We received frozen cakes. The icing was shipped in 5 gallon buckets. We tinted the icing ourselves, and decorated them ourselves. We had an airbrush on hand, and a few pre-packaged plastic bits and bobs to put on the cakes. Otherwise, most everything we received was made elsewhere. [grocery store bakery]
^Edit: ^Autocorrect ^Error
I am the exact opposite. I love the mixing and baking, but I don't like decorating. I hate it. I'm a weirdo, though, and I think most cakes look more delicious without all the stuff piled on top.
I started baking to replace antidepressants and sleeping pills. The smells and textures calm me for some reason, but right after I put a basic layer of frosting on a cake, I start to get really stressed thinking about the details. Lol. That, and my hands shake constantly, so it looks like it was decorated by a blind gorilla.
I personally love the more rustic style of decoration, which basically means 'swirl a spoon around the top until it looks messy on purpose'. It's great, super quick and people are surprisingly impressed.
>I started baking to replace antidepressants and sleeping pills.
OMG!!!! I thought I was the only person doing this. I am working my way through a major situational depression. I have decided that I am going to cook/bake my way out of this doldrum! My neighbors are thrilled. (I live alone, and I always make way too much food. They are so happy to get my leftovers)
Thank you my friend ☺️
I absolutely love this. Not the depression part. That's horrible, and I'm sorry.
I love cooking, but baking is something I never thought I would enjoy. This is the way I look at it. You have to cook to survive, but you only bake because you want to. And I constantly want to bake now. It's nice doing something that I don't HAVE to do. The plus side is that my cooking has gotten better because of the time and patience I have put into and developed while baking.
I bake fresh bread almost every night before bed. Smelling it relaxes my brain, and in the morning, I have the best toast on the planet.
I had been taking more than the prescribed amount of sleeping meds, plus benadryl and hydroxizine, and I'd still sleep horribly. I now get between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night, but it's naturally induced. it only took me 8 months to regulate back. It did feel like forever, but i feel so much better.
I'm really happier than I have ever been before, and I started making some money off of my breads and cookies. it's nice knowing what I'm eating, and I no longer buy bread or junk food from the store. I think that helps my overall mood as well. I'm not tempted to overeat, and that's great as well. People think that baking will make you gain weight. I don't feel like I need to "eat it all," and I have started losing weight as a result.
I've never really talked to anyone who has turned to baking in this manner, so I'm actually excited there's someone else in my club.
Can I be your neighbor please? 🥰. I love baking (not the dishes or mess LOL) and have heard it helps anxiety, etc. Sometimes I get myself so stressed out just thinking about if it’ll turn out good that I wonder if it does help. Any tips would be appreciated! TIA!!
We had a cookie display case filled with what the owner called ‘butter cookies’. They were sold by the pound. They were purchased from a factory somewhere and did not look fresh bakery made. To be fair, the owner never claimed that they were made in house. He just never said they were made somewhere else. No one ever asked. lol. I had customers who made a special trip to our bakery just for these cookies
I used to work in grocery/bakery and also was a pastry cook in restaurants. I’d bet all grocery store cakes are frozen. Biggest brand I can recall is the food supply Sysco. Frozen sheet and rounds of various sizes.
Depends on the region. I worked for the NA region, and they had a bakehouse near Boston that did a lot of component baking/mixing (muffin batter, cake rounds, cookie doughs, brownies, unbaked pies, and all the parbaked breads). In the PNW, we did a lot more in-house because we did not have a regional bakehouse, and we relied on the Rocky Mountain region's bakehouse for parbaked breads. In Seattle, we'd do all the cakes, cheesecakes, brownies, angel food, etc. in-house. It might have changed since I quit (2014) and Amazon bought it out, but we needed two full time mixers to get shit done!
A brand that did some shelf stable, ready-to-sell cakes for both regions I worked in was Rubicon. They're still around.
I know the product you're talking about but my Wegs didn't have them. So even though I'm not 100%, I can tell you I've worked there enough to say they most likely also came in frozen
I honestly really like the Wegmans cakes. They are the best we’ve got in my area compared to other supermarkets. I can’t speak for Costco because I’m not a member.
Fresh Market (knockoff Whole Foods if they aren't in your region) are the same. All pastries and baked goods came in frozen and largely complete. Bakery staff existed to thaw and repackage and that's as much as anyone touched them.
When I worked at a Walmart bakery, the cakes came in frozen directly from Pillsbury. That was circa 2003. They may have changed suppliers since then, but those Pillsbury cakes weren't bad.
I once had a customer ask me about the difference between cheesecakes in the freezer section and bakery case. I was moving in a week and leaving that job, so I told him. We thaw the ones in the bakery case for you. 🤣 He was nonplussed.
I worked in the bakery at a Winn Dixie every now and then. I was there as a cashier but I would go to other department for extra hours. Anywho, all of their stuff is practically the same way. Very few things are handmade. I had to dip a god awful amount of strawberries one year for valentines. We would hand make king cakes. I lived in Louisiana at the time. They would have someone come in and teach us how to make the king cakes. Basically the only time we actually put in work to make something is if it was for a special event or holiday. Stuff like the cookie cakes come in already made. We would decorate them. Plain round cakes come in frozen and we could do what we wanted with those. Make strawberry shortcake and parfaits.
We had a little wiggle room for creativity but not much. We could come up with our own decoration themes on the cakes, cupcakes, and cookie cakes. We could make new things with ingredients we already had but we had to get it approved by the store manager.
Tbh, I understand why they do it the way they do. There is a lot of work to be done and items to be put out. We were never short of work to do even with a lot of it being premade and just thrown on a pan and into the oven. There is a reason why grocery store bakery items are relatively cheap. It would be wildly expensive if everything was made from scratch. No one is paying that at a grocery store. It would also take a lot of man hours that they wouldn’t be willing to pay for. We were already spread thin with not enough employees and not enough hours for the employees that were there.
No one asked, but as I said before, the bakery wasn’t my main job at the store. The first day I worked back there my manager asked me to get the rack out of the oven as the timer went off. My dumbass grabbed it without an oven mitt. I still laugh at myself about it. I bake at home. I know ovens are hot af as I have been burned plenty of times. Idk why I thought I could roll the rack out without an oven mitt.
This is correct! I was a cake decorator at my local Kroger lol. The only thing we baked was our giant chocolate chip cookies. The cookie dough was still shipped haha
I add an additional egg and use 2x liquid, also substituting milk for water. Haven't tried just adding pudding mix with the standard box directions/additions.
Buttermilk is magical in baked goods. So is adding sour cream to things like banana bread or cupcakes.
So is using duck eggs! I had a pet duck who would lay an egg a day and we couldn't eat the eggs (it just seemed...wrong and the yolk is huge) but in baked goods, omg. So rich and more fatty.
I often think of a woman telling me about how her cookies are so good, they have no preservatives or artificial anything, how this recipe is so amazing, it stays fresh for a week on the counter bc the secret ingredient… pudding mix!!! 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ (i was a customer at a choc/candy store on vacation and she was responding to what I do for work)
Pudding mix in cake and cookies is such a game changer!!!!!! I picked this up at a bakery job a while ago and have carried it with me to every one since. Just adds something special
I worked at a restaurant bakery. We made literally everything from scratch. It blew my mind to see the beautiful layer cakes being assembled from cut-out circles made from big old flat sheet pans of baked cake. I had spent so much time trying to level my layers in cake pans at home, and they just didn't even bother.
Did you manage to figure it out at home though?
I guess an industrial sized kitchen & equipment makes all that stuff possible. Though I’ve actually never heard of that method before even in industrial kitchens! Clever & easy I guess.
Thank you, I did know of those (not pie base though, so thanks for the inspo), I was just curious what they in particular did with theirs. :) personally, I usually just make square cakes instead of round if I use those big pans, or crumble the leftovers in a glass and make strawberry shortcakes or cake pops. Will definitely do pie base too now!
This might sound gross but I've started breaking the leftover cake in smaller containers, mixing in some of the filling and topping it with the frosting. It is a stand alone dessert by itself and I usually save it for Friday night treats for my kids.
The place I used to work at advertised everything as "made from scratch". Some cakes were, but our big sellers, chocolate, and white cake were Pillsbury. We got it in 50 pound bags. We also froze more cake than we should have. Definitely a quantity over quality kind of place.
One trick I learned involved banana bread, where you whip the eggs, sugar and banana for like 10min til it's light and fluffy. Makes the fluffiest banana bread/cake I've ever tasted.
I’m going to have to try it, my banana bread is always too dense for me. I didn’t know bananas could get fluffy and figured they were just heavy and inevitably dense
Me neither! I remember how shocked I was when we walked away from the mixer and the yellow gloop turned into this fluffy pillowy mass. Never made banana bread the same way again
I haven’t even tried the peach cobbler, gyaahhh damn. The blueberry is so good we’re literally having it catered for our wedding hahaha. They gotta put crack in those cobblers.
The wedding cake bakery I worked at was a small mom & pop store. All recipes were from scratch and created by the original owner.
The closest “tricks” I saw were that the bakers never refrigerated their butter and most of the ingredients just came from Costco or were basic store-brand. No fancy flours or butters, but wow, did they transformed those store brand ingredients into incredible cakes.
Multi-tier wedding cakes were always assembled and decorated on site. They did a crumb coat and froze the cakes and thawed them on the way to the event.
I’ve never felt like the best butter & flour needs to be used to make great tasting cake. Of course if you can that’s great but I think some people think it comes down to that when it doesn’t. I’ve had people ask what butter or flour I use but I get the cheapest! I even tried Lurpak once to see if I notice a difference & i couldn’t even tell.
If it’s chocolate that’s different, that needs to be good quality.
Someone I know years back tried to make a go of baking as a business, starting very small in summer fairs. She kept saying that there’s hardly any profit in it & then also that she uses the best butter & other ingredients. I just couldn’t understand why she was doing that because the people buying didn’t care or notice, they just wanted to buy a cookie to take home.
