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