I took a moment this weekend to do a review of how JennyCakes Bakery is doing after its first 2 years. The good news is that our amazing customers have helped make the bakery a thriving and fun hub of activity, and all of us at the bakery get great joy out of making yummy food and conversing with our eclectic and loyal customers!
We love being a part of all of your celebrations (showers, gender reveal parties, weddings, birthdays, baptisms, bar (bat) mitzvahs, first communions, breast cancer recovery parties) and helping you comfort those whose day might be brightened by a pretty cupcake or a cranberry granola cookie.
The bad news is that we are not yet breaking even on a month-to-month basis, even though I have not been taking a salary. I’m not exactly sure why this is. Most of the time, we are making a volume of baked goods that seriously tests our limits in terms of space and time!We shop for good deals on ingredients (turns out butter is way more expensive than Crisco, go figure!), make many of our own equipment repairs, and we are always tinkering with our systems for making things so that we are more time-efficient. However, there is one area where we will not reduce costs; we will continue to pay our truly gifted and dedicated staff at a living-wage rate.
We remain passionately committed to offering our baked goods at affordable prices, but this 2-year review has forced me to face the fact that a change in pricing is necessary as one step toward making this tiny bakery a viable enterprise. As much as I hate doing this, I think you will find that this increase still keeps us below the going rate for our type of baked goods in the DC area.
So starting April 15, cupcakes will be $2.25 ($25/dozen), 6” cakes will be $18, 9” cakes will be $28, and 12” and sheet cakes will be $50. A few of the specialty cakes will be a tiny bit higher than this, such as the German Chocolate, Cassata, Salted Caramel, and Gluten-Free cakes, because of the high cost of the ingredients that go into them. We hope this change will do the trick and bring us into the black.
Thank you so very much for your support and for being such a big part of our little JennyCakes community. We hope you will continue to visit us and enjoy our baked goodies!
Love, Jenny
What a long cold winter! I remember crossing Armory Ave from the Safeway garage on my way to the bakery on a few of those low-digit mornings and feeling like I was walking through a freezing cold wind tunnel as the wind swept from the train tracks down Armory toward Town Hall. Brrrr!
I’m VERY happy to be moving on to spring! We’re a little late in sending out a spring post because we got distracted by a stretch of time when the bakery was plagued (or cursed, as my staff likes to say) by a broken dishwasher, a refrigerated display case that stopped working, problems with our hot water and several other frustrating woes.
But NOW all is well and we are happy, happy, happy! The dishwasher is at last fixed. We have a new refrigerated display case, thanks to Suburban Trading (who sold it to me) and Mario (whose crew from the Kensington Gas Station on Antique Row did amazing work in fitting a 35″ wide display case through a 35″ wide door three days before the Easter rush). We have a new hot water heater and in general things are functioning smoothly, knock on wood!
And what’s even better, we have been busy, busy, busy! The last month or so included a very busy Easter, a crazy Mother’s Day and lots of beautiful First Communion, graduation and wedding cakes, thanks to the efforts of Kristen Kellogg, our unique and pink-haired cake decorator.
We have one new addition to the bakery, Gali Sapir. Gali is from Israel — she works very hard and is a joy to have with us at the bakery. She specializes in fondant, but don’t worry, we’ll still be using buttercream for the most part. We just may add some fondant accents from time to time.
We are so sad that Julie Howard will be leaving us soon to focus on finishing up her teaching degree, but she has promised to come in on Friday afternoons for a couple of hours from time to time. I am thrilled to welcome back my pretend daughter :), Ana Caceres Hernandez, who was a student at the University of Maryland during the school year.
But OK, enough about us! Here’s what’s new for you at the bakery. We’ve brought back the blueberry crumb bars (or blueberry slabs, as Jason Swain, the Town’s public works supervisor, calls them — I think it’s an Australia thing) and strawberry icebox pies (graham cracker crust and lots of fresh strawberries).
We’ve added strawberry bread (one of my staff members, Kara Knips, calls it one of our “damn you, Jenny” baked goods) and strawberry buttercream (which, after many failed attempts, at last has the big kick of strawberry flavor I wanted without watering down the frosting too much).
And last but not least, we will be introducing Hillary’s heart healthy bran muffin. Based on my dear friend Hillary’s recipe for incredibly yummy and moist bran muffins (with dried cherries and toasted almonds), I’m still tinkering with this one, but we’ll get there. I’m bound and determined to have one truly healthy yet delicious thing on the menu!
Once again, happy happy spring! Enjoy this short season and check back in with us in a month or two for new things happening for summer!
Jenny
Location & Hours
HOURS
Tues to Fri 12-5pm, and Sat 9am to 5pm
LOCATION
10419 Armory Avenue
Kensington, Maryland 20895
ORDER
Please visit our Menu & Order page. But, if you'd like to place a same day order (which we try our best to accommodate), call Jenny at 240-388-9989.
Interested in ordering a custom decorated or
wedding cake? Click here.
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