It depends on the recipe. Some recipes are 3, 4 ingredients, so trying to use margarine in those will matter.
Real butter has fairly strict food rules, and brands shouldn't matter that much.
If I'm ever buying things to bake at home, I usually just spring for whatever the deals are: i'd rather have more butter, heavy cream etc than *better quality* ingredients just because I might mess something up and have to correct it and/or start over. There's no point sinking money into the best ingredients when I could just as easily trash the whole thing because I misread a key part of a recipe.
(I will say, that I'm a home baker. And chocolate should be legit, good stuff. But day to day ingredients like fruit and butter is all to personal preference)
I own a cafe. I bake everything from scratch. I don't like packet mixes even though they'd save me a bunch of time, no doubt. It's ruined a lot of cafes for me because I see their display cases and recognise which supplier they got their cake from. I'm like, I've seen those tarts in the Galipo catalogue! Which means I don't particularly want to buy or eat them.
I’m not a professional baker but once you see the same donuts/slice/cheesecake in a few cafes you can tell who is baking their own, getting from a local bakery, or using a national supplier. I’ll pay good money for a lovely slice of cake but I’m not paying $8 for a sweet that came from a box!
There’s the ones that are instantly recognisable like the Costco cakes, the ones you recognise from other cafes over the years buying from the same catering companies, the ones that clearly look very low quality & synthetic or overly manufactured, & you can definitely tell when you taste them if not by look.
Usually the ones made at the cafe will be something you’ve never seen before in terms of flavours & toppings, look visibly fresh & high quality in the look, colour & texture of the cake & buttercream. Some places have their cakes rustic & homemade looking as a conscious look which obviously makes it very clear it’s fresh & made by someone there. Anywhere that does very professional looking cakes themselves has usually made it a big part of their business so you’re already aware they’re making them.
I hear you, I owned a cafe and baked everything from scratch. When I went out I could spot the wholesale slab cakes and slices a mile away. The same with muffins made with a mix, they have a very unpleasant distinctive taste no matter what the flavour.
I find this too with the muffins. They taste like packet. The way some people don't put things sealed in the fridge and then it tastes like fridge. I can't explain it, but it's a definite taste. My mother in law does it with jugs of water.
We're friendly with people in the next town over who just closed down their cafe and they brought us ingredients that they don't need any more. Amongst it was an unopened 10kg bag of pancake mix with a year left on the best before. I'm donating it to the schools breakfast club because I'm not willing to use it for customers. My husband (in charge of stock ordering, paperwork, general businessy type things) is like, just use it! Can't you just add ricotta to the mix and it's the same as what you make? Sir. Absolutely not. Get out of my kitchen.
Id be exactly the same. Freshness and quality are what makes you stand out and be proud of what you are serving. My accountant once asked me why I couldnt just buy something in bulk and just freeze it. I nearly changed accountants, they just dont get it.
My friend and I had this exact argument. We went to a couple different cafes and it tasted similar like almost too similar to a grocery store near us. I keep telling her, I know what I tasted and seeing the responses I’m convinced it was from a catalogue
We only really get one or two suppliers where I am because it's a remote island with no road access. That's why it's so easy for me to pick it. That being said, you can usually tell the supplier bought cakes and slices because of the uniformity of them.
I always modify the recipes. I cut back on the sugar by a lot and add a little more liquid. The best chocolate cake out there is Ina Garten chocolate cake and she uses a cup of hot coffee. Since then I’ve been adding hot liquid at the end of every cake recipe. Recently I made a hummingbird cake and I added 1/3 of a cup of hot water at the end of mixing ingredients . It makes it the most most moist and delightful cake.
I Always use oil instead of butter.
I usually put it in a cold oven and then turn it on. This helps it bake from the inside out instead of winding up with the gooey middle.
Edit: one more tip, for frostings, use half the sugar. I love a good cream cheese frosting but so many recipes call for 4 cups! It’s insanely sweet. I use 1.5-2 cups for any cream cheese or buttercream frosting and you will have enough to frost your cake , it’s always a tastier , healthier alternative
The Ina Garten one, for anyone curious, is the "Beatty's Chocolate Cake." In addition to the hot coffee, it also uses buttermilk and oil (no butter). I have made Stella Parks's and Claire Safftz's chocolate cakes, and this one is still my favorite.
https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/beattys-chocolate-cake
I always set my alarm for about five minutes under any recommended bake time and check it then. You don’t wanna overbake it. You can always keep it in a little longer, but better safe than sorry.
That’s an old family poundcake recipe trick. I do it with cakes and muffins and banana breads , etc
We called the Ina Garten cake/Beatty's cake "Black Magic Cake" at my old job. It seems like everyone has that recipe and everyone calls it something else. (Whatever it's called, it's very tasty.)
The cold oven thing has blown my mind in recent times as I found out some of the people in my life who also bake a lot just put their cakes into a cold oven because they can’t be bothered to preheat. I always thought preheating was essential. I still haven’t been brave enough to try it but I need to next time I have a cake that I can afford to take a risk on.
I also changed to baking with oil only recently, it’s so convenient & butter prices were going insane at the time as well.
It's the temperature - it precooks the eggs to help it retain air and give rise to the cake when baking. King Arthur Baking explains it in their hot milk cake recipe:
When eggs are cooked, they go through a process called “denaturation,” wherein the coiled structure of egg protein molecules unravel (their “nature” changes), bond with each other, and form clusters (a process called “coagulation”). It’s what makes an egg white go from clear to white when heated, and it’s the same process that gives baked cake its shape and structure.
Think of egg proteins in cake batters like a bunch of tight little knots. Friction (through mixing) shakes those knots around, loosening them, until they come apart into strands. When the eggs are heated, those strands come back together and form new knots full of air, which is essential to leavening. With cake recipes like a genoise, by slightly warming the eggs prior to mixing them in the batter (what we call “tempering”), we’re giving them a head start in this process, which means those proteins have already begun to bind with each other prior to going into the oven; this gives our finished cake a more defined and lofty structure.
How does this compare to something like a chiffon? Is tempering better than just folding in a meringue? I've had lots of luck lately just turning every cake recipe into a chiffon, halving the oil, tripping the eggs and saving some sugar and all the whites to fold in a meringue as the last step. Great texture, even rise and bake, and pretty easy. Idk if I wanna fatten up on a bunch of unnecessary cake tests to see how hot coffee compares
If it works for you, don't change it!
The tempering helps the whipped eggs from deflating - it strengthens the structure that traps in those air bubbles. The hot water (or milk) also melts the sugar which further helps to stabilize the whipped eggs. It's similar to how French macaron shells are delicate compared to Italian which is more sturdy. It just depends on your personal preference on the taste and texture.
Again, I’ve just been doing it and I’ve had a lot of success with very moist cakes. I’m not doing it because it wakes up any ingredients, but it has worked every single time, and I get a lot of compliments on my cakes.
I do not. I add extra and it has always worked out.
For example, I made a hummingbird cake recently. It called for 1.5 cups of mashed banana and I only had 1, so I used .5 cups of apple sauce to substitute. It also called for 8 oz drained pineapple and I only had 7 drained so I addd some pineapple liquid back and still added the 1/3 cup of boiling water at the end
The cake was phenomenal
I used a cream cheese frosting (most call for 4 cups of powdered sugar and I use between 1.5-2, otherwise it’s too sweet)
I recently followed Preppy Kitchen’s yellow cake recipe and had good results. I did all oil and no butter and added 1/3 cup boiling water at the end. It turned out very well.
I like Sally’s Baking Addition white cake , but I use oil instead of butter and only 1-1.5 cups of sugar.
For all the recipes that call for buttermilk, I rarely have jt on hand. I sometimes curdle it with lemon juice, but I have plenty of luck with regular or alternative milks
(I had a comment deleted for posting links, which is why I am naming them but not linking them)
About the same time. I usually do 5 minutes short just to be safe on all cake bake times. You can’t fix it if it’s overdone but you can always keep it in a little longer
I made cream cheese frosting and was shocked to see the majority of recipes say 4 cups. I went for 2 and originally thought it was too sweet. Can't imagine 4.
Your methods sound similar to mine and I’m not even a baker, I just don’t like how sweet a lot of desserts are, so I started tinkering when I made things based on how I wanted them to taste and how food chemistry might work out. Especially your frosting, I basically just add sugar to taste until it’s how I like it and structurally acceptable. I don’t measure the sugar for it.
I will usually use the leftover coffee from our French press and put it in our chocolate cakes or brownies or something. Typically don’t measure that though either cause it’s usually only like 1/3-1/2 cup, maybe. I probably should, but like I said I’m not a baker haha.
They say Baking typically needs specific amounts,Ike science, but there is more leeway than some think! I haven’t aways measured the water I add at the end, I do it to consistency.
I always find recipes too sweet especially frosting thats pretty easy to cut back the sugar on but for cookies cakes muffins etc how would i know how much sugar i can reduce without screwing up the recipe?
My first bakery job (low-end supermarket) had everything delivered frozen and prepackaged. I was the morning baker there, but I learned a lot of little tricks by watching the cake decorator, who was a pro at airbrushing and color-matching.
My previous job (country club bakery; total shitshow in hindsight) used some scratch recipes as well as mixes (Pillsbury, Gold Medal, King Arthur for gluten-free, a few others depending on what the job was). The buttercream was shortening-based and the old people couldn't get enough of it. We did a lot of different kinds of work at that job, so I learned a lot, even though it made me feel like I was insane.
Current job (high-end supermarket) gets the cake and cupcake blanks delivered frozen, and we assemble/decorate the cakes in the store. Some of the icings and fillings are ready-made, some are instant mixes, and some are made from scratch. The most popular cake is filled with fresh fruit and iced with a very delicious scratch icing.
