How to Turn Your Hobby into a Home Bakeshop
Love baking and making pastries? Are your baked goods always selling out first in bake sales and community potlucks? Turn that delicious hobby into a home business that will get you selling like hotcakes!
Bake away, and watch your business grow with our 6 tips in turning your baking hobby into a fully-fledged home baking business. You’ve already got the skills and the audience, so now it’s time to make something sweet with your baking! Here are our 6 tips that will help you maintain your home bakery business:
1. Consider Installing Air Conditioning in the Kitchen
Aircon installation may not sound like a necessary expense, but it all depends on the weather in your area. Your ingredients go bad quickly in hot, sticky weather, but you can’t just halt your profits all summer! Installing a small air conditioning system in your kitchen or workspace will help you keep your ingredients fresh throughout the seasons.
An air conditioner in the kitchen will also prevent the icing on your cake from melting, as well as frosting on cupcakes, butter-coated pastries, and glazed sweets. Plus, installing an air conditioner in the kitchen while you work may also be more sanitary, as the hot oven will make you sweat, but an air conditioner will prevent you from excessively sweating.
So consider investing in an air conditioner for your kitchen if you have the budget. The dry, cool, air from the air conditioner also helps your baked goods come out better, as there is little humidity to weigh down your fluffy chiffon cakes, souffles, and macaron shells!
2. Know Your Oven
The heart of every bakeshop is their oven. Know your oven to properly bake your goods. Remember, all ovens are different, so you need to understand your oven to be able to churn out baked goods smoothly as you operate your business.
Just how do you understand your oven? Practice! Keep practicing your skills, and you’ll adapt to your oven on your own. You’ll find tips and tricks that will help you understand your oven as you keep using it, and your baked products will become more consistent with practice. You’ll know how high your oven can go, the optimal temperature for you to bake, and more.
3. Invest in Your Appliances
Still using your trusty whisk to whip up frosting? Invest in your appliances to make the work easier for you! As you grow your business, your sales grow as well. Trusty, durable appliances are your investments in growing your home bakeshop. You can’t keep whipping cream by hand when you’ve got hundreds of orders that need to be shipped out daily!
The common bakeshop appliances include: stand mixer, dough kneading machine, digital candy thermometer, electric whisk, juicer, blender, and the like. However, you need to step back and see what appliances you need the most, and which you are most likely to use on a regular basis in your kitchen as you operate your home bakeshop.
4. Go for Marble or Stone Countertops
Marble and natural stone countertops are not just for aesthetic purposes. They keep the surface of your countertops cool so you can keep working at your frosting without fearing for it to melt. Natural stones are cool to the touch, and typically register a cooler temperature compared to the surrounding room.
However, marble countertops are high maintenance. You will need to ensure proper care for the material. You can also use an alternative natural stone that doesn’t require as much maintenance as marble, but retains the same cooling properties as marble.
In fact, marble is the material of choice in chocolateries as the cool stone tempers the chocolate well, without freezing or melting the chocolate. Similarly, your frosting, butter, and chocolates will be kept at optimal temperatures on a natural stone surface.
5. Grow with Your Business
Don’t just start your business and stay stagnant. Grow it! Grow your business and you grow your skills by practicing your decorations, getting better packaging, and going to learning sessions with professional chefs.
Don’t abandon your business and don’t let it abandon you. You need to continue growing alongside your business, and hone your skills so you can keep staying ahead of your competition. Don’t allow yourself to be mediocre just because your business is currently doing well. Keep improving, and your business can grow exponentially!
6. Find Your Branding
Lastly, figure out your branding. You can’t just make macarons today, and bread tomorrow. Keep your menu small in the meantime, and offer the goods that you’re most confident about. You can always revamp your menu afterwards, but currently, you need to break into the market with your best foot forward!
Once you’ve found a branding that works for you, stick to it. You can always improve later on, but it will be confusing for your customers to find you if you keep changing your logo every few months or so!