What is the point of baking?

[waitingforautumn]

OK to cover myself - I'm actually not a bad baker (promise! :)) my issue is that baking - while highly therapeutic, is not necessarily cheap, and it leaves you with a commitment to eating the baked good all week!! (doesn't sound like a bad thing does it...). Cakes in particular are quite hard to scale down.

AIBU to just prefer a supermarket / cafe slice of cake etc to spare myself the faff and expense of baking, and the smaller/individual portion sizes?! I know they are rarely as good as the home baked kind but some of them can be very decent. I get FOMO for not baking when a lot of friends and family do it - they make it look so fun and rewarding! Yet when I bake I totally lose interest in the final product after I've had one portion.

I spent a large chunk of last weekend baking a half size chocolate cake (it could still feed 10 tbh!), and by the end I just wish I'd gone to M&S lol. Especially now, 4 days later, when the fam are all bored of it and the remainder of this cake is just sitting there uneaten, getting drier and drier every day... yet we all feel too guilty to throw it away. It wasn't a very nice recipe actually. Not chocolatey enough and was on the dry side to begin with. But thats just part of the risk of trying a new recipe I suppose.

Or am I just missing the point of baking???? Is it supposed to be something people only do when feeding a crowd? How often do you bake and why do you do it? Does it all get eaten?? If you crave something in particular are you more likely to bake it or go out and buy it?

It’s an activity in and of itself - making and decorating dinosaur biscuits can keep DS entertained all morning. And it does taste nicer than shop-bought.

I bake maybe once or twice a month. Leftovers either go into work, get redistributed amongst the wider family, or shared with DS’s friends. DS also seems quite capable and willing to eat cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we let him.

@Hahaha88

I actually cannot believe what my eyes have just seen. Shop bought cakes better than home made? And cakes going off before getting finished?! What!? Chocolate cake does have a tendency to he dry if you don't have a solid recipe. Chocolate and courgette cake is fab for being moist and lush. I don't really rate chocolate cake and would never choose one over even a basic Victoria sponge but trust me that cake is a game changer. The worse thing in a home made cake is when someone uses spread instead of actual butter to make butter cream not envy

Oh yes - marg always has a nasty after taste.

@ifitpleasesandsparkles

I don't bake often but I have a few staples that I like to bake l- banana bread, chewy cookies, pancakes, muffins, scones, biscuits- and there's just something so much nicer about having the hot and fresh from the oven.

Saying that, we have a ridiculously fancy patisserie just down the road that's doing a roaring trade during lockdown and their cakes are unbelievable!

But from your local Tesco or whatever? Nah. I'll take a Gregg's yum yum though.

I envy people who have stuck to, and refined their fav recipes over and over until they are perfect. This is what I need, a store of trusty recipes that I rarely veer from. I am not someone who can cope with the disappointment from a bad choice of new recipe!

@Ihopeyourcakeisshit

Is this the most civilised Aibu ever? I mean, people are offering tips and being helpful

I am so pleasantly surprised!!! Huge thanks to everyone

@Cocomarine

A half sized cake thaw would still feed 10? Bollocks! That would be the MN Chicken of cakes 🤣

Make your cake quantities to match a single egg 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can’t be arsed with baking so I’m all for shop. But I feel I should sometimes, to teach my child. Hence the single egg recipes.

But a half size cake that feeds 10 still hanging around for 4 days - nonsense!

It's just not a very nice cake tbh lol!! Plus lots of choc frosting inside and out so its a bit sickly to have at 3pm while working with a coffee. You need to factor in a nap.

I find people who really enjoy baking don't enjoy eating it as much.
I love eating so anything I bake I eat due to this I try to limit baking. Few cake s, buns, cookies I bake are very simple usually done with children who like me do it for the eating after. Nothing lasts until next day

@likeamillpond

I agree. I'd be the size of a house if I baked. Far better to buy ONE slice of something and be done with it. If I bake I get like Miranda from SATC I have to eat the whole thing. No point in freezing it either. I'll eat it frozen.

Hahahaha made me chuckle

The secret of good chocolate cake is plenty of patissier chocolate and not too much flour.

It should be rich and gooey.

You can tell from the recipe whether it will be dry.

It's probably more that you're not good at baking, rather than baking in general not being worth it...

@TatianaBis

I think cooking is a complete waste of time. I have no interest in 'baking' as a hobby. But I like cakes so I make them now and then. I stick to recipes I know or are reliably moist as I hate dry cake. If a cake gets left in too long for some reason I slosh alcohol on it to moisten it and/or turn it into trifle.

One really good shop cake is Sainsbury's coffee walnut. Far better than the Waitrose & M&S versions. Soft, gooey, lovely butter cream. Cheap too.