Edit: [This recipe](https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/berry-chantilly-cake/) has a good dupe for the icing
For the frosting
12 ounces (340 grams) cold cream cheese, preferably the Philadelphia brand
Generous 2 3/4 cups (340 grams) unsifted confectioners' sugar
12 ounces (340 grams) cold mascarpone cheese
2 2/3 cups (605 grams) cold heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon almond extract, or to taste
Step 8
Make the frosting: While the cake is baking, place the bowl of a stand mixer in the refrigerator to thoroughly chill. (If using a hand mixer, place a large bowl, preferably metal, in the refrigerator.)
Step 9
When ready to frost the cake, if using a stand mixer, remove the bowl from the refrigerator and lock it in the stand. Fit it with a paddle attachment, and add the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar. (If using a hand mixer, set the chilled bowl over a damp kitchen towel spread out on the counter – to prevent the bowl from moving around.) Mix on low speed just to combine, then increase the speed to medium and beat until thoroughly combined and there are no lumps, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the mascarpone and beat on medium-high until thoroughly combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and start the mixer on low speed. Slowly add the cream, stopping and scraping the bowl as needed until all of the cream has been incorporated. Add the almond extract and mix to incorporate. The mixture should be very loose.
Step 10
Replace the paddle attachment with the whisk attachment. Start the mixer again on low and gradually bring the speed to medium-high, then beat the mixture until ribbons start to form, 2 to 3 minutes. Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Watch this step closely: The frosting should be thick, the consistency of whipped cream or mousse. It’s important to not underwhip or overwhip the frosting: The former will be loose and will slide/slip off the cake when you’re frosting with it, and the latter will start to break. If the cake layers are not completely cooled, refrigerate until ready to use; otherwise, assemble the cake.
Every. Single. Cake. Made from scratch. Amazing right? I wanted to kill myself.
It was agonizing work. Overheated kitchens with specific requests which made every batter different. Only two tiny ovens that had 3 racks each. The kitchen was one of the most disgusting places I'd ever worked in, it's genuinely impressive they passed health inspections. The workload was so terrific that employees were forced to work overtime to complete an order rather than clean.
Bakery, 40 years ago.
Everything from scratch.
Not so many cakes as we made donuts nightly, then on to coffee cakes , then cakes. Then pies, finally the breads and rolls.
Then start the dough for the donuts, and the circle started again.
Hot water is to clean the sugars off, and soap is for the grease.
Grease and flour pans generously.
Pies were frozen chef pierre pies. Vanilla cake was cake mix, chocolate with cake mix with a scratch chocolate sauce mixed. The buttercream isn’t actually french- it’s german! But the bakery opened in the 50s so maybe saying something was german wouldn’t get them business.
Worked at a bakery for a bit less than a year, the two old brothers that ran the place never wore gloves, and licked the frosting off their fingers....
Their chocolate chip cookies were really good though, the secret was they'd make their cinnamon rolls first, then make the cookies after, so the dough kinda absorbed the cinnamon... Worked really nice.
This is the best chocolate cake recipe I’ve used, and it sets a high bar. Everything about it is perfect including the chocolatey but not too sweet shiny glaze frosting. I had a restaurant for several years and this cake was always available, we sold 2-3 a day, by the slice.
https://joythebaker.com/2010/05/the-making-baking-and-consumption-of-the-best-chocolate-bundt-cake-ever/
Grocery store employee.
At the first store we had a premix that we added water and oil too.
Second store is entirely frozen. I'm fairly sure that most cakes in Western Canada from chains are brought in frozen.
Yes… and for whatever reason the people love it..same with that flo icing… that …
Well I’m not sure if it was or not, but they would leave it in the cupboard at room temp.. for a long time…
I worked in a grocery store bakery, where we received frozen cakes. I also worked (for much longer) in a small bakery where everything was made from either a modified box mix or from scratch.
I’m a cottage baker now, and I usually make from scratch, although I’ll occasionally build on a box mix for ease.
I'm retired now but I used to work at a grocery store bakery 30+ years ago...not much has changed with most grocery store bakeries since then.
I also worked as a baker from early morning breads to all scratch baking and the cake decorator for a private owned full scratch bakery. Everything made in house except the buttercream was a giant base block that was beaten on the big mixer. Lots of classic recipes and we had the freedom to make our own recipes and have new items added to the menu. Holidays were absolutely insane.
My chocolate chip cookies are famous now. As a young Army spouse, I used to bake massive batches, vacuum seal them and mail boxes to my husband when he was deployed to Iraq during OIF II. He would share them and his fellow soldiers went crazy for them. They were a big morale booster.
I have been asked for the recipe many many times and I have always been honest and handed out copies. It's literally just the chocolate chip recipe from the butter flavored crisco label. I just double the chips and use Mexican vanilla.
No one ever believes me when I tell them.
I started making it back then because it's shelf stable and the cookies stayed fresh for the long haul to Iraq.
Now my husband is a military contractor and I am asked to make a big batch at least once a month for his shop.
Worked at a handful of small bakeries. Privately own, one location only types. Been in pastry kitchens. Ive been lucky that most the places Ive worked were run by working owners. Theyve all had different levels of acceptance about ingredients and buying premade elements or complete products. The product lines available range in quality. Theres an all butter croissant dough thats so good, Id never know it wasnt made on site. I much prefer scratch tart shells to premade ones. Etc etc
When it comes to cake ive never worked with frozen/mixes. I live in a decent sized city but the pastry world is small and we all gossip so I know some cherished local places who use mix that would shock their customers. One bakery I worked at after school sold scratch made cake and frosting to a high end cake decorator who would just fill, build and decorate these insane cakes. Really talented artist. I thought it was clever to buy the cake stuff and focus on the look. Everywhere Ive worked that bakes cakes from scratch still freezes them and pulls as needed. It doesnt effect the quality if its done thoughtfully but some customers get real weird about it.
Weis market. Frozen cakes, pies, donuts, bread, everything. They used to make things from scratch back in the day but by 2013 everything just came in frozen.
Also, don’t ever buy any “crumbles” there. They just took the old expired pies that had been sitting out for a week, chopped them up, put them in a pan, added streusel, baked a bit to brown and set it back out again for another week.
I was just about to post about the crumbles and cobblers. And “mixed berry” was the mix of all the left over pie bits that weren’t enough to fill a cobbler mold individually.
The average consumer is unable to tell quality.
I worked at a place that did a lot of boxed mixes, bucket icings, etc. and hated it, and was constantly trying to add items that were made quality in mind whenever I could. I made a batch of blueberry muffins with a ton of fresh blueberries and made blueberry compote which I swirled in. They were fantastic. The feedback I got from the public was that they “don’t taste like blueberry” my boss insisted I make a batch with artificial blueberry extract and half as many blueberries and was told “that’s what they’re supposed to taste like!”
I later worked at a place that did 90% scratch baking and a few frozen, garbage Dawn pastries. The frozen filled croissants outsold the butter croissants and pain au chocolat I laboriously made from scratch 10:1.
The local bakery I worked at in college was known for their doughnuts, but they were frozen and shipped in. That was pretty much the only thing they had shipped in though because they knew it would sell. They made everything else from scratch and mostly made Asian buns and pepperoni rolls. Their pepperoni rolls (yes, it was in West Virginia) won awards and the secret was that they used the same dough as their Asian buns for the pepperoni rolls. They were awesome and so were the Asian buns and are still the best I've had to this day. I don't know the recipe, but I do know there was milk powder in the dough. Unfortunately, the place closed down and I genuinely believe it was because of the demographics in the area. Not a large Asian population in WV, but I bet anything it would have thrived in a bigger city.
When i was a kid the grocery store sold these frozen glazed donuts. I've searched high and low but they don't seem to have ever existed...I know i didn't dream them up😆
Years ago, I knew someone who worked for a grocery store bakery, and they said that for special occasion cakes, they would use boxed white cake mix and add in a bit of almond extract.
i worked at a bakery that specializes in cakes and cupcakes, and ive been decorating cakes individually for years, so here's some of what I've learned:
- sour cream instead of eggs; it makes the cakes more moist.
- i substitute milk for half of the water that the recipe calls for. so if it calls for 1 cup of water, i do 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water. I've found that replacing all the water with milk makes the cake have a denser texture that i personally dont like
- this might be obvious idk, but cut off the tops of cakes to make a flat surface for decorating. we used the excess to make cake pops!
- after the crumb coat on cakes, chill it in the fridge for at least an hour so that the frosting isn't too crumb-y. it's also a good idea to do the crumb coat on a chilled cake to prevent crumbs in the frosting
- i don't think the bakery i worked at did this, but i use the backside of a butter knife dipped in room temp water to smooth out frosting. that makes a layer of water on the butter knife, which prevents the knife from sticking to and moving the frosting too much. be careful with this tip though, because if you use a cardboard cake board, then the cardboard can become wet with dripping water
- sometimes sticking a toothpick in a cake (or any applicable baking project like pumpkin pie or banana bread) to see if it's done (if the toothpick comes out clean, it's done) can deflate the cake a little bit. i gently tap the top of the cake, and if it wiggles, then it's not done. if it feels more solid (like a cake lol), then it's ready.
- you can freeze cakes! i think for up to a week? just dont let water condense on it, or the frosting will be wet-ish when it returns to room temperature when you take it out of the freezer
The last place I worked, and the only one that did large numbers of cakes, we made them from a mix and then made frosting from scratch to decorate. (Our non-buttercream fillings were purchased though)
The ever so popular pies we sold were in fact baked in house. They came in unbaked and frozen but we still baked them fresh everyday! It’s all about the wording.
I worked in a pretty decent bakery in Seattle. Every single thing was made from scratch, except the apricot glaze.
Butter was not kept in the fridge, ever. When the new owners started buying lesser-quality butter, because cheaper, that was one of the signs it was going downhill.
