd start my company right then so I would have some kind of stability when I really needed it. I had a few jobs after graduation but none of them satisfied me. My entire day was filled with ways to enhance my product, how my storefront would look, or what crazy designs I could muster up. At that time, cakes weren't paying as well as these unfulfilling jobs, but I figured if I didn't take my own future seriously, they never will.

::Fast Forward:: I was the only female panelist present. I found this quite odd as the audience was in fact 85% female (no I didn't sit up there and count but it was overwhelmingly one-sided). All of the panelist were minorities which was nice to see. I had a wonderful time talking about something I'm so passionate about and answering well thought-out questions. I swear I saw wheels turning through-out the crowd as they realize that their dreams of starting their own business no longer seemed so far off.

I'd like to touch on one topic here that I even noticed amongst those on the panel. As a business owner, be modest. You don't have to boast your title and let it be known that you're a CEO. I'm sure Muhtar Kent or George David don't go boasting their title as if it were a spanking new accessory. I'm actually turned off by the notion. Humble yourself. Be the guy doing all the dirty work that no one else wants to do. Celebrate your accomplishments, but not always in a conceited manner. I implore you to demote yourself. Instead, call yourself the Sales Manager (in essence you are... because you're EVERYTHING to your business). You'll find you'll be more successful in negotiating deals if you have someone to answer to instead of you, the CEO, being the be all to end all.

I can go on all day about the discussions we had at the panel but I must get back to work. I'll leave you all like I did them - with a quote that I recalled a wise man saying to me. "Entrepreneurs don't just start businesses, they invent them". If you plan on starting your own company, research existing ones and find loopholes to see what they're missing... capitalize on it and pave the way to your goldmine.

As our business continues to grow, so do our responsibilities. From the advice of our legal team, Apple-Butter Bakery will not be able to fulfill orders with the likeness of any copyrighted image (Barney, Mickey, Barbie, etc) without permission of the owner. If you would like such an order, feel free to provide a color scheme, around the figure, and you may purchase figurines to arrange on the cake. We know that many customers look forward to finding their child's favorite cartoon on their birthday cakes but we see this as an opportunity to expand our creativity and design bigger and better birthday cakes!

They're Here! (Well almost).. These EXCLUSIVE flavors are only available for a limited time only. Each one for its respective month. We're putting them up so our customers can plan accordingly for the rest of your year. Take Note!

2010 Scheduled Flavors

January - Lemon Drop - Lemon cake with White Chocolate Ganache filling and Lemon Buttercream

February - Butterscotch Rum - Rich butterscotch rum cake with Cream Cheese filling

March - Key Lime Cake -Key Lime Cake with lime infused cream cheese frosting

April - Amaretto Nights - Amaretto cake filled with chocolate fudge and amaretto creme filling.

May - Bananarama - Banana Cake filled with Caramel, Banana creme and Chocolate Ganache.

June - Cappuccino - Milk chocolate-cappuccino cake filled with cappuccino truffles and chocolate buttercream.

July - Orange Dreamsicle - Moist orange cake filled with Vanilla whipped buttercream

August - Coconut Cloud - Coconut cake filled with coconut creme.

September - Apple-Butter Cake - To mark our 2 Year Anniversary, we're debuting this Butter cake swirled with apple-cinnamon streusel (made from our fresh Apple-Butter) filled with sweet cream cheese icing.

October - Creme Brulee - Creme Brulee-flavored cake filled with fresh caramel sauce and Bavarian cream, frosted with caramel-flavored buttercream.

November - Almond Joy - Rich Chocolate-Almond cake filled with chocolate ganache and coconut filling.

December - Hot cocoa - Hot Cocoa cake filled with marshmallow creme.

We're almost ready to launch our new website! We're crossing our fingers to do so by January 15th! Can't wait? Neither can we!