Chocolate-covered strawberries can bring in big bucks on Valentine’s Day, and they give retail bakeries a new product line to exploit. Many food outlets offer dipped strawberries at discounted prices, so how can you get your customers to buy them at a higher price? Make yours stand out from the plain varieties in other locations. Dip the fruit in a variety of colors and add small piped details to make them worth the higher cost.

Holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, are a perfect opportunity to tack on additional cupcake sales. They are ideal treats for school parties or club gatherings. The designs can be fairly simple, and if you use pre-made decorations, your decorators will be able to create cute products in a short amount of time.

Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day for couples and not usually a big sales opportunity for large cakes. But you can still sell plenty of cakes and make a tidy profit. Creating small, individual cakes for a couple to share is just one idea. These cakes can be quick and easy when you use a few simple tricks.

ASHLEY VICOS Like many girls of her generation, Ashley Vicos’ love of baking began at age 5 with an Easy- Bake Oven. That love has become her career as she now owns Atlanta-based Sweet Ashley’s, a commercially licensed cake studio, where she creates custom cakes and teaches cake decorating classes. Vicos has competed in several decorating challenges on TLC and the Food Network and has been seen on NBC and CBS.