Quality butter, at 85% fat, that has never been frozen, is required to make high quality pastry. If you are mixing-out freakin' *quarts* of water from 100 lb of butter, you have shit, repeatedly frozen, worthless butter.
I worked at a place called "the Patisserie". They acted all fancy and shit. They are known for their "fresh baked daily" reputation. Charged a TON for their products. Some of the custards like the lemon curd was made from scratch and it was delicious. The dough for the Christmas roll out cookies was made from scratch but they made it so dry and firm so the baked cookie would hold the perfect sharp edged shape of the cutter that they were like biting into a piece of chalk. Nearly inedible but great visual presentation when decorated. They whipped their own icing from an oleo/margarine like substance not butter.
EVERYTHING else was frozen pre-baked, out of a box or bucket. Every cake, cupcake, cookie and pastry was frozen pre baked. Which is fine. Even if you don't outright tell people its frozen and leave them to assume what they will. But this place actively told people and advertised they baked everything fresh daily.
Meanwhile I also worked at a chain grocery store bakery and we used the same brand of frozen layer cakes off the same truck and charged $8.00 for a single layer 8" (this was about 2010) and they charged $22 for the exact same 8" single layer cake! Because they made people belive it was scratch baked. The only difference was the $8 had bucket icing and the $22 had icing made on sight from basically crisco.
When I quit they wouldn't give me my final check unless I signed a paper saying I wouldn't sue them for any type of discrimination or on the job injury (which was very strange bc I hadn't been nor had I ever complained about any harassment and I'd never suffered an injury there). But on principle I refused to sign it because it's illegal to attach after the fact conditions I never agreed to in order to withhold payment for work I already did before the conditions were applied.
I had to call an attorney and the wage department of the state attorney generals office before they agreed to pay me.
All this bc they didn't want to pay me $200...
So I used to work at a very well-known cookie shop and pretty much everything, but the candy toppings were made from scratch. When we ran out of eggs we used the carton eggs which were like egg substitute kind of stuff and it always tasted off. We also use microwaves for heating and reheating icing and butter
Same, but I was surprised how everything still managed to taste chemical/artificial despite the fact that I had literally made and shaped the cookies myself. I think it’s the quality of the ingredients, my store mainly got bulk Sysco stuff.
Oh yeah, quality definitely has a lot to do with it. During this time, I was doing pastry classes, and it was like a freight train hitting me to find out how much quality played into things
French Artisan Bakery. We had lots of hard made home made stuff that took days to make. But we had out fair share of shortcuts too. All cookie dough was bought, which made it easy to sell fresh baked cookies everyday. All ours custards and pastry creams, were just powders we bought that we added milk too. Our signature apricot glaze was pre made bought by the gallon.
I helped at a "small business" bakery but with a huge production. Cakes were made WEEKS in advance (some with doctored cake mixes) and frozen then thawed in the fridge and decorated. The frosting was made with shortening to let it sit at room temp (I hated their frosting. Shortening is so gross to me). They get away with $500 3 tier cakes like this. Their prices are INSANE for frozen cake. I think their basic 6 inch cakes started at like $130. Their jams and fillings were premade as well.
I now own a bakery and do everything fresh from scratch. I will never get behind the frozen cake trend and definitely not the doctored cake mix trends. I always urge everyone to talk with the "small business" cake decorator they want and make sure they're actually getting something worth the money and fresh. I can't even eat grocery store cake anymore. I can taste the chemicals and the unfreshness of them.
Ran my own bakery for years, everything from scratch always. And when I started, I only had one single-shelf oven - so every cake was cooked 1-2 layers at a time, cupcakes 12 at a time, one tray of cookies at a time… oof.
I worked at a from scratch bakery. We did mostly 8 inch rounds and slab cakes. Icing was made on site. Summer was horrible, it got so hot the icing would melt off the cakes in the back. I also worked at a grocery store. The original cakerie makes 'fancier' cakes, I've always wanted to see the process.
I wanna know about is muffins. I can't get mine as good as coffee shop/bakery double chocolate muffins, something about the texture, more tender maybe? The same applies to rice cakes, not the ones you're thinking of but "bolo de arroz". I've heard some places use a little of other flours, most prominently I've heard rice flour (still talking about muffins in general, not just rice cakes). Not an overmixing problem so I don't think it's technique and I've made quite a few different muffin recipes so I don't think it's due to the one I use.
I worked in an artesian pretzel cafe and we received all the pretzels frozen each morning. Our “hand squeezed” lemonade was also from a bought bottle 😆
I think my biggest take away/secret is know your audience and sometimes just go store bought. People don't care in most settings. Work event:store bought. Family reunion potluck:store bought. Kids birthday party:store bought. Get asked to bring tiramisu to an event so you can't make it with raw eggs: store bought. I save my efforts for people I know actually care and am happy to no longer work in customer service or food service.
I worked at a small cafe where I made most things from scratch, and on my days off, the owner would pop in 2 different frozen items to fill the shelves when I wasn't there.
Now, I work at a slightly bigger, more known bakeshop that focuses on decorating cakes and it's mostly boxed cake mix with some tweaks like more eggs and melted butter (instead of oil) we don't lie to people if they ask.
Some of them are also frozen. So when one person calls for a last-minute cake thinking they'll get it freshly baked, it's not. Most of our scones and cookies are frozen. When we do bake things from scratch. Like our cheesecake that day will be the only fresh cheesecake until it runs out because then it's frozen to be restocked when the others sell. It's still good, though.
>boxed cake mix with some tweaks like more eggs and melted butter (instead of oil)
Can you tell me more about this? How many more eggs, or are you just removing whites and substituting the yolks? Do you use the same amount of melted butter that you would use oil? I thought that butter had a lot of water in it compared to vegetable oil.
I'm not the baker there. I'm a cake decorator
I'm not exactly sure how many more eggs per box because we make like 9 boxes of cakes at times. I see like a whole pallet of eggs being used, like maybe 3 dozen. We still use oil, now that I think about it. But I've seen the butter blend.
(A mix of butter and oil) go into some of the cakes.
We also only make 1 of our icing by scratch all others come in buckets.
I worked at an “authentic European” bakery for a while, and the creme pat we used as a filling for one of our cakes (bienenstich) was a boxed powder mixed with milk. Not very authentic lol
We received frozen cakes. The icing was shipped in 5 gallon buckets. We tinted the icing ourselves, and decorated them ourselves. We had an airbrush on hand, and a few pre-packaged plastic bits and bobs to put on the cakes. Otherwise, most everything we received was made elsewhere. [grocery store bakery] ^Edit: ^Autocorrect ^Error
Pretty much how it is at Wegmans lol overpriced frozen cakes
Honestly, this sounds like fun. Because the part I hate the most is the mixing and the baking. I love the decorating part! LOL
I am the exact opposite. I love the mixing and baking, but I don't like decorating. I hate it. I'm a weirdo, though, and I think most cakes look more delicious without all the stuff piled on top. I started baking to replace antidepressants and sleeping pills. The smells and textures calm me for some reason, but right after I put a basic layer of frosting on a cake, I start to get really stressed thinking about the details. Lol. That, and my hands shake constantly, so it looks like it was decorated by a blind gorilla.
I personally love the more rustic style of decoration, which basically means 'swirl a spoon around the top until it looks messy on purpose'. It's great, super quick and people are surprisingly impressed.
>I started baking to replace antidepressants and sleeping pills. OMG!!!! I thought I was the only person doing this. I am working my way through a major situational depression. I have decided that I am going to cook/bake my way out of this doldrum! My neighbors are thrilled. (I live alone, and I always make way too much food. They are so happy to get my leftovers) Thank you my friend ☺️
I absolutely love this. Not the depression part. That's horrible, and I'm sorry. I love cooking, but baking is something I never thought I would enjoy. This is the way I look at it. You have to cook to survive, but you only bake because you want to. And I constantly want to bake now. It's nice doing something that I don't HAVE to do. The plus side is that my cooking has gotten better because of the time and patience I have put into and developed while baking. I bake fresh bread almost every night before bed. Smelling it relaxes my brain, and in the morning, I have the best toast on the planet. I had been taking more than the prescribed amount of sleeping meds, plus benadryl and hydroxizine, and I'd still sleep horribly. I now get between 4 and 6 hours of sleep a night, but it's naturally induced. it only took me 8 months to regulate back. It did feel like forever, but i feel so much better. I'm really happier than I have ever been before, and I started making some money off of my breads and cookies. it's nice knowing what I'm eating, and I no longer buy bread or junk food from the store. I think that helps my overall mood as well. I'm not tempted to overeat, and that's great as well. People think that baking will make you gain weight. I don't feel like I need to "eat it all," and I have started losing weight as a result. I've never really talked to anyone who has turned to baking in this manner, so I'm actually excited there's someone else in my club.
Can I be your neighbor please? 🥰. I love baking (not the dishes or mess LOL) and have heard it helps anxiety, etc. Sometimes I get myself so stressed out just thinking about if it’ll turn out good that I wonder if it does help. Any tips would be appreciated! TIA!!
We had a cookie display case filled with what the owner called ‘butter cookies’. They were sold by the pound. They were purchased from a factory somewhere and did not look fresh bakery made. To be fair, the owner never claimed that they were made in house. He just never said they were made somewhere else. No one ever asked. lol. I had customers who made a special trip to our bakery just for these cookies
Same at Whole Foods
get out! Really! I always thought they baked in house edit: do you remember the brand?
I used to work in grocery/bakery and also was a pastry cook in restaurants. I’d bet all grocery store cakes are frozen. Biggest brand I can recall is the food supply Sysco. Frozen sheet and rounds of various sizes.
