Patricia - I wish you the best. I've been in the restaurant/deli/catering business since I was in the womb!

I've thought of opening a small bakery - but one thing I do not want to use are any of the wholesale bakery mixes for baking. I believe in good old fashioned cooking and baking.

It's a lot of work. I would start with a "base" of daily items that I would want to see sell. Which of course you can change at any time - all depending on customer demand.

Then each day of the week I would offer specialty items. It's the best way to find out what your customers want.

It's very hard to find a true "bakery" these days. Most are located in the supermarkets and they sell junk food. I won't buy it. It's usually a frozen item thawed and decorated, or thawed a baked.

I am so sick of seeing these so called "bakeries" open a box of cupcakes from the freezer - pre-frosted yet and they just sprinkle candies on them, wrap, tag and put out for sale.

Most in-store bakeries sell cakes already decorated - they just write on them for you.

Donuts???? OMG - they are horrid these days! They have no taste - sugar sweet crap.

Ditto with cookies. You can taste all the crap in them - and that is not flavor to me.

I don't believe in cake mixes, pre-made frostings, refrigerated pie crusts, etc. But that is just me.



CAG - winning the lottery??? I hope you do! Honestly! I would definitely open my own place - everything totally homemade. And I'd be in heaven!!

(I wonder if Nan is familiar w/ this place???) In Alaska when one takes the lovely scenic drive along the Seward Highway from the Kenai Peninsula, north to Anchorage, there's a popular stop-over in Girdwood, a Seven-Eleven mini-mart/gas-station. Directly behind this is a diner w/ a fantastic bakery known affectionately by the locals (ANY Alaskan from ANYWHERE within the "small" state is considered a "local".) as "The Russian Bakery". They sold the biggest, most delicious EVERYTHING! ...donuts, muffins, scones, canolis, baklava, turnovers, fritters, cream puffs - but my FAV were their HUGE, RICH Pecan Squares, portioned as big as the palm of your hand. I'd buy TWO of them and have one eaten by the time we rolled into Anchorage, and then squirrel the other one away for the trip back home at the end of the day. Talk about good! MMMM!!!

I LOVE cake. But it has to be homemade from scratch. My favorites are lemon pound cake, banana layer cake, devilish chocolate devil's food, my mom's Maine blueberry, and my own vanilla "easy quick cake".

Chub, when I'm stressed at my ER job I daydream about my bakery...warm, homey, with strong fresh coffee brewed, jars of biscotti on the counter, decorated sugar cookies for the kids, biscuits for the doggies, fancy cakes in the case, and a wedding cake in the works in the back.

Someday.

My sister bought me a big, fun kitchen/chef calendar a couple years ago (this year she bought me a "Ratatoulle" calendar) and after the year was gone I selected about 7 of the 12 illustrations to frame and display on the narow stretch of wall up high between the tops of my kitchen cabinets and the ceiling. They look fabulous- and they're all of chefs baking and carrying cakes/pies of various kinds. One chubby chef is riding a bicycle while holding a tiered wedding cake- another is walking a circus tight-rope while balancing pies... SO FUN!

BTW- do you guys remember the short & sweet segments often shown to illustrate numbers on Sesame Street years ago, of the pastry chef walking down a huge flight of stairs while holding specific numbers of pies/cakes, then falling to the terrified amazement of we juvenile onlookers?! What a way for us to learn our numbers (and develop a taste for pastry!) huh?

Chub, I watch those segments NOW all the time with my kids. We love Sesame Street Old School DVDs. Love that klutzy pastry chef.