So often people comment to me how great it must be working in a kitchen, making and tasting cakes every day. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I smile to myself and other days I just want to cry :).

Our day in the kitchen starts early, although we try to be flexible with our times for our mental health and work/life balance (what's that?!). Opening the kitchen means starting the ovens (of which we have 2), turning on the dishwasher and then settling in to print our reports to know what we are making for the day. The beauty of what we have built, is a system that spits out the information we need with very little thought. My job is to transcribe that information into recipes that can then be batched.

I love procedures, so taking a bunch of numbers and finishing with a cake is a dream for me. If only that was all I had to do in a day :). We always start with the cookies as they have multiple steps that need time in between to be completed. Then the cakes as they take the longest to cook and cool and then the cupcakes. Once the cakes are in the oven it is onto prepping the decorations and icings. Things like curd, ganache, chopping nuts and making caramel.

Once the cakes, cupcakes and cookies are cooked we take our break with more coffee than should be consumed by a single person.

Then we get onto the best part of the day. The decorating!! This is where the magic happens, where everything comes together and the cakes are made ready for delivery. Ticking off each order and making sure it has all its parts is a real sense of satisfaction. Only topped by seeing a full delivery fridge at the end of the day. The cakes are iced and boxed, the cupcakes have their edible toppers placed on them and the cookies are bagged and sealed.

When the delivery fridge is full and we have cross checked everything, it's time for more prep! The day is never finished. We make all our dry mixes in our kitchen as well as the majority of our decorations. The end of the day is for mixing dry mixes, making toppers and drying them, baking meringues and dehydrating fruit.

The last task of the day is my least favourite, cleaning the kitchen. I mean, just because I helped make the mess, doesn't mean I should have to clean it up right? While working in the kitchen is hard labour and can be frusting on the best of days, it is something that I love to do.

There is a beginning, a middle and an end. Where so much of life is open ended, there is a finishing point with a cake. And when you don't have to think about what you are making or how much to measure out as our system does that all for you, what's not to love?