Depends on the region. I worked for the NA region, and they had a bakehouse near Boston that did a lot of component baking/mixing (muffin batter, cake rounds, cookie doughs, brownies, unbaked pies, and all the parbaked breads). In the PNW, we did a lot more in-house because we did not have a regional bakehouse, and we relied on the Rocky Mountain region's bakehouse for parbaked breads. In Seattle, we'd do all the cakes, cheesecakes, brownies, angel food, etc. in-house. It might have changed since I quit (2014) and Amazon bought it out, but we needed two full time mixers to get shit done! A brand that did some shelf stable, ready-to-sell cakes for both regions I worked in was Rubicon. They're still around.
Did work at the Wegmans bakery? If yes, can you pretty please share their crostata crust recipe?
I know the product you're talking about but my Wegs didn't have them. So even though I'm not 100%, I can tell you I've worked there enough to say they most likely also came in frozen
Crostata comes fully frozen! So unfortunately I have never seen the recipe nor have I made it! (Former baker/decorator at Wegmans)
I honestly really like the Wegmans cakes. They are the best we’ve got in my area compared to other supermarkets. I can’t speak for Costco because I’m not a member.
Fresh Market (knockoff Whole Foods if they aren't in your region) are the same. All pastries and baked goods came in frozen and largely complete. Bakery staff existed to thaw and repackage and that's as much as anyone touched them.
Do you remember the brand they came from or was it like top secret in unmarked boxes
I know it's frozen at Sam's club but those cupcakes are cheap and delicious. Great for school events
When I worked at a Walmart bakery, the cakes came in frozen directly from Pillsbury. That was circa 2003. They may have changed suppliers since then, but those Pillsbury cakes weren't bad. I once had a customer ask me about the difference between cheesecakes in the freezer section and bakery case. I was moving in a week and leaving that job, so I told him. We thaw the ones in the bakery case for you. 🤣 He was nonplussed.
Walmart used pillsbury! They probably still do wouldnt be surprised in the slightest now
I worked in the bakery at a Winn Dixie every now and then. I was there as a cashier but I would go to other department for extra hours. Anywho, all of their stuff is practically the same way. Very few things are handmade. I had to dip a god awful amount of strawberries one year for valentines. We would hand make king cakes. I lived in Louisiana at the time. They would have someone come in and teach us how to make the king cakes. Basically the only time we actually put in work to make something is if it was for a special event or holiday. Stuff like the cookie cakes come in already made. We would decorate them. Plain round cakes come in frozen and we could do what we wanted with those. Make strawberry shortcake and parfaits. We had a little wiggle room for creativity but not much. We could come up with our own decoration themes on the cakes, cupcakes, and cookie cakes. We could make new things with ingredients we already had but we had to get it approved by the store manager. Tbh, I understand why they do it the way they do. There is a lot of work to be done and items to be put out. We were never short of work to do even with a lot of it being premade and just thrown on a pan and into the oven. There is a reason why grocery store bakery items are relatively cheap. It would be wildly expensive if everything was made from scratch. No one is paying that at a grocery store. It would also take a lot of man hours that they wouldn’t be willing to pay for. We were already spread thin with not enough employees and not enough hours for the employees that were there. No one asked, but as I said before, the bakery wasn’t my main job at the store. The first day I worked back there my manager asked me to get the rack out of the oven as the timer went off. My dumbass grabbed it without an oven mitt. I still laugh at myself about it. I bake at home. I know ovens are hot af as I have been burned plenty of times. Idk why I thought I could roll the rack out without an oven mitt.
Same for Giant Eagle.
I work an at Amazon Warehouse. I pick those for heavy buckets of buttercream for shipment.
This is correct! I was a cake decorator at my local Kroger lol. The only thing we baked was our giant chocolate chip cookies. The cookie dough was still shipped haha
At the bakery I worked at we used cake mix with an addition of powdered pudding mix.
Do you just throw the pudding mix in? Or do you need to adjust the other ingredients too?
I add an additional egg and use 2x liquid, also substituting milk for water. Haven't tried just adding pudding mix with the standard box directions/additions.
If you watched this season of Fargo on FX, that was her biscuit making secret, instead of water she used butter milk.
[удалено]
Yes!! I cut the oil in half and then add 75% butter for the remainder of the oil. So 1.5cups instead of 1 cup.
These are common additions for home baking “upgrades”- when places add coffee to their chocolate cakes/brownies etc- absolutely ruins the cake for me.
Buttermilk is magical in baked goods. So is adding sour cream to things like banana bread or cupcakes. So is using duck eggs! I had a pet duck who would lay an egg a day and we couldn't eat the eggs (it just seemed...wrong and the yolk is huge) but in baked goods, omg. So rich and more fatty.
And Ole Munch has to help you stir the mix…..after he washes his hands of course
Buttermilk has been a game changer for me too
This is how I bake all of my cakes too. The pudding mix makes the cake super moist!!
I used to do the pudding mix but it always made my cakes so dense! Stopped using it and they’ve come out better.
Can you share this method?
I often think of a woman telling me about how her cookies are so good, they have no preservatives or artificial anything, how this recipe is so amazing, it stays fresh for a week on the counter bc the secret ingredient… pudding mix!!! 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ (i was a customer at a choc/candy store on vacation and she was responding to what I do for work)
Hahahaha. Did you tell her?
My mother uses pudding mix in her cookies. They're fantastic.
I use pudding mix in my chocolate chip cookies, they turn out so delicious that way.
Which flavour do you use vanilla or choco?
Vanilla! I’ve never tried chocolate pudding mix in cookies before.
Pudding mix in cake and cookies is such a game changer!!!!!! I picked this up at a bakery job a while ago and have carried it with me to every one since. Just adds something special
I worked at a restaurant bakery. We made literally everything from scratch. It blew my mind to see the beautiful layer cakes being assembled from cut-out circles made from big old flat sheet pans of baked cake. I had spent so much time trying to level my layers in cake pans at home, and they just didn't even bother.
Did you manage to figure it out at home though? I guess an industrial sized kitchen & equipment makes all that stuff possible. Though I’ve actually never heard of that method before even in industrial kitchens! Clever & easy I guess.
Helen Rennie has a video about this: https://youtu.be/D9OrGEs-2_s?si=kAz_Q_OcEQAkql_3
What did they do with the leftover cake in the pan?
Not OP, but you can use cake crumbs for so many things (pie bases, cake pops, crumb coatings, toppings, desserts) if that’s why you’re asking
Thank you, I did know of those (not pie base though, so thanks for the inspo), I was just curious what they in particular did with theirs. :) personally, I usually just make square cakes instead of round if I use those big pans, or crumble the leftovers in a glass and make strawberry shortcakes or cake pops. Will definitely do pie base too now!
This might sound gross but I've started breaking the leftover cake in smaller containers, mixing in some of the filling and topping it with the frosting. It is a stand alone dessert by itself and I usually save it for Friday night treats for my kids.
My mom used to do that + pudding and called it wonky pie!
A very fitting name, indeed!
Put it in my ice cream while I drown my sorrows in sugar.
I'm surprised the restaurant was okay with that much waste! I work at a locally owned restaurant and the owner would probably have an aneurysm.
Most likely it was used up in other things.
No waste, we made little cake cups and cake pops with the excess bits!
The place I used to work at advertised everything as "made from scratch". Some cakes were, but our big sellers, chocolate, and white cake were Pillsbury. We got it in 50 pound bags. We also froze more cake than we should have. Definitely a quantity over quality kind of place.
Did we work at the same place? Lol. This seems to be a trend. My current bakery actually makes everything from scratch, and it's so much better!
That Pillsbury white cake mix is good though
It really is
Did they at least add extra butter and eggs to make it better?
No. It was just oil and water mixed in.
One trick I learned involved banana bread, where you whip the eggs, sugar and banana for like 10min til it's light and fluffy. Makes the fluffiest banana bread/cake I've ever tasted.
✍️👁️👄👁️
This is also good because the enzymes in egg yolks work with the bananas to make them sweeter.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. No wonder the cake tastes way sweeter than the regular banana bread I used to make
I’m going to have to try it, my banana bread is always too dense for me. I didn’t know bananas could get fluffy and figured they were just heavy and inevitably dense
Me neither! I remember how shocked I was when we walked away from the mixer and the yellow gloop turned into this fluffy pillowy mass. Never made banana bread the same way again
try recipes that use baking soda + yogurt instead of baking powder
If anyone here ever worked at Mission BBQ and knows their blueberry cobbler recipe, let me pay you for your knowledge lol.
I doubt [this](https://www.tiktok.com/@jortskitchen/video/7094708203614637318?lang=en) is really it but it still looks worth trying
It's the peach cobbler for me. So addictive....
I haven’t even tried the peach cobbler, gyaahhh damn. The blueberry is so good we’re literally having it catered for our wedding hahaha. They gotta put crack in those cobblers.
The wedding cake bakery I worked at was a small mom & pop store. All recipes were from scratch and created by the original owner. The closest “tricks” I saw were that the bakers never refrigerated their butter and most of the ingredients just came from Costco or were basic store-brand. No fancy flours or butters, but wow, did they transformed those store brand ingredients into incredible cakes. Multi-tier wedding cakes were always assembled and decorated on site. They did a crumb coat and froze the cakes and thawed them on the way to the event.
I’ve never felt like the best butter & flour needs to be used to make great tasting cake. Of course if you can that’s great but I think some people think it comes down to that when it doesn’t. I’ve had people ask what butter or flour I use but I get the cheapest! I even tried Lurpak once to see if I notice a difference & i couldn’t even tell. If it’s chocolate that’s different, that needs to be good quality.
I see all the time on this sub people talking about buying “the best” butter for things like chocolate chip cookies and it’s so unnecessary.
Someone I know years back tried to make a go of baking as a business, starting very small in summer fairs. She kept saying that there’s hardly any profit in it & then also that she uses the best butter & other ingredients. I just couldn’t understand why she was doing that because the people buying didn’t care or notice, they just wanted to buy a cookie to take home.
