Settling In

In every situation you eventually fall into a pattern. My first week of making cheesecakes for The Haven Cafe was not a pattern. It was a scramble to get product onto the shelf. There are many things that need to be accounted for before you can get into your pattern. In fact, if all goes well, that pattern is constantly shifting to accommodate more and more customers who want more and more cheesecake.

Our initial batch was 3 cheesecakes, only 2 of which were sellable. Then through the week I added more of those flavors, and finally for the weekend I added a 3rd flavor. In each instance I had 2 of each flavor, except that last one where I had 4. And they sold well! So well that I came in on the day we were closed and made a batch of 4 vanilla bean cheesecakes as well as 4 of a new flavor for the week... peanut butter! (Perhaps when I get a chance, I'll embellish on the creation of new flavors a bit more in another post.)

But the week has rolled by and very little cheesecake has sold. At some point I am going to have to tell them to sell them at a discount, and eventually (cheesecake can last a bit over a week in a fridge) we will have to toss what doesn't sell. But what does that do to my pattern? I had planned on coming into The Haven Cafe on one night during the week, then the 2 nights of the weekend that my wife and I work anyway. In each of those nights I would make a batch of 4 cheesecakes. In the case of this week however, since we didn't sell out of a single flavor, including the Key Lime that had less than a whole cheesecake left as of Sunday afternoon, I didn't go in during the week, and it remains to be seen if I will have to make cheesecake tonight or tomorrow. As I said, I will have to replace anything older than a week old, so that means that I will have to at least bake something this weekend... but I doubt I will bother with making 4 at a time any more. I suppose I will do batches of 2 until business picks up.

In the end you have to remain optimistic and you have to remain open to the flow of product. I'm sure that at some point in the future, they will be selling so much cheesecake that I will have to go in every night to stock up for the next day... maybe at that point we will be making enough money that I can quit my day job and exclusively make cheesecake for a living! Hey, a guy can dream can't he!

This pattern that I talk about applies to my Blog posts as well. My initial three posts came in the first week, but that was when things were exciting and new. The adventure was fresh. But as with everything we settle into a pattern. I am going to try and post at least one blog a week, and I hope to be able to do so, but as you can probably imagine, being a full time traffic engineer, as well as a nearly full time baker/restaurant owner, I don't have a whole lot of extra time to spend writing. I will try my best, and in the end I do it for the readers. I hope that you get something out of it, and please post comments to let me know what you like and don't like, what you would like to read about more, etc...

With that said, what flavor should I add to the lineup for next week? I'm thinking mint-chocolate chip... any other suggestions?

Cheesecake Tip for the week:

I have two tips that are related to experiences that I have had with cheesecakes that are not my own, and the tip related to the most recent one is this: Sweeten your cheesecake. It seems intuitive that a dessert should be sweet, but apparently not. The most recent cheesecake that I had was at a mid-to-upscale steak house. It was an apricot cheesecake, and I got the distinct impression that the only sweetener (or flavoring of any kind) was apricot juice or puree. I could definitely taste the apricot, but the flavor of unsweetened cream cheese greatly overpowered any other flavors involved. Please, make your cheesecakes sweet. You can taste the batter before you bake it, and the flavor there is just a little different than the final product. You can certainly tell if the taste of unsweetened cream cheese is overpowering something as delicate as apricot. I'll post my other "not my cheesecake" tip in my next blog, so stay tuned!

This just in! Tomorrow is International Bacon Day!!! I may have to look into a bacon cheesecake! Hmm... how about a slice of bacon and sundried tomato cheesecake on a bed of romaine lettuce with fresh croutons and a garlic vinaigrette?