Sunday, August 20, 2006
DEAR ALL :) SCHEZN HERE! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN QUITE A LONG TIME I THINK. Hello hello! We have some MAJOR cookie problems!
I tried baking today. I've got samples of all 26 (Xinyu! Only 26 letters in the alphabet, thank God!) letters EXCEPT "U" and "G"! Cos at first I couldn't figure out which cookie cutter was G, & the "U" fell apart. Anyway I'm going to try to take a photo of the cookies so you guys can see it first thing tomorrow morning SO check your emails k. I'll probably send the photo by email.
Now for the round cookies. I've got 36 small round cookies, & 5 heart-shaped ones (cos I was trying to lump the cookie dough onto the plate when I realized one looked like a heart & so with a lil touch-up I did actually manage to make heartshapes. But I stopped at 5, just for samples I guess.) Just to give you guys an idea of how TINY the cookies are, they're Famous Amos size, some thinner. We could bake them bigger I guess; I still have half a pack of cookie mix, and my mom is going to work again tomorrow so she can get more mix at her workplace if we need to.
I just read Xinyu's post & I get the idea we are mostly going to sell the round (or whatever shaped) cookies. (I didn't know it would be like that.) For 7 whole days. So we are going to stand at the booth and collate order forms for alphabet cookies AS WELL AS get people to buy the cookies, like 3 for$1. Now here's what I think:
If we want to stand at the booth & sell mainly the round cookies, then we are going to need at least a hundred cookies. Because some that I baked today are burnt. Blame the oven. :] & that might only last 2.5 days. !!! And my cookies are not the professional kind; it didn't exactly REGISTER in my mind that we are selling the round cookies by the package as our main product at the booth from Mon to Teachers Day when the alphabet cookies are ready. & when Xinyu told me about 3 for $1, I thought those cookies are just for people to try how the alphabet cookies would taste like. As in, they can also buy the cookies, we are selling just for fun, you know, people who will go, "HEY I want a cookie! Are they on sale?" Then you "sun bian" sell some to them. You know? Yeah so my cookies are really in quite a bad shape. & I didn't plan on baking anymore than I already have, cos I thought they were merely for sampling & "for-fun" selling.
The alphabet cookies are not easy to bake. Cookie cutters are too small, but if we can find bigger cutters that will eliminate the problem. Might we be able to find bigger cutters? Don't know. Since they're so small, 5 letters for $2.50 is a little expensive. However, people standing at the booth can kindly remind the public how much effort it will take to bake those cookies. SO the extra money they pay is for human labour. :)
Is it possible that we sell JUST the alphabet cookies? So for 7 days all we do is collate order forms, and bake enough cookies just for people to sample the cookies. & forget about selling 3 for $1? Mainly because my cookies are really not of the standard to sell 3 for $1. They're the sample standard. The cookie mix & butter only costs about $5 & that should bake about 55-60 letters, which yields anywhere between $16.50 & $24. Our profit will be between $11 and $19 for every 10 teachers, if each teacher has an average of 6 letters in his/her name. That's quite a lot, if we have good response, & if we didn't use any cookie dough for baking round cookies.
Besides, this is for Teachers Day. So students shouldn't really be buying cookies for themselves and eating on the spot? & if students want to buy round cookies for their teachers, maybe they can pre-order those as well, since I'm quite sure students won't buy round cookies & keep them at home for a week++ before giving them to their teachers (cookies will become unfresh). If they pre-order round cookies, then yay, we can make $$, as well as have more time for baking (one more weekend, & one holiday), & we or I can make better looking cookies. Then there's no problem selling 3 for $1 - they just have to order in advance.
My mom says the alphabet cookies aren't worth our effort. But I think what might attract people to buy the cookies is the fact that they are alphabet-shaped. I wouldn't consider buying fund-raising-round-cookies, at all. But I might take a look at alphabet or heart shaped cookies. So my mom's suggesting we forget the alphabets, and just do round cookies. But I'm suggesting we try the alphabet and forget the round ones FIRST, unless we do the round ones like the alphabet ones - preorder. If the alphabet ones really really don't sell, then let's just forget the alphabets and do the round ones - rationale: alphabet ones very time consuming, & turn out to be very small.
Now for the baking. Took about 50 mins to bake 26 letters (of course, with rather raw experience of baking. As I go along I should speed up.) How are we going to bake so many alphabet cookies! We have the Tuesday holiday. But I have H3 NUS on that day. Yeah. SOOO. Maybe we can split the work or something. Or do it on the weekend before that week.
& last thing. Let's set a target of how much we want to profit? So we don't kill ourselves over baking. If we get too big of a response (haha) & have no time to bake SO many cookies, we can play down our publicity or something so we (or I) don't die of baking & make the oven my/our grave. :) What I mean is, bake just enough to hit our profit target.
Ok here's enough blogging for one night. Please suggest/reply to Xinyu what you think asap! Because if we need more mix, I gotta call my mom like NOW, now as in when you read this entry.
Thanks for getting through this long post. :) Love youguys tons & tons!
THE PIANISTS. 12:39 AM
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