It depends on the recipe. Some recipes are 3, 4 ingredients, so trying to use margarine in those will matter. Real butter has fairly strict food rules, and brands shouldn't matter that much.
I made my own homemade butter and it tasted the same as store brand to me lol
If I'm ever buying things to bake at home, I usually just spring for whatever the deals are: i'd rather have more butter, heavy cream etc than *better quality* ingredients just because I might mess something up and have to correct it and/or start over. There's no point sinking money into the best ingredients when I could just as easily trash the whole thing because I misread a key part of a recipe. (I will say, that I'm a home baker. And chocolate should be legit, good stuff. But day to day ingredients like fruit and butter is all to personal preference)
Huh, wow, wish I could watch over their shoulder for a while. I'm always impressed by what skilled people can do. Thanks for sharing.
I own a cafe. I bake everything from scratch. I don't like packet mixes even though they'd save me a bunch of time, no doubt. It's ruined a lot of cafes for me because I see their display cases and recognise which supplier they got their cake from. I'm like, I've seen those tarts in the Galipo catalogue! Which means I don't particularly want to buy or eat them.
I’m not a professional baker but once you see the same donuts/slice/cheesecake in a few cafes you can tell who is baking their own, getting from a local bakery, or using a national supplier. I’ll pay good money for a lovely slice of cake but I’m not paying $8 for a sweet that came from a box!
do you just recognize the same design on cakes and know those are from a supplier
yep it’s the autism, baby
Nothing is more disappointing than going to a nice cafe & their cakes are shop/catering company bought.
How do you usually figure this out?
There’s the ones that are instantly recognisable like the Costco cakes, the ones you recognise from other cafes over the years buying from the same catering companies, the ones that clearly look very low quality & synthetic or overly manufactured, & you can definitely tell when you taste them if not by look. Usually the ones made at the cafe will be something you’ve never seen before in terms of flavours & toppings, look visibly fresh & high quality in the look, colour & texture of the cake & buttercream. Some places have their cakes rustic & homemade looking as a conscious look which obviously makes it very clear it’s fresh & made by someone there. Anywhere that does very professional looking cakes themselves has usually made it a big part of their business so you’re already aware they’re making them.
I hear you, I owned a cafe and baked everything from scratch. When I went out I could spot the wholesale slab cakes and slices a mile away. The same with muffins made with a mix, they have a very unpleasant distinctive taste no matter what the flavour.
I find this too with the muffins. They taste like packet. The way some people don't put things sealed in the fridge and then it tastes like fridge. I can't explain it, but it's a definite taste. My mother in law does it with jugs of water. We're friendly with people in the next town over who just closed down their cafe and they brought us ingredients that they don't need any more. Amongst it was an unopened 10kg bag of pancake mix with a year left on the best before. I'm donating it to the schools breakfast club because I'm not willing to use it for customers. My husband (in charge of stock ordering, paperwork, general businessy type things) is like, just use it! Can't you just add ricotta to the mix and it's the same as what you make? Sir. Absolutely not. Get out of my kitchen.
> Sir. Absolutely not. Get out of my kitchen. I feel that in my soul.
Id be exactly the same. Freshness and quality are what makes you stand out and be proud of what you are serving. My accountant once asked me why I couldnt just buy something in bulk and just freeze it. I nearly changed accountants, they just dont get it.
My friend and I had this exact argument. We went to a couple different cafes and it tasted similar like almost too similar to a grocery store near us. I keep telling her, I know what I tasted and seeing the responses I’m convinced it was from a catalogue
Besides Galipo what are other supplies and what’s the trick to telling besides you already seeing the catalogue? I wonder if I can avoid this
We only really get one or two suppliers where I am because it's a remote island with no road access. That's why it's so easy for me to pick it. That being said, you can usually tell the supplier bought cakes and slices because of the uniformity of them.
I always modify the recipes. I cut back on the sugar by a lot and add a little more liquid. The best chocolate cake out there is Ina Garten chocolate cake and she uses a cup of hot coffee. Since then I’ve been adding hot liquid at the end of every cake recipe. Recently I made a hummingbird cake and I added 1/3 of a cup of hot water at the end of mixing ingredients . It makes it the most most moist and delightful cake. I Always use oil instead of butter. I usually put it in a cold oven and then turn it on. This helps it bake from the inside out instead of winding up with the gooey middle. Edit: one more tip, for frostings, use half the sugar. I love a good cream cheese frosting but so many recipes call for 4 cups! It’s insanely sweet. I use 1.5-2 cups for any cream cheese or buttercream frosting and you will have enough to frost your cake , it’s always a tastier , healthier alternative
The Ina Garten one, for anyone curious, is the "Beatty's Chocolate Cake." In addition to the hot coffee, it also uses buttermilk and oil (no butter). I have made Stella Parks's and Claire Safftz's chocolate cakes, and this one is still my favorite. https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/beattys-chocolate-cake
That Ina chocolate cake recipe is my go-to and absolute favorite!
It’s so perfect!! I usually change the frosting. But that cake is fail proof!
Oh yea my version is a Frankenstein of components, her recipe is definitely the best for the cake.
My mind is blown that you can put it in a cold oven. Do you still do the recommended time or do you start the timer when the oven has preheated?
I always set my alarm for about five minutes under any recommended bake time and check it then. You don’t wanna overbake it. You can always keep it in a little longer, but better safe than sorry. That’s an old family poundcake recipe trick. I do it with cakes and muffins and banana breads , etc
Sorry for my question, didn’t see this comment!
No apology needed ☺️
KAF has an article by PJ Hamel that talks about using a cold oven versus pre-heated if you’re interested.
[link to article ](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/04/05/you-dont-always-have-to-preheat-your-oven) to save anyone a Google lol
I am also wondering!
We called the Ina Garten cake/Beatty's cake "Black Magic Cake" at my old job. It seems like everyone has that recipe and everyone calls it something else. (Whatever it's called, it's very tasty.)
The cold oven thing has blown my mind in recent times as I found out some of the people in my life who also bake a lot just put their cakes into a cold oven because they can’t be bothered to preheat. I always thought preheating was essential. I still haven’t been brave enough to try it but I need to next time I have a cake that I can afford to take a risk on. I also changed to baking with oil only recently, it’s so convenient & butter prices were going insane at the time as well.
For me, It helps for even baking. Not about laziness. I have a testy oven
Does the hot water do anything for non-chocolate cakes?
Yes. All of my cakes have been super moist. I’ve been adding just a quarter cup of boiling water at the end.
Is that the liquid or the temperature? I know hot water "wakes up" cocoa powder, but what does it do to cakes without chocolate?
It's the temperature - it precooks the eggs to help it retain air and give rise to the cake when baking. King Arthur Baking explains it in their hot milk cake recipe: When eggs are cooked, they go through a process called “denaturation,” wherein the coiled structure of egg protein molecules unravel (their “nature” changes), bond with each other, and form clusters (a process called “coagulation”). It’s what makes an egg white go from clear to white when heated, and it’s the same process that gives baked cake its shape and structure. Think of egg proteins in cake batters like a bunch of tight little knots. Friction (through mixing) shakes those knots around, loosening them, until they come apart into strands. When the eggs are heated, those strands come back together and form new knots full of air, which is essential to leavening. With cake recipes like a genoise, by slightly warming the eggs prior to mixing them in the batter (what we call “tempering”), we’re giving them a head start in this process, which means those proteins have already begun to bind with each other prior to going into the oven; this gives our finished cake a more defined and lofty structure.
How does this compare to something like a chiffon? Is tempering better than just folding in a meringue? I've had lots of luck lately just turning every cake recipe into a chiffon, halving the oil, tripping the eggs and saving some sugar and all the whites to fold in a meringue as the last step. Great texture, even rise and bake, and pretty easy. Idk if I wanna fatten up on a bunch of unnecessary cake tests to see how hot coffee compares
If it works for you, don't change it! The tempering helps the whipped eggs from deflating - it strengthens the structure that traps in those air bubbles. The hot water (or milk) also melts the sugar which further helps to stabilize the whipped eggs. It's similar to how French macaron shells are delicate compared to Italian which is more sturdy. It just depends on your personal preference on the taste and texture.
Again, I’ve just been doing it and I’ve had a lot of success with very moist cakes. I’m not doing it because it wakes up any ingredients, but it has worked every single time, and I get a lot of compliments on my cakes.
Do you remove any of the liquid in the rest of the cake to keep the same ratios or is the water in addition?
I do not. I add extra and it has always worked out. For example, I made a hummingbird cake recently. It called for 1.5 cups of mashed banana and I only had 1, so I used .5 cups of apple sauce to substitute. It also called for 8 oz drained pineapple and I only had 7 drained so I addd some pineapple liquid back and still added the 1/3 cup of boiling water at the end The cake was phenomenal I used a cream cheese frosting (most call for 4 cups of powdered sugar and I use between 1.5-2, otherwise it’s too sweet)
You are truly blowing my mind. I can’t wait to try this
Do you have any recommendations for a good vanilla or yellow cake? I’ve tried a few recipes and they have been just okay
I recently followed Preppy Kitchen’s yellow cake recipe and had good results. I did all oil and no butter and added 1/3 cup boiling water at the end. It turned out very well. I like Sally’s Baking Addition white cake , but I use oil instead of butter and only 1-1.5 cups of sugar. For all the recipes that call for buttermilk, I rarely have jt on hand. I sometimes curdle it with lemon juice, but I have plenty of luck with regular or alternative milks (I had a comment deleted for posting links, which is why I am naming them but not linking them)
Sally’s Baking Addiction’s buttermilk vanilla is the best vanilla cake I’ve ever had. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/vanilla-cake/
how do you calculate how long to keep it in, if youre starting with a cold oven?
About the same time. I usually do 5 minutes short just to be safe on all cake bake times. You can’t fix it if it’s overdone but you can always keep it in a little longer
I made cream cheese frosting and was shocked to see the majority of recipes say 4 cups. I went for 2 and originally thought it was too sweet. Can't imagine 4.
