Bake me a cake as fast as you can
Stepping out of his car at work and smelling fresh bread being baked in the 400-degree oven is one of Tony Holden’s favorite things.
Holden said he has been in the bakery business for 15 years now and currently works in the family-run Shaffer House Bakery.
He and two other bakers start their day of work once a week at 11 p.m. and the rest of the week at 4:30 a.m., working until about noon or 2 p.m. Usually, Holden and the other bakers alternate throughout the week coming in at 11, he said.
Each day is different in the bakery because of the number of orders and demands from clients. Holden, grasping a thick stack of yellow sheets of order paper, said Shaffer House Bakery has several standing orders, people or businesses they bake for regularly, like Logan’s Heroes, Logan Hospital, Iron Gate Grill, Aggie Ice Cream, Italian Place and their longest running customer, Fredrico’s Pizza.
For large orders, Holden said requests need to be scheduled usually three to four days in advance. Two of the largest orders Holden said he has prepared were 2,500 donuts for Icon Health and Fitenss and 350 pies for a real estate company.
Holden said he prepares things like donuts, rolls, pies, muffins, brownies, breads, cookies, cakes, eclairs, sandwiches, lattes, cappuccinos, Italian drinks and specialty orders.
At Shaffer House Bakery, Holden said everything is created from scratch with fresh ingredients. The donuts, bread and rolls, for example, are made from scratch, rolled, cut, and iced all by hand. Holden said baking from scratch is difficult in maintaining consistency, but it is worth it.
“It’s rewarding seeing customers come back and seeing how much product goes out the door with positive feedback,” Holden said.
Shaffer House Bakery, at 30 years old, was founded by Camie Holden’s grandfather, Don Shaffer, who still comes in to help out once a week to make sure everything is going right.
The bakery has also continued making fruitcake for many of those years. Holden said fruitcake is the most time consuming and hardest part of the job. Fresh fruit and nuts are expensive, and a lot of time has to be put into it, he said. However, Holden said the extra work is noticed, recalling how one customer commented how happy she was that there was somebody in Logan who still makes fruitcakes.
Holden’s favorite things to bake, he said, are angel food cake and eclairs. His least favorites are bear claws and other Danish pastries because butter has to be folded into each individual item 18 times.
A hard thing about being a baker, Holden said, is trying to keep employees happy, and that includes himself. Getting called at 1 a.m. when someone doesn’t come to work can be challenging, he said.
The most difficult orders for Holden and the other employees is when a person calls the night before or day of to place a big or special order. Holden said this can be near impossible if the order is during the busier times of the year. Although the busy season is constant year round, Holden said September to December is busiest because of holidays. Summer months are also busy because of weddings. The only real slow point for the bakery is in January because of people being sick of sweets and New Year’s resolutions, and because people are out of money, he said.
The amount of frosting on a slow day a baker can use is about 500 pounds, flour 1500 to 2000 pounds, and about 400 to 500 pounds of bread dough is used, Holden said.
Some of the creations that people go to the bakery specifically for are the maple bars, Grandpa Don’s cookie, and raisin-filled cookies, he said.
Some of the farthest in advanced booked customers are about 3 to 4 months prior to needing the order and are rarely turned down; these orders are most appreciated, Holden said. However, a week is usually enough time to request an order.
When wedding season takes place, Holden said some of the most difficult customers start coming out as well. Some people come in with a certain color in mind for the frosting but don’t come in with a certain color in mind for the frosting but don’t bring anything to help show what they want, he said. That can be hard if the baker and the customer have two different colors in their mind as the correct color. Other customers have made some odd requests, some of them being what Holden said are X-rated cakes.
Holden has never had a cake fall in the oven, but one mishap happened when his wife Camie delivered a wedding cake for a friend. While driving, the top of the cake came off and Holden said Cami caught it with her hand and was able to fix it later on.
The most memorable wedding cakes that Holden and his wife both said was a three-dimensional version of the White House and a cake created in the likeness of a mountain with a stream, fish and trees. The largest cake Holden said they have made was a six-layer cake including pillars and a cake called the La Quinceanera are also up there being memorable for the cost. The average wedding cake costing around two hundred and fifty dollars.
Working in shorts all day, even in winter, is what Holden said he does because he works around a 400 degree oven all day. The oven in the bakery holds up to 25 full sheet pans.
Shaffer House Bakery is located at 1045 N. Main Suite A in Logan.
-jess.allen@aggiemail.usu.edu