Thank you for your comment! we sound very similar. I might have to pick up that Sainsbos cake as I specifically have the M&S version in mind at the moment!

I do have a couple of recipes I always go back to, and how I feel after baking with those compared to something that turns out crap, makes all the difference.

@Sniv

I worked with someone who baked as a hobby and I dreaded her bringing in tins of stuff all the time. She always took it badly when I turned her down, but she never seemed to eat any of it herself.

Cake's something I eat on birthdays.

Sometimes people bring in stuff that looks very unappetising, and it can be so awkward... Other days you just don't want some, or you feel a bit bloated, or you've had a massive lunch or something... and it's so awkward turning it down!! People need to just leave the cake in a place where others can help themselves!

It’s usually gone here before I get a look in.

@kunterbunting

OP, it's funny that you need to 'cover yourself', and are so apologetic and feel the need to explain.

It's fine not to bother with baking. I find it very, very boring. It makes endless mess, and everyone loses interest long before it gets to the clearing up stage. I don't like cake particularly, and if I wanted one, I'd buy one in M&S (the same goes for bread/pastry type stuff, which I don't much like either). I'd have a slice of cake or a biscuit if someone else had baked them, just to be polite - but I wouldn't dream of making anything like that.

It's bad enough having to cook every day, without adding baking to the list of 'must do' jobs.

I want to be your friend!!

@kowari

I agree. I'd rather just a single serve of whatever I fancy. Just because I fancy it now doesn't mean I'm going to want it more than once and DS and I like different things. I'd rather a bar of 85% chocolate 95% of the time anyway.

Yes [claps]

@LApprentiSorcier

In my case, so I can say 'Woo! Look what I made!'

And so my husband can re-live his childhood by scraping out the mixing bowl.

I'm not very good at baking, though, so my efforts are no better than what you'd get in Sainsburys.

yes my DH does that, but the kids get there first these days

The people I know who bake take great pride and pleasure in doing so, and in the days before the pandemic, three of them were kind enough to bring the results of their labours into the office to share with others.

Cakes in particular are quite hard to scale down.

I freeze mine in slices and eat a slica a day.,

I dont find baking therapeutic, its messy and creates a load of washing up. But home made cakes are way nicer than shop bought, no sweet artificial taste. Never had anything home baked ( other than Christmas cake) that lasted more than 24 hours

"A slice a day keeps depression away" .

@chasingmytail4

I'm currently feeding 6 adults due to children coming back to the nest - thanks Covid - and I bake most days. I'm old so I've been doing it for so long I can knock out a batch of scones, tray of brownie, etc with very little effort and it doesn't hang around for long here. I find baking much less satisfying when there's fewer people to enjoy it.

What a lovely + bustling household that must be! I'm sure you have your recipes all down to an art .

@NotGenerationAlpha

I much prefer my own baked cakes. But then I have two children and we finish a cake within 1 to 2 days.

Are we talking standard everyday bakes, or frosted / more indulgent kinda cakes etc? I need this turnover rate!

OP, you sound lovely. Yes, I'd like to have a cup of tea with you (and NO CAKE ).

I find the opposite - shop bought cakes get left to go dry and stale. My home made ones get eaten same day with 3 hungry teenagers in the house!

But I run a baking business so my cakes are pretty splendid if I do say so myself

@IliveonCoffee

Gosh this resonates so much.

I'm a good baker, if I say so myself! When I am requested to bake it's well received.

But god its so expensive - well I think it is if you "occasionally" bake, so you never quite have enough butter in, or eggs or a stock of half decent chocolate, so you always have to go out and get some.

I also like to have an afternoon of baking. So make brownies, cakes, and cookies. I mean, if I going to get all the stuff out and make a mess, I might as well spend a good amount of time on it.

But its just me and my partner...He's just not a baked goods person . So half of it goes to waste, as there is only so much a single person can eat - and I'm not exactly a sparrow...
Because there is really no preservatives like shop bought ones, once they're cut they really do only last 2-4 days, even less if you used fresh cream.

I really do enjoy it and most of "baking" is the enjoyment of the activity itself. But the other part of it is seeing others enjoyment of what you've created.

I knit at the moment, and while most of it is in a drawer for the as yet unplanned children, the few piece I have put on a child have filled me with real warmth of seeing my creation enjoyed!

So baking for no reason in particular, knowing full well most will go to waste, means yes... for the most part I pick up cakes from the supermarket occassionaly grumbling...I could make better.

Thank you for empathising! It's a funny old problem to have isn't it? the therapeutic process is one thing - but it is wasteful to not finish up the end result. Easier said than done when you are over it or are just one person, and have fresh ingredients on the clock...