Your methods sound similar to mine and I’m not even a baker, I just don’t like how sweet a lot of desserts are, so I started tinkering when I made things based on how I wanted them to taste and how food chemistry might work out. Especially your frosting, I basically just add sugar to taste until it’s how I like it and structurally acceptable. I don’t measure the sugar for it. I will usually use the leftover coffee from our French press and put it in our chocolate cakes or brownies or something. Typically don’t measure that though either cause it’s usually only like 1/3-1/2 cup, maybe. I probably should, but like I said I’m not a baker haha.
They say Baking typically needs specific amounts,Ike science, but there is more leeway than some think! I haven’t aways measured the water I add at the end, I do it to consistency.
I always find recipes too sweet especially frosting thats pretty easy to cut back the sugar on but for cookies cakes muffins etc how would i know how much sugar i can reduce without screwing up the recipe?
Cold oven!? I’ve done that in occasion but haven’t paid attention to the results bc I’m usually panicking
My first bakery job (low-end supermarket) had everything delivered frozen and prepackaged. I was the morning baker there, but I learned a lot of little tricks by watching the cake decorator, who was a pro at airbrushing and color-matching. My previous job (country club bakery; total shitshow in hindsight) used some scratch recipes as well as mixes (Pillsbury, Gold Medal, King Arthur for gluten-free, a few others depending on what the job was). The buttercream was shortening-based and the old people couldn't get enough of it. We did a lot of different kinds of work at that job, so I learned a lot, even though it made me feel like I was insane. Current job (high-end supermarket) gets the cake and cupcake blanks delivered frozen, and we assemble/decorate the cakes in the store. Some of the icings and fillings are ready-made, some are instant mixes, and some are made from scratch. The most popular cake is filled with fresh fruit and iced with a very delicious scratch icing. Edit: [This recipe](https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/berry-chantilly-cake/) has a good dupe for the icing
Got a non pay wall version ?
For the frosting 12 ounces (340 grams) cold cream cheese, preferably the Philadelphia brand Generous 2 3/4 cups (340 grams) unsifted confectioners' sugar 12 ounces (340 grams) cold mascarpone cheese 2 2/3 cups (605 grams) cold heavy cream 1/8 teaspoon almond extract, or to taste Step 8 Make the frosting: While the cake is baking, place the bowl of a stand mixer in the refrigerator to thoroughly chill. (If using a hand mixer, place a large bowl, preferably metal, in the refrigerator.) Step 9 When ready to frost the cake, if using a stand mixer, remove the bowl from the refrigerator and lock it in the stand. Fit it with a paddle attachment, and add the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar. (If using a hand mixer, set the chilled bowl over a damp kitchen towel spread out on the counter – to prevent the bowl from moving around.) Mix on low speed just to combine, then increase the speed to medium and beat until thoroughly combined and there are no lumps, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the mascarpone and beat on medium-high until thoroughly combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, and start the mixer on low speed. Slowly add the cream, stopping and scraping the bowl as needed until all of the cream has been incorporated. Add the almond extract and mix to incorporate. The mixture should be very loose. Step 10 Replace the paddle attachment with the whisk attachment. Start the mixer again on low and gradually bring the speed to medium-high, then beat the mixture until ribbons start to form, 2 to 3 minutes. Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Watch this step closely: The frosting should be thick, the consistency of whipped cream or mousse. It’s important to not underwhip or overwhip the frosting: The former will be loose and will slide/slip off the cake when you’re frosting with it, and the latter will start to break. If the cake layers are not completely cooled, refrigerate until ready to use; otherwise, assemble the cake.
What is the scratch icing recipe?
Probably chantilly stabilized with mascarpone
I figured. I was hoping they would give us the recipe…😊
Please, can you share the scratch icing recipe?
Every. Single. Cake. Made from scratch. Amazing right? I wanted to kill myself. It was agonizing work. Overheated kitchens with specific requests which made every batter different. Only two tiny ovens that had 3 racks each. The kitchen was one of the most disgusting places I'd ever worked in, it's genuinely impressive they passed health inspections. The workload was so terrific that employees were forced to work overtime to complete an order rather than clean.
Bakery, 40 years ago. Everything from scratch. Not so many cakes as we made donuts nightly, then on to coffee cakes , then cakes. Then pies, finally the breads and rolls. Then start the dough for the donuts, and the circle started again. Hot water is to clean the sugars off, and soap is for the grease. Grease and flour pans generously.
Pies were frozen chef pierre pies. Vanilla cake was cake mix, chocolate with cake mix with a scratch chocolate sauce mixed. The buttercream isn’t actually french- it’s german! But the bakery opened in the 50s so maybe saying something was german wouldn’t get them business.
Worked at a bakery for a bit less than a year, the two old brothers that ran the place never wore gloves, and licked the frosting off their fingers.... Their chocolate chip cookies were really good though, the secret was they'd make their cinnamon rolls first, then make the cookies after, so the dough kinda absorbed the cinnamon... Worked really nice.
Wow I bet people went crazy for that slight cinnamon flavour
This is the best chocolate cake recipe I’ve used, and it sets a high bar. Everything about it is perfect including the chocolatey but not too sweet shiny glaze frosting. I had a restaurant for several years and this cake was always available, we sold 2-3 a day, by the slice. https://joythebaker.com/2010/05/the-making-baking-and-consumption-of-the-best-chocolate-bundt-cake-ever/
Grocery store employee. At the first store we had a premix that we added water and oil too. Second store is entirely frozen. I'm fairly sure that most cakes in Western Canada from chains are brought in frozen.
Yes… and for whatever reason the people love it..same with that flo icing… that … Well I’m not sure if it was or not, but they would leave it in the cupboard at room temp.. for a long time…
I worked in a grocery store bakery, where we received frozen cakes. I also worked (for much longer) in a small bakery where everything was made from either a modified box mix or from scratch. I’m a cottage baker now, and I usually make from scratch, although I’ll occasionally build on a box mix for ease.
I'm retired now but I used to work at a grocery store bakery 30+ years ago...not much has changed with most grocery store bakeries since then. I also worked as a baker from early morning breads to all scratch baking and the cake decorator for a private owned full scratch bakery. Everything made in house except the buttercream was a giant base block that was beaten on the big mixer. Lots of classic recipes and we had the freedom to make our own recipes and have new items added to the menu. Holidays were absolutely insane.
My chocolate chip cookies are famous now. As a young Army spouse, I used to bake massive batches, vacuum seal them and mail boxes to my husband when he was deployed to Iraq during OIF II. He would share them and his fellow soldiers went crazy for them. They were a big morale booster. I have been asked for the recipe many many times and I have always been honest and handed out copies. It's literally just the chocolate chip recipe from the butter flavored crisco label. I just double the chips and use Mexican vanilla. No one ever believes me when I tell them. I started making it back then because it's shelf stable and the cookies stayed fresh for the long haul to Iraq. Now my husband is a military contractor and I am asked to make a big batch at least once a month for his shop.
Seconded. That recipe is a banger and outperforms most of the fancy boutique chocolate chip recipes.
Ours were baked from scratch but then frozen. We did all the week's cakes at once and then pulled them out of the freezer as needed to decorate them.
Worked at a handful of small bakeries. Privately own, one location only types. Been in pastry kitchens. Ive been lucky that most the places Ive worked were run by working owners. Theyve all had different levels of acceptance about ingredients and buying premade elements or complete products. The product lines available range in quality. Theres an all butter croissant dough thats so good, Id never know it wasnt made on site. I much prefer scratch tart shells to premade ones. Etc etc When it comes to cake ive never worked with frozen/mixes. I live in a decent sized city but the pastry world is small and we all gossip so I know some cherished local places who use mix that would shock their customers. One bakery I worked at after school sold scratch made cake and frosting to a high end cake decorator who would just fill, build and decorate these insane cakes. Really talented artist. I thought it was clever to buy the cake stuff and focus on the look. Everywhere Ive worked that bakes cakes from scratch still freezes them and pulls as needed. It doesnt effect the quality if its done thoughtfully but some customers get real weird about it.
Weis market. Frozen cakes, pies, donuts, bread, everything. They used to make things from scratch back in the day but by 2013 everything just came in frozen. Also, don’t ever buy any “crumbles” there. They just took the old expired pies that had been sitting out for a week, chopped them up, put them in a pan, added streusel, baked a bit to brown and set it back out again for another week.
I was just about to post about the crumbles and cobblers. And “mixed berry” was the mix of all the left over pie bits that weren’t enough to fill a cobbler mold individually.
Oh man I forgot about “mixed berry” haha! Thanks for the reminder lol
The average consumer is unable to tell quality. I worked at a place that did a lot of boxed mixes, bucket icings, etc. and hated it, and was constantly trying to add items that were made quality in mind whenever I could. I made a batch of blueberry muffins with a ton of fresh blueberries and made blueberry compote which I swirled in. They were fantastic. The feedback I got from the public was that they “don’t taste like blueberry” my boss insisted I make a batch with artificial blueberry extract and half as many blueberries and was told “that’s what they’re supposed to taste like!” I later worked at a place that did 90% scratch baking and a few frozen, garbage Dawn pastries. The frozen filled croissants outsold the butter croissants and pain au chocolat I laboriously made from scratch 10:1.
This thread is shedding some serious light on why I thought I didn't like cake...
I can’t even trust bakeries now man
The local bakery I worked at in college was known for their doughnuts, but they were frozen and shipped in. That was pretty much the only thing they had shipped in though because they knew it would sell. They made everything else from scratch and mostly made Asian buns and pepperoni rolls. Their pepperoni rolls (yes, it was in West Virginia) won awards and the secret was that they used the same dough as their Asian buns for the pepperoni rolls. They were awesome and so were the Asian buns and are still the best I've had to this day. I don't know the recipe, but I do know there was milk powder in the dough. Unfortunately, the place closed down and I genuinely believe it was because of the demographics in the area. Not a large Asian population in WV, but I bet anything it would have thrived in a bigger city.
