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?

If you like sweet stuff - I don't, so really cannot be arsed with baking cakes/biscuits/cookies/brownies (otherwise known as a failed cake with good PR)/pies/etc - you could turn that stale cake into the base of a trifle?

I'd rather take pleasure in cooking something useful, tasty and attractive and then eat it without wasting half the ingredients by making too much; I'm sure those 'I love to bake' people a) actually like cake and b) have people who love cake in their home/workplace, but they're welcome to it. Same way they don't want to get involved in other activities they 'don't get'.

The thing with chocolate cake is that it needs to be a much wetter mixture than sponge. My mum thinks just tipping some drinking chocolate powder (not even cocoa powder) into her usual sponge makes it a chocolate cake. My recipe is 200g butter, melted with 200g of dark choc and add in 125 mils of cold water mixed with coffee; 85g of each plain and self raising flour. 200g each of caster sugar and light muscavado (its a lot I know), 25g of cocoa powder. 3 eggs and a dash of milk. Pretty much mix it all in together, use a tin liner for an 8' tin and bake for about 1hr 15mins at about 170. You might want to cover the top for the last 20 mins or so. Its absolutely fool proof and and of you wrap it tightly in foil and put it in a tin for a few days it gets fudgier.

The very best thing about home baking is that you can't beat eating warm cakes that have just come out of the oven. Like you OP, I do rapidly lose interest when I've eaten one slice (or two). I get more enjoyment from trying out new recipes and decorating them and then giving them away than actually eating it.

Pre Covid I would take leftover baked stuff to the office. It would be eaten within half a day. Now I will tend to donate cakes to a couple of friends who work for the local hospitals and they take them in. Failing that - freezing is a great way to store leftover bakes.

Personally, I don't find shop-bought cakes taste as good - and you will never get that warm-straight-out-of the oven taste either. However, baking is time-consuming and this is more of an issue than the cost, It takes time to buy ingredients, weigh them, prepare it, bake it and clear up afterwards. Ingredients wise it is far cheaper to buy it compared to shop bought.

I bake virtually every weekend. There is no problem with it not being eaten. 6 adults in the house. I'm lucky if I see a second slice of a cake.

You can freeze cake, and defrosted it is pretty much as good as it was fresh. Why not bake a good one, cut it into individual slices, and freeze it? Then you won't have to necessarily bake to eat a piece of cake, and it won't be left to go dry.

The freezer is your friend.
Cake and shortbread freezes really well, just portion it first
Cookies and biscuit and things like profiterole freeze raw portions and bake as and when needed.
Saves getting sick of it and it's nice to think that you fancy a slice of cake and then theres a home made one ready.
I think you can taste the difference, shop ones aren't buttery enough for me

Well this thread has been a revelation! I love baking (and my cakes are delicious!) but I tend not to bake too often as it's not good for my waistline - now I find out cake freezes well?! Now we won't feel guilty scoffing all the cake so it doesn't dry out or go stale - thanks!

I've never actually found edible cake in shops, it's almost all disgusting unless you go to a fancy bakery and pay £££s.

I generally make brownies because they're easy - no creaming required, which I hate, just melt chocolate and butter and stir in eggs, flour, sugar and nuts or whatever.

I only make a small tray, and we usually eat it over a few days, but it freezes well.

Cost doesn't really come into it, but it's fairly cheap. I get all the ingredients from Aldi including the 30 p dark chocolate. It's still probably more expensive than cheap shop bought cake, but I wouldn't eat that anyway.

But it's far cheaper than equivalent quality bought cake, because you'd have to compare it with £2 a slice artisan bakery or farmers market version to find anything as nice.

@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?

Turn it into the base for tirimisu!

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

@CCSS15

Not necessarily the point but you can freeze cake! Found this a game changer in the past year with giant birthday cakes and no extra family to share with - also comes out moister if a bit dry in the first place

Yes! And a slice defrosts to just-baked-warm in about 30seconds in a microwave.

I can't say I ever have the issue of uneaten cake with DH around! The main reason I avoid baking is he has limited eating control! When I lived alone this was the reason I avoided baking - it's quite expensive to then give away the products, or else you have to eat a whole cake yourself.

Now I have a willing customer though I love baking, although don't do it that much. I still prefer baking bread or scones or cookies to cakes though.

How about a compromise and give microwave baking including something like mug cakes a go?
I'm on a diet at the moment so not baking but before I used to do something every week, I've baked for about 20 years so love doing it.

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.

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

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!

If you don't enjoy it, don't do it? I hate knitting, so I don't do it. Don't care if others enjoy it, I find it dull.

If you enjoy doing something else, do it. Buy cakes from a shop. Do what you want.

Fun, choice, control.

One of my DC has coeliac disease. One is fussy. I like to try unusual things. Etc.

What’s the point? If you prefer shop bought cake, and don’t enjoy baking, fine.
I personally think there’s a world of difference between a shop bought and home made cake - mainly in the variety of ingredients. My local supermarket only stocks the same old mass produced chocolate, lemon, carrot and coffee cakes.

By home baking, I can reduce the amount of sugar in cakes. I can include decent ingredients rather than synthetic flavourings, and I can infinitely improve texture and taste.

As for scaling, a sponge recipe made with one egg would produce a 10cm diameter cake (although what a waste of effort).

Plus I can make cakes to cater for almost any allergy, I can make cakes that incorporate carrots, dates, marrow, even beetroot and provide one of the 5-a-day.

Any decent cake will keep for days in a cake tin.

@Ihopeyourcakeisshit

There's no way a home made cake would be hanging around for 4 days in my house. Perhaps you should stick to painting your nails, maybe your cakes aren't that great😜

Same here!

In fact, that's what depresses me about it - you spend all day baking and they the buggers just eat everything!

I'm still covered in flour and the plates are empty - you'd think I was raising a clutch of gannets.

I don’t understand how people can prefer the taste of shop bought to home baked tbh.

My homemade cakes are much nicer than shop bought.

And yes to freezing cake.. just cut it into slices first.

I agree, I made some flapjacks and they were hanging around for ages (there’s only two of us). I’m going to make some muffins at the weekend to use up some blueberries but considering leaving the sugar out or massively reducing it otherwise I don’t really want to be eating one every day for a week or whatever! My mum doesn’t bake though so maybe I just got used to never having cake except at birthdays.

Most of what I bake I cant buy except in specialist shops. I make lots of foreign cakes and pastries. I have also been making most of our bread over the last year. Our house eats a loaf every day and with chiapatti flour as low as 40p kg and the only other ingredients wild yeast, dry yeast a little salt and water it is a heck of a lot cheaper than a similar sized wholemeal sourdoygh loaf from a bakery.

If you make it yourself, you know what's in it.

I also freeze at least half of anything I've baked for another time.