Calculated Cakes helps bakers whip up cakes, stress-free

I know I’m not there just yet, but I can only imagine the kind of stress some bakers endure when they’re faced with a major cake project. What size cake does the client need to feed guests? Shape is a factor … does the client want a square cake or round cake? And how much do you charge per slice to get the cost of the cake? It’s mind-boggling, and while the math isn’t impossible, it can be easy to make a mistake when listening to the client’s initial input while crafting a quote.

Enter Chris Flesner, founder of Calculated Cakes, a growing software suite for busy bakers. I came across the first app, TieredCaker, about a month ago on another one of the countless baking blogs I frequent and thought it sounded really cool. So I emailed Chris a request to take the app on a test drive, which he kindly allowed.

My first impression is that it’s a very clean, well organized app, which is a huge deal. When you’re trying to pull together information about serving sizes, pricing, etc., you don’t need a lot of flashy useless stuff. The navigation is clear and easy to understand. I can imagine a baker pulling up the app in front of a client and walking them through the process of building their cake … who doesn’t love a tech-savvy and organized baker?

Calculated Cakes has recently released the second app in the suite, aptly called SheetCaker. What TieredCaker does for tiered cakes, SheetCaker does for sheet cakes. The app is consistent with TieredCaker, reflecting the clean design and simplicity of the tool.

After trying these 2 apps out, the only thing I think could make them even better (really this is a crazy wishlist item) would be the ability to load in a base recipe, which could then be scaled for the baker from that point to cover the size of the cakes, so then you know how much you’d need to go from a simple 1-tier 3-layer cake for a party to a 3-tier 3-layer cake for a wedding. I mentioned this to Chris, and he replied, “We’re not giving away any details of our future apps yet, so I can’t really confirm or deny that we will eventually have an app that includes a feature for recipe scaling. I can say, however, that my goal is for the Calculated Cakes app suite to eventually handle every need of the modern cake artist.”

How cool is that? And Chris is a really great guy. In our back-and-forth emails I got to experience the “human” behind the app–I think we tend to forget that there are people behind the apps we use every day on our mobile devices. So, as we chatted, I asked Chris to tell me a little about himself and how he got started with the Calculated Cake App Suite. Here’s his story:

Jennifer, my wife of six years and an aspiring baker and cake artist, pointed out to me that there was a surprising lack of cake apps in the App Store. At the time I thought to myself that maybe I could fill that void with an app while brushing up my programming chops preparing to be a game programmer. We brainstormed for a while before we finally arrived at the idea of TieredCaker. I was really surprised at the lack and inconsistency of tools and information that was available to cake decorators when planning how much cake they needed. It seemed to me that it took far too much time and effort to reference servings charts every time you needed to plan a cake. I figured I could fix that problem!

Originally TieredCaker and SheetCaker were going to be one app. I decided early on in the prototyping though, that due to the differences in tiered cakes and sheet cakes, they just made more sense as two separate apps. And that was going to be it. After that I was going to get back on track with game programming.

Then one day, I was sitting at my computer working on TieredCaker, and I suddenly had ideas for five more cake apps! The Calculated Cakes app suite was born! From then on, I knew I was a cake app programmer.  My goal now is to produce professional quality software that meets the needs of every cake artist from beginner to expert.

You can find on the App Store. Both apps are designed for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, and would be excellent tools for any baker ranging from enthusiastic amateur to pro.

Disclosure: I received promo codes to try out TieredCaker and SheetCaker from Calculated Cakes. However, my opinions are my own.