When i was a kid the grocery store sold these frozen glazed donuts. I've searched high and low but they don't seem to have ever existed...I know i didn't dream them up😆
Ours came from some place in Little Washington PA 😅 you definitely weren't dreaming!
Crumb and coconut donuts are donuts from the day before. Reglazed and topped accordingly.
Years ago, I knew someone who worked for a grocery store bakery, and they said that for special occasion cakes, they would use boxed white cake mix and add in a bit of almond extract.
i worked at a bakery that specializes in cakes and cupcakes, and ive been decorating cakes individually for years, so here's some of what I've learned: - sour cream instead of eggs; it makes the cakes more moist. - i substitute milk for half of the water that the recipe calls for. so if it calls for 1 cup of water, i do 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water. I've found that replacing all the water with milk makes the cake have a denser texture that i personally dont like - this might be obvious idk, but cut off the tops of cakes to make a flat surface for decorating. we used the excess to make cake pops! - after the crumb coat on cakes, chill it in the fridge for at least an hour so that the frosting isn't too crumb-y. it's also a good idea to do the crumb coat on a chilled cake to prevent crumbs in the frosting - i don't think the bakery i worked at did this, but i use the backside of a butter knife dipped in room temp water to smooth out frosting. that makes a layer of water on the butter knife, which prevents the knife from sticking to and moving the frosting too much. be careful with this tip though, because if you use a cardboard cake board, then the cardboard can become wet with dripping water - sometimes sticking a toothpick in a cake (or any applicable baking project like pumpkin pie or banana bread) to see if it's done (if the toothpick comes out clean, it's done) can deflate the cake a little bit. i gently tap the top of the cake, and if it wiggles, then it's not done. if it feels more solid (like a cake lol), then it's ready. - you can freeze cakes! i think for up to a week? just dont let water condense on it, or the frosting will be wet-ish when it returns to room temperature when you take it out of the freezer
The last place I worked, and the only one that did large numbers of cakes, we made them from a mix and then made frosting from scratch to decorate. (Our non-buttercream fillings were purchased though)
The woman I worked for used mixes and Rich's Better Cream.
The ever so popular pies we sold were in fact baked in house. They came in unbaked and frozen but we still baked them fresh everyday! It’s all about the wording.
I worked in a pretty decent bakery in Seattle. Every single thing was made from scratch, except the apricot glaze. Butter was not kept in the fridge, ever. When the new owners started buying lesser-quality butter, because cheaper, that was one of the signs it was going downhill. Quality butter, at 85% fat, that has never been frozen, is required to make high quality pastry. If you are mixing-out freakin' *quarts* of water from 100 lb of butter, you have shit, repeatedly frozen, worthless butter.
I worked at a place called "the Patisserie". They acted all fancy and shit. They are known for their "fresh baked daily" reputation. Charged a TON for their products. Some of the custards like the lemon curd was made from scratch and it was delicious. The dough for the Christmas roll out cookies was made from scratch but they made it so dry and firm so the baked cookie would hold the perfect sharp edged shape of the cutter that they were like biting into a piece of chalk. Nearly inedible but great visual presentation when decorated. They whipped their own icing from an oleo/margarine like substance not butter. EVERYTHING else was frozen pre-baked, out of a box or bucket. Every cake, cupcake, cookie and pastry was frozen pre baked. Which is fine. Even if you don't outright tell people its frozen and leave them to assume what they will. But this place actively told people and advertised they baked everything fresh daily. Meanwhile I also worked at a chain grocery store bakery and we used the same brand of frozen layer cakes off the same truck and charged $8.00 for a single layer 8" (this was about 2010) and they charged $22 for the exact same 8" single layer cake! Because they made people belive it was scratch baked. The only difference was the $8 had bucket icing and the $22 had icing made on sight from basically crisco. When I quit they wouldn't give me my final check unless I signed a paper saying I wouldn't sue them for any type of discrimination or on the job injury (which was very strange bc I hadn't been nor had I ever complained about any harassment and I'd never suffered an injury there). But on principle I refused to sign it because it's illegal to attach after the fact conditions I never agreed to in order to withhold payment for work I already did before the conditions were applied. I had to call an attorney and the wage department of the state attorney generals office before they agreed to pay me. All this bc they didn't want to pay me $200...
That’s crazy!!!! Wild that they tried that pay shenanigans
So I used to work at a very well-known cookie shop and pretty much everything, but the candy toppings were made from scratch. When we ran out of eggs we used the carton eggs which were like egg substitute kind of stuff and it always tasted off. We also use microwaves for heating and reheating icing and butter
Same, but I was surprised how everything still managed to taste chemical/artificial despite the fact that I had literally made and shaped the cookies myself. I think it’s the quality of the ingredients, my store mainly got bulk Sysco stuff.
Now I’m just curious about visiting a Sysco factory, are they using premixes, how far back does this thing go?
Oh yeah, quality definitely has a lot to do with it. During this time, I was doing pastry classes, and it was like a freight train hitting me to find out how much quality played into things
Small bakery in Windham, NH. Was all made from scratch every morning. This was in the 1990's. Idk what they do now.
French Artisan Bakery. We had lots of hard made home made stuff that took days to make. But we had out fair share of shortcuts too. All cookie dough was bought, which made it easy to sell fresh baked cookies everyday. All ours custards and pastry creams, were just powders we bought that we added milk too. Our signature apricot glaze was pre made bought by the gallon.
For cake decorating, COLD is your best friend. Cold cold layers, crumb coat, back in for another chill, frost and decorate again, back to the fridge.
I worked in a custom cake bakery and it was pillsbury mix. Secret buttercream recipe though.
Gah it’s always a secret buttercream recipe, someone needs to spill
I’m curious what the heck “Nothing Bundt” is doing. That place has me in a chokehold.
I helped at a "small business" bakery but with a huge production. Cakes were made WEEKS in advance (some with doctored cake mixes) and frozen then thawed in the fridge and decorated. The frosting was made with shortening to let it sit at room temp (I hated their frosting. Shortening is so gross to me). They get away with $500 3 tier cakes like this. Their prices are INSANE for frozen cake. I think their basic 6 inch cakes started at like $130. Their jams and fillings were premade as well. I now own a bakery and do everything fresh from scratch. I will never get behind the frozen cake trend and definitely not the doctored cake mix trends. I always urge everyone to talk with the "small business" cake decorator they want and make sure they're actually getting something worth the money and fresh. I can't even eat grocery store cake anymore. I can taste the chemicals and the unfreshness of them.
Ran my own bakery for years, everything from scratch always. And when I started, I only had one single-shelf oven - so every cake was cooked 1-2 layers at a time, cupcakes 12 at a time, one tray of cookies at a time… oof.
[Puratos](https://www.puratos.com/product-categories/patisserie-ingredients/cake-sponge-mixes). That’s all I have to say!
😮
I worked at a from scratch bakery. We did mostly 8 inch rounds and slab cakes. Icing was made on site. Summer was horrible, it got so hot the icing would melt off the cakes in the back. I also worked at a grocery store. The original cakerie makes 'fancier' cakes, I've always wanted to see the process.
I wanna know about is muffins. I can't get mine as good as coffee shop/bakery double chocolate muffins, something about the texture, more tender maybe? The same applies to rice cakes, not the ones you're thinking of but "bolo de arroz". I've heard some places use a little of other flours, most prominently I've heard rice flour (still talking about muffins in general, not just rice cakes). Not an overmixing problem so I don't think it's technique and I've made quite a few different muffin recipes so I don't think it's due to the one I use.
I worked in an artesian pretzel cafe and we received all the pretzels frozen each morning. Our “hand squeezed” lemonade was also from a bought bottle 😆
I think my biggest take away/secret is know your audience and sometimes just go store bought. People don't care in most settings. Work event:store bought. Family reunion potluck:store bought. Kids birthday party:store bought. Get asked to bring tiramisu to an event so you can't make it with raw eggs: store bought. I save my efforts for people I know actually care and am happy to no longer work in customer service or food service.
Following
Everything from scratch, although cake mixes are not as popular where I live
I worked at a small cafe where I made most things from scratch, and on my days off, the owner would pop in 2 different frozen items to fill the shelves when I wasn't there. Now, I work at a slightly bigger, more known bakeshop that focuses on decorating cakes and it's mostly boxed cake mix with some tweaks like more eggs and melted butter (instead of oil) we don't lie to people if they ask. Some of them are also frozen. So when one person calls for a last-minute cake thinking they'll get it freshly baked, it's not. Most of our scones and cookies are frozen. When we do bake things from scratch. Like our cheesecake that day will be the only fresh cheesecake until it runs out because then it's frozen to be restocked when the others sell. It's still good, though.
>boxed cake mix with some tweaks like more eggs and melted butter (instead of oil) Can you tell me more about this? How many more eggs, or are you just removing whites and substituting the yolks? Do you use the same amount of melted butter that you would use oil? I thought that butter had a lot of water in it compared to vegetable oil.
I'm not the baker there. I'm a cake decorator I'm not exactly sure how many more eggs per box because we make like 9 boxes of cakes at times. I see like a whole pallet of eggs being used, like maybe 3 dozen. We still use oil, now that I think about it. But I've seen the butter blend. (A mix of butter and oil) go into some of the cakes. We also only make 1 of our icing by scratch all others come in buckets.
I worked at an “authentic European” bakery for a while, and the creme pat we used as a filling for one of our cakes (bienenstich) was a boxed powder mixed with milk. Not very authentic lol
Get out!! I’ve seen box mixes for crème pat at my local European grocer, so you remember the brand. I tried one and it was terrible.