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Permalink Reply by Kathy Fadorsen on July 19, 2011 at 12:04pm

    I tried not baking having everything delivered was way to expensive and was never the same twice. I on the other hand am not a baker and since I could not afford to hire one. I have a oven and have slowly added more items to what I bake. I am using a scoop and bake muffin and cookies from the same company they are great. I bake brownies, cheesecake and cinn rolls. the cinn rolls come from rich frozen you just proof and bake smell great when baking. If I needed to hire a baker only It would not be worth it but since I do It is fresher and I sell about 700 muffins a month.

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Permalink Reply by Casey Loseth on July 19, 2011 at 12:39pm

If you want to offer just some simple classy baking I suggest picking up a couple of books. Try the Gisslen Baking text book, I got mine for 60 bucks at a borders in Montana, and then a book or two by one of the top bakeries in the country, La Brea or something. There's lots that you can offer with just a simple household oven. Things like hazelnut croissant pinwheels with orange glaze, or brioche cinnamon rolls, scones also seem to be a popular one. And all of those are easy to learn and easy to pump out solid consistency. I suggest having the text book because it's great if you get stuck and you don't have an actual person to go too with questions. The book is really descriptive and detailed, and most top schools are using the Gisslen text books.

 

To add to this, I recently trained a completely in-experienced 17 year old girl with that text book. It's been a month, and she's now writing her own vegan baking recipes, and I've been able to step right out of the kitchen in the mornings and focus on the front of house.

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Permalink Reply by Casey Loseth on July 19, 2011 at 2:47pm

Sorry for the double post, But our owners second location does get it's baking delivered to them (too small to hold an oven). It is do-able but difficult. The baking does come from a good reputable local bakery fresh every day. Even so I've found that it is inconsistant and I would much rather come half an hour early keep the doors locked throw down a batch of muffins, cinnamon buns, and scones and then have a second person do more if needed after opening. Once you have a couple of good solid recipes down you can do a good amount of tasty treats in a relatively short amount of time. Depending on your volume of course. Here we do about 30 total items (maybe a dozen scones, eight muffins and a loaf or something) in that half hour before we open and then we bake a little more in the afternoon to get us through the evening. We have anywhere between 150-300 people through a day. I get in at 6:30 and have the baking prepped and my doors open at seven and the baking is usually out of the oven at quarter after. This is with a household oven and all prepared by hand.

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Fadorsen on July 20, 2011 at 1:35pm

    I disagree the profit margin on bakery is slim buying it just eats away at the profits and you have no chance to adjust what is selling today over yesterday. Sometimes I sell every cin roll I make other times is takes 2 or three days

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Permalink Reply by Troy J Mallett on July 20, 2011 at 2:53pm

Hiring a baker can be very valuable despite the increase in wages. There are several things that a professional baker can do for you that a domestic/casual baker might not be able to do.

First, control the costs of food production and continually recycle stale pastries into new products eg. Stale croissants into bread pudding, or stale chocolate cake into rum balls. Second, they will be able to consistently produce the same items with minimal waste, time and variations in quality. If you offer a white chocolate and raspberry muffin, it needs to be the exact same muffin every time.

Third, with a convection oven, stand mixer, tray rack, and general utensils, I could make a batch of focaccia (yielding bread for 16 paninis) for about $5, or $.31 per sandwich. The quality can also be better than any other place around. However, consistent bread production over months and years cannot be done by the average baker.

Cookies can be made, portioned and stored in batches of 12 dozen, or muffins in batches of 16 L of mix, ready to be portioned and baked off in the morning (about 5 minutes of prep time)

 

Bringing on a baker (with the oven, mixer, etc.) is an investment, no different than leasing a new grinder or fridge. If the baker is worth their weight in salt, they should be able to make you all sorts of great products under responsible food costs.

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Permalink Reply by Casey Loseth on July 21, 2011 at 9:50am

Consider, if it works with your volume level, hiring someone that can be a killer Barista as well. Someone that can step out from the back to help.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on July 22, 2011 at 8:34pm

Andrea , i run a Bakery /coffee shop/gelateria. It is really succesful!! BUT there is one thing thats is really important here ME AND MY PARTNER DO EVERYTHING!!!! If you want to open a bekery well go learn professional Baking. if not  well you will always be a the mercy of your employee. Good loyal baker are extremly hard to find, we know we try to train 3 in 1 years and it never work out. I have to said that we do every thing organic and from scratch with make it really technical but it worth it. My only advise is start Baking now.

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