Retail Baking

Retail Baking is a lab class that has two main objectives. The first is that as a class, we mass produce a variety of products and hold bake sales for the public three times a month. The second objective is that we work with a partner or a group to develop a legitimate business plan. I really feel this is the course in my program in which I will gain the most real-world experience, and I'm really excited about the course overall.

My friend, Gilly, and I are working together on a business plan, which we actually hope to enact in 2012. There will be lots of information on that in the next few months, but for now, I want to share with you what our class is like on a weekly basis.

We split up into four groups, and are responsible for a category of items to be sold at the bake sales. The categories are pies/cakes, cookies/pastries, breakfast items, and breads/special events. We spend two weeks at a time on each category, and rotate through twice. My group of four spent the first two bake sales responsible for breakfast items.

In the breakfast category, we are responsible to produce cinnamon twists, cinnamon rolls, muffins or scones, croissants, and quick breads. Sometimes, we're able to use product made in other courses; for example, over the past two weeks, we were able to sell zucchini bread and banana nut bread from the introductory courses. These are popular items. Last week, Gilly and I worked together to produce the croissants - turkey/cheese, ham/cheese, and pain au chocolate - and lemon blueberry muffins, while our two additional group members made cinnamon rolls and cinnamon twists. This week, we swapped tasks, and Gilly and I made chocolate chip scones as well.







Some of the other items sold this past week included sugar cookies, brownies, cream cheese brownies, assorted quiche, chocolate cream pies, beer cheddar bacon cupcakes, dinner rolls, and danishes.







We've had two pretty successful bake sales, and it's really fun to set up these for the public, and to see how excited people are about the products we make. Like I said, I'm really excited for this class, and looking forward to future weekly sales and working on our business plan.