East Greenbush bakery makes 275 gallons of buttercream in one week

EAST GREENBUSH — At Zachary's Pastry Shoppe, it takes 19 pounds of butter to make one 15-gallon batch of buttercream frosting. This week, owner Dan Raymond (above) and his two-person staff in the bakery's basement production kitchen filled five 55-gallon plastic barrels with frosting. That works out to about 350 pounds of butter for 275 gallons of frosting.

By midafternoon on Friday, three of the barrels at Zachary's were empty, with two more in reserve to frost cakes and cupcakes needed to fill the approximately 100 orders going out on Friday and Saturday, including for multiple high school graduation parties and six weddings, plus more to stock the shop's retail cases, for those who neglected to order ahead.

To fill this week's orders, Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush filled five 55-gallons barrels with its signature butttercream frosting.
Steve Barnes/Times Union

Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush stocks about 700 sheet pans for baking.
Steve Barnes/Times Union

To fill this week's orders, Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush filled five 55-gallons barrels (left) with its signature buttercream frosting. The bakery keeps 700 sheet pans (right) on hand to stay on top of orders. (Photos by Steve Barnes/Times Union) To fill this week's orders, Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush filled five 55-gallons barrels (top) with its signature buttercream frosting. The bakery keeps 700 sheet pans (bottom) on hand to stay on top of orders. (Photos by Steve Barnes/Times Union)

"Cake and cupcakes always seem to get left to the last minute," said Raymond, who ran his bakery in Albany for five years, took a decade break while his kids were young and has operated the reopened Zachary's, in a small retail plaza on Routes 9 and 20, for the past 20 years. He said, "We have to have (cupcakes) in the shop. People will come in, desperate, and say, 'I'll take all of those.'"

After two years of social events limited in size and number by pandemic-related concerns about gatherings, celebrations are back in a big way. Bakeries, caterers and other suppliers report significant surges in demand for products and events.

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A palette of icing is used to decorate cakes and cupcakes at Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush. It is among many Capital Region bakeries, caterers and other suppliers serving a surge in demand for products and events as large celebrations and other gatherings have resumed as the coronavirus pandemic further recedes. 
Steve Barnes/Times Union

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Working with two assistants in the basement production kitchen of Zachary's Pastry Shoppe in East Greenbush, owner Dan Raymond is filling more than 100 orders for wedding, graduation parties and other events this weekend, when such celebrations are in full swing for the first time in three years.
Steve Barnes/Times Union

Clifton Park-based Mazzone Hospitality, for instance, is finishing the month having averaged 17 weddings during each of June's Friday-to-Sunday weekends, as well as several Thursday weddings and six bar mitzvahs, according to Sean Willcoxon, Mazzone Hospitality's chief catering officer. The company also catered a 5,000-person corporate event this month, Willcoxon said, and on Friday night handled an American Cancer Society gala for 600 at Saratoga National Golf Club.

"Prices for everything are going up," said Raymond, noting that the cost of one of the commercial baking products he uses, sugared egg yolks, more than doubled in the past year.

"We have to charge more, but people seem to understand or they don't really care," said Raymond. "With no restrictions for the first time in three years, they're going to celebrate." 