My mother in law and coworkers CONSTANTLY tell me I need to sell what I bake, and that I should open a bakery, and my mother in law specifically will send me pictures of other baked goods and say “just so you know what you’re worth”…
Yes, I know my talent and what I’m worth and what my time is worth, however I have absolutely NO interest in baking to sell. At all. Nada. Zip. I bake because I love being able to focus on something and then feed the people I love, which brings me joy. If I had to bake to accommodate the wants of others, it would completely erase any joy I get and would make it feel like a chore.
I’ve attached the baked goods tax.
by Hour-Revolution4150
28 Comments
I had to ask my family to stop turning every dessert I make into a business pitch. I don’t want to monetize my hobby – the hobby I love deeply because it is not work for me and is instead an escape from my job lol. So I get you. Even though I would totally buy those pavlova in a heartbeat.
Nice knife there. And the stuff you made looks delicious too.
To stay on your topic, yes 100% agree.
All the business related planning, organization, timelines, etc change the entire experience from personal enjoyment to now becoming stressful since it’s a paid service
“You should open a bakery!” Yeah, no. Baking is an act of love, and a coping mechanism, and a deep-seated passion for me. Monetizing it would destroy my enjoyment in sharing my craft and derail my journey of discovery, both culinary and personal.
Me!
Yes! Mainly because I’d feel bad for no reason lmao
I wish to enjoy baking.
These are beautiful! I think some people are in the habit of telling others that they could do ___________ professionally as a compliment. It can be tiring to hear but it is common shorthand.
I need that focaccia in my life! And yeah, 100% – baking for me == no stress. Baking for profit == I have a meltdown when I drop a jam covered layer sticky side down.
Same. I really love themed foods that go with movie or game nights. I spend all of a Friday baking and it’s great, but if that was my job it wouldn’t be fun at all.
I know people mean well but I don’t think any of them actually consider how much work, time and effort it would take to monetize it to a point that makes it worth it.
You have to think about business strategy, pricing, supplies and purchasing, recipe testing, marketing and social media. Does your home have enough space, do you need to rent a space? Are you actually going to make enough money or will you just be using up every free moment doing this and barely breaking even?
No thanks! It sounds lovely with rose colored glasses but the reality is that it’s hard, it wouldn’t be fun for long, you’d loose your freedom and flexibility and unless you have enough capitol and are going big you probably won’t make much. I’ll stay a hobby baker.
I’ll happily contribute to bake sales, but running a business? No, thank you. I’ve tried working for myself before; my boss was an asshole and my employee was useless.
Selling your bakes makes it a job, not a fun hobby. Freedom to make whatever you want.
What are the cute little pumpkins?
Definitely do not want the pressure of it!
Could we please get the recipe for what you made in picture #4?
It looks like some kind of apple thing that would cause me a couple gallons of milk to polish that whole thing off.
I don’t feel confident enough to sell. Like, yeah, I can make side money, but it takes a full-on commitment for a business.
Personally, I just like baking as a hobby. I feel if I were to make it my whole life, I would end up hating it.
Once upon a time, I entertained the idea of going pro. It made sense, right? I love to bake and people seemed to like my work, so why not turn it into a career?
So I stuck my toe in the water, and took a few orders. Initially, it was nice. I’m doing something I enjoy *and* getting paid. But I soon noticed that I just wasn’t getting the same feeling of fulfillment that I did baking for friends and family. I began stressing about every perceived imperfection and it started to feel like just another job.
The deal breaker for me was the lady who complained that her 30-layer crepe cake “should have been taller.” That was it. I went back to making what I wanted to make the way I wanted to make it. I stopped focusing on making some customer happy and just enjoyed the idea that the people I gave my desserts to were genuinely appreciative.
Baking became fun again, and I don’t ever want to lose that feeling.
Epilogue: I wound up becoming a food safety inspector and my job has taken me into *lots* of bakeries. I’ve had many conversations with bakers about the inner workings about the industry, and seen what is really involved in doing that full time. And it’s a lot. I mean, *a lot.*
On more than one occasion, I’ve even been asked by the owner/head baker if I had ever officially considered going into business. My standard response is that I know way too much about bakeries to want to do it full time.
Tl;dr – if you’re happy keeping baking strictly as a hobby… keep it that way.
How the heck do you cut your millionaire’s shortbread so perfectly cleanly? I get where you’re coming from, too. No need to make a job out of your peaceful pastime!
I have and hated every second of baking anything I sold.
So I don’t do it anymore. There’s no joy in it for me.
I get it. People always ask why I don’t sell my bakes. It’s a nice compliment, I guess, but it also seems like a huge headache I don’t want. I also think I just wouldn’t enjoy it. I have accepted a little money from family and friends who wanted me to bake something for a get together they were having or some event. Usually because they insisted on compensating me for time and ingredients—so at a really low price. I see that more as doing something for someone I care about though, so it’s still enjoyable for me!
My grandmother is obsessed with me selling my baked goods but I just don’t want to. Sure they are good for a home baker but they are not professional level and I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling them to people for money. Baking is my hobby, not my job.
Just say “no thanks. I don’t enjoy working retail”
Your stuff does look really good but as someone that has spent the past year baking to sell, you have the right idea. So much of my time has become menu planning, social media posts, recipe testing, taking photos constantly, making sure I have niche things stocked, listening to people’s opinions constantly. I have no joy in baking anymore. Especially after I spend so much time, money, and effort into making a menu for the month and I get very few sales. The sales are never consistent. I made a couple grand in December, a couple hundred a month until June. I might have made $100 in August. This month I made some sales because I marked cookies down so low for a fundraiser for my child’s school. I’ve made no sales since. I still have doughs from June in my freezer. I have no interest in making a menu or doing anything at all for October. Baking isn’t fun right now and supplies are so expensive. Also the never ending flow of people asking if I’m going to mark down my flavors at the end of the month or if they can have a free box to promote me.
Don’t sell your stuff. Bake because you love it and you want to share.
I’m 100% with you on that. And the one time I let someone talk me into it I had two orders:
The first guy said he could get cake for less at Walmart. I was charging $35 for an 8′ two layer caramel cake.
The next guy wanted a catering box of cookies for his film crew… When I told him my top 5 favorite flavors he said he wanted 10 total, but two of each flavor. Nope
Hobbies are supposed to be fun.
I’ve somewhat enjoyed doing farmers markets but I found that it’s way less pressure to just give someone a baked good rather than have them pay for it. I feel too bad charging what I have to charge to make it worth it and would rather just give them away. One day after a particularly bad day at the market, I had like 10 bags with 3 cookies in each one. The neighborhood kids were out so I stopped and got out and started handing cookies out. That to me was more fun than any amount of money I was going to make off of them.
I made my brothers wedding cake this summer. The number of people who seem outraged that I only want to hobby bake after telling them that is astounding. They seem to take it weirdly personally that I have a hobby with no intention of monetizing it.
For a large part of the population, no hobby is safe from grind culture. Like, just let me bake my desserts baked with love for my friends, family and myself!
What happened to the old adage to not make your hobby your job :0 i don’t want baking to be a side hustle, it won’t be fun anymore! I like to bake what i want and be okay with the chance i might make a mistake
100% not interested (my husband is a pastry chef and he’s not interested). We did 21 years in the military — I have no desire to juggle a crazy schedule every again.
My husband did sale his breads to a local business for a short while…but the demand skyrocketed 10-fold in less than a month. We lived tiny with a tiny kitchen. So he stopped.
Now it’s just baking with the seasons and he loves it again