Ready for Easter?

I must be feeling a bit better today, because I started cleaning when I got up. But then I had some cereal (Golden Graham knockoffs from Target) and plopped my ample butt down in front of the computer, so that was the end of that. But this is the last thing I'm going to do here, I have to scoop the cats and clean up a bit more.

I think I said yesterday that Easter at work is much busier than it has been. This year, on Friday night, Liz and I are going in around 9 pm, and Sarah is coming with us to help. Sarah always comes to help me during the holidays, because I'm usually swamped and that's the only time we ever see each other, pretty much. When I say holidays I am referring to Thanksgiving and Christmas, this is the first year she's coming for Easter. She has off on Good Friday, so she is coming with me on Thursday night as well. All the Amish women also have off on Good Friday, which is bad, because that's most of the other bakers. The only other non-Amish baker is doing the packaging that day, so it's just me and her all day, which is why I asked Sarah to come in and help.

Our bakery is like a cross between a supermarket bakery and a real bakery. Here is the difference between the two as I see it. In a real bakery, all the stuff is put out into showcases, and people come in and choose what they want and how much of it that they want. Whatever isn't sold is packaged as day-old, or given to charity, or thrown away, or used in other baked goods (don't ask). In a supermarket bakery, everything is prepackaged in a set quantity and has a longer shelf life. I don't think that scratch baking vs. everything coming in frozen really applies here, because it varies wherever you go. We are mostly a scratch bakery, and we are trying very hard to keep it that way. If we get anything in frozen, we actually bake it on premises. We also make a lot of stuff ahead of time and put it in the freezer, and bake it as we need it. So that's what Sarah does when she comes in to help. She takes my production sheet and counts up what is left and what goes on the stale rack (to be sold at half price). Then I figure out what was sold the day before and decide what will be produced that day, and she sets up all the frozen stuff that needs to be set up. She can also drop out quick breads and muffins (all are premade by us and refrigerated or frozen), prep the sticky bun pans, put fruit on the cheese danish, and she has even made up cheese puffs (we get puff pastry squares in frozen, and we make them up ourselves into puffs or turnovers). And even though it's sometimes a long while between her trips to the bakery, she remembers how to do a lot of it. Thank you sweetie. :)

PS-The pictures are of the things I mentioned in yesterday's blog.