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?

Comtesse
I cannot believe people would rather eat a gummy, overly sweet shop cake that is probably full of trans fats. Yuck. It’s not even worth the calories.

It's not an either/or though.
Cake is not a great food to eat on a regular basis- even home made.

As PP's have said, I always freeze half of ours. Although with our house I freeze it to slow us down rather than because we get bored.

I've unfortunately realised that Millionaires Shortbread can be eaten straight from the freezer....

You should see the ingredients list on shop bought cake - full of weird preservatives, artificial colouring etc.Grim!
I bake once a week. Good butter and fresh eggs from our chickens and it lasts 2-3 days top. It probably costs the same as a shop cake but its far better.

When I make a cake, I sually slice and freeze.
Then if I have visitors (obviously not during covid), then I can get out just the slices I need.

@vintageyoda

Excess cake? 😆 that's funny

Yes, I don't understand the concept. Like left over wine. What on earth is that?

@Petitmum

I hate supermarket cake........homemade all the way!!

Freezing cake in slices means you don't get fed up of eating the same thing. I made 18 muffins yesterday, most are now in the freezer and will be eaten over the next 2 months.

Homemade bread is so much nicer too!

Seriously, you can make 18 muffins last two months? Kudos to your willpower.

I never really liked baking before, even though I loved cooking. Everything changed since I had a child with multiple food allergies. Now I bake very often, at least once a week. And I think I became quite good at baking gluten free/egg free/ dairy free, basically vegan gluten free cakes and sweets.

I find it relaxing and I can't find carrot or chocolate cake as good as mine in the shops!

agree with you OP. I used to bake and it would go uneaten or go mouldy in the humidity and be chucked out. Nowadays I’ll do a chocolate brownie that’s really fast and gets eaten or cookies that I freeze the dough of and get out a few at a time to cook when people feel like some. That works much better

Its cheaper, tastier, marginally healthier and the smell is fab. It does not take that long if you have a couple of tried and tested recipes (and a foodmixer!)

Everyone loves baking in our house, teen boys included but it's not just for us. Whatever they make, they do the rounds of both grandparents homes and aunts and Uncles so we never have loads hanging around for days. Especially since tier 4 and then more lockdown they've been making something weekly and dropping off.
My brother does the same with his kids and mum and mil do similar.

I hate baking and I don’t much like cake biscuits etc so it’s not something would occur to me. I’ve baked once in 3 years.

I only ever eat bread, cakes and biscuits if I've made them myself. They've got to be worth the carbs, and I know mine are. Too many disappointing experiences with the shop bought equivalent.

@Hardbackwriter

I actually do think chocolate cake is quite tricky to get right - they often come out dry - so if you're not a frequent baker you may have set yourself up for failure a bit there. Brownies are much more foolproof.

Have you tried using oil instead of butter ?

Kind of agree. Baking is very unforgiving, in the sense that ingredients have to be measured exactly, and a small mistake, like overkneading, can ruin the whole thing. I do make my own cheesecake, but since it's a 'no bake' version I guess it doesn't count! Shop bought for me!

Homemade cake is the best! I scale down all my cakes, it's really not that difficult to do. Reason being; it's less time consuming when making and we have something different every few days. Now if this thread was about baking bread I'd be right there with you, that is time consuming and it never tastes as good as the bakery

I quite like the process of baking, but I hate doing it with my DC. I'm a baking control freak!
Their Nan loves baking cakes with the DC but would never do it for fun/relaxation.
I get the horrors eating food other people (DC) have baked, so would rather do it myself or buy something pre made.
Their Nan loves receiving baked goods (even from the DC), but would rather buy pre made than bake herself even though she prefers baked goods.
That's just two people! People are all so different.

Unless you're going to a swanky patisserie where you pay an arm and a leg to buy a mouthful of deliciousness then home-baked cakes are much better and cheaper. Cakes in a nice tearoom also worth it. I've never had a supermarket cake that was much cop.

I can buy really nice bread - like sourdough that I CBA to make myself but I can also bake my own bread (made by hand, not machine) quite easily and it tastes nice, especially toasted with lashing of butter. You have to be in the mood to do a decent bake though.

@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

We have a lovely neighbour who makes us cakes, bread, bread puddings, all kinds of things! We can't always keep up with the supply, so we often cut them up and freeze in smaller portions, to take out when we feel like a treat. It's a better way to keep them, and you're not left with stale goods!

I’ve yet to bake something which lasts till the next day. Usually dh has to hide a piece so he can have it the next day.

Depends what you are baking I suppose. I don’t divide preparing food into “cooking” ie making savoury food and “baking” is making sweet food because there is much more to it than that really. I bake something into the oven every time it’s on for something else, pretty much. Sometimes it’s a cake but not usually. Make the most of it being on and put in things like brownies, muffins, cookies, rock cakes, flapjacks, shortbread, buns, as well as breads - loaves, boules, focaccia, pretzels, bagels, cinnamon rolls, pastries - cheese straws, quiche, frangipan tarts, tartlets, strudel, mini individual pies, sausage rolls, danish style pastries. Complete mix of sweet and savoury, but still baking. And yes, cakes, but in all different sizes - if you want small, 1lb loaf tins are good for small cakes in straight slices. I have 6 and 8 inch tins as well as 10 and 12 inch ones. Bundt tins or the ones with a hole in the middle cut down your cooking time and obvious yield less and you can stuff the middle with something nice.

If you want less, bake less. If you don’t want to bake, don’t.

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.

Ours cakes don’t last more than an hour and we are 2 greedy adults in the house

Your family sounds healthy!

I’m not a particularly good baker (although I enjoy the process), but DH often asks for home baked cakes, where he’d never buy or eat a supermarket cake. He doesn’t often have cake when we’re in a cafe either.