Do you still use bakeries?

Paco Rodriguez

Hey guys

With the ever rising popularity of home baking, it seems bakeries are closing left right and centre.
As people who bake at home have you lost complete reliance on cake shops and bakeries?
I enjoy baking and I have registered in a diploma course in German baking. Its a hobby at the moment but i registered with a dream of getting into it maybe through a market stall or something.

Now I am thinking its a dead end. I have a secure full time job. The feeling I get is that I would never earn more than what I do now ~34,000p/a....so why change?

I just see this course as the divide between hobby and seriousness and is it worth the investment.

Stench Blossoms

TBH I think the market is flooded with 'home bakers' now. I doubt you'd be able to make any serious money when other costs are factored into it.

The problem is that anyone who bakes at home and gives to their friends and family are told 'Wow these are amazing, you should go into business'. I doubt these people would be as complimentary if they had to pay for them.

another question

Baking is so expensive, I made a celebration cake recently and between buying all the stuff for the mix plus a good jam and cream, royal icing, ribbon, piping, the foil thing to put it on plus about 5 hours work I so wished I had just bought one. Even bought our Christmas cake this year, €23.50 iced all around, loads of fruit and almond, not in a million years would I have made one that tasted as good for under €25.

phormium

You are earning more now that you would earn baking, keep it as a hobby.

MissFlitworth

I wish we had more continental style bakeries in Ireland, just places to pick up decent bread. Not burnt turnovers, soft rolls in suspicious sealed plastic bags (if baked on premises, how'd the plastic bag come into the equation Mr Local Bakery, hmmm?) or Cuisine de France. I'm lucky that there are a couple of decent places opened near me in Dublin in the last few years (Paris Bakery on Moore St. for one). Unfortunately though, although I do use bakeries it's not regular & it would, alack & alas, be very rarely for cakes. I don't think any baker is going to be paying for a holiday home in a warm spot based on my bread purchases

Toast4532

I rarely use bakeries, I don't mean to be biased, but I prefer the stuff that I make myself (bread excluded, I can never get it right!), because I know exactly what has gone into whatever I make I know it will taste right.

As well as that, bakeries are pretty expensive, scones in my local bakery are €1.20, and if you want butter/jam, they each 30 cents extra, so that's the guts of €2 euros for one small item.

I could buy the ingredients myself and make them, OK, so the ingredients might cost €8 for example, but I could make many scones with those ingredients, so I'd be getting my monies worth.

Dizzyblonde

I bake my own bread and cakes and only buy the odd sliced pan for handiness. I never buy bread from market stalls or 'upmarket' bakeries because I feel they're overpriced. I know they've probably got to charge a high price for the effort and good ingredients, but it's more than a lot of people are willing to pay.

Jellybaby1

The reason I don't buy bread/cakes in bakeries or from bakers in food markets is that their products are overpriced, and I can bake as well as they can and produce excellent results. I also once thought I'd go into business but as I wouldn't pay those prices myself I would not ask anyone to pay it either. Business advisers will say you must value your product and your skill and price accordingly, unfortunately a lot have gone OTT. Most people can, with practice, produce very good results themselves. Only those with more money than time will pay for it - or as my old mum used to say 'those with more money than sense'!

annamcmahon

The main reason for high prices of food at markets is the high price of rent. I was shocked to discover that it cost between €50 and €80 to stand on a piece of concrete. I had planned to do a few markets a week selling cakes but know I'd barely cover costs unless I charged ridiculous prices. I was just luck to have a stall at a coop so paid a proportion of my takings

Tree

I still buy cakes and cookies and bread at bakeries. I'd do so more often if there was one nearer to me. While I might be able to bake three loaves for the price of one made loaf, or a tray of cookies for the price of one, I dont have enough mouths to eat three loaves and lots of biscuits, when all I want is enough bread for one and a biscuit for my saturday morning coffee, it's a different type of wasteful I suppose.

OP do you want to open a bakery or work with an existing bakery/confectioners? The world certainly needs more delicious German treats