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?

I got in to baking when my children were small. If we're going to have to make a bit of a mess with the aim of creating something, I figured the outcome would either be :-
edible - great ! No having to stick it up and admire it on the wall or notice board for weeks on end. Usually all eaten within a week or used to delight grandparents with an accompanying cup of tea.
or
inedible and used to delight the dog with an unexpected treat (Labs eat first and think later about the wisdom of wolfing it down).

Baking with kids, providing you can stand the mess, is great for developing co-ordination, maths practice, and reading practice.

I bake stuff as a bit of a stress reliever.

So true. The people who say "Ooh I couldn't possibly eat that" or "That's so many calories" are usually people on diets and are therefore likely overweight. And of course diets very rarely work long-term. Most people I know who are slim or a healthy weight are people who cook, eat normally and don't fuss about having some homemade cake.

I agree. I've lost nearly 3.5 stone over the last year while continuing to enjoy my daughter's homemade baking. I could never stick to a new healthy way of eating without the odd treat, it just wouldn't be sustainable.

So much pearl clutching over the calories and the carbs on this thread, but I'm willing to bet a lot of money that people who regularly bake are actually much less likely to be overweight than the general population, as cooking from scratch is a really good marker for general health consciousness. The British population isn't so unhealthy because they knock up too many sponge cakes at the weekend

well, that's true, baking is often far more expensive if you cost out the ingredients and you can buy cheap as chips white sugary cakes for 80p in Spar or wherever, so poorer people probably won't pay out for home-baked bread or cakes as they are extremely cheap. However, I think there's lots of quite overweight middle-class people in denial about just how healthy eating large quantities of scones, cakes, muffins, brownies are, and are wondering why they are still overweight. Cooking from scratch isnt' healthy full stop, it depends what you cook from scratch and how often you eat high calorie sugary food. Same with bringing in cakes to work- one every couple of weeks, great, two or three a week like some of my colleagues, and you do end up having to avoid them if you are middle-aged and not just burning them off.

I meant store bought bread and cakes can be extremely cheap, under a £1 for both whereas making them from scratch would always cost more- butter alone cost loads.

@Pinkfreesias

I never knew you could freeze cake! Presumably before you ice/frost it?

I much prefer a home baked cake. Made with love, as they say!

You can freeze them before and/or after. I always frost my cakes straight out of the freezer. They crumb less if they're frozen when you frost them.

You can also freeze a whole frosted cake or cut it into servings and freeze the slices individually.

I make cakes for a living. I cant stand baking when it isn't for work. Im at the point where I can't eat home baked goods because I'm so sick of it, my kids are the same. And people always expect me to have cakey snacks on hand when they come to my house...I have baking portions down to a fine art and will not make extra. You want cake, you pay for it. I will binge on tesco cream cakes until I cant move though 😂

I bake because there’s less crappy processed stuff in it and I can leave out an ounce or two of sugar to make whatever I bake slightly less sweet. I also try to reduce how much plastic I use, so prefer to make my own than buy packaged products.

For me the advantages of baking are:

You know what's in it - no mile long lists of ingredients.

You can have exactly what you want

For gluten free baking, the end product is far, far better than what you find in shops

It's relaxing and creative and makes me feel I've done something worthwhile

And once you have a decent store cupboard, it's not actually that much more expensive than shop bought baked goods and it's so much tastier.

YANBU shop bought cakes are not as good as home made and it shouldn't take long to make a decent cake and as others have said you can freeze cake, although I've never had a problem finishing a whole cake before it goes stale.

Sorry meant to say YABU

I've always like baking and started as a kid watching my Mum who was a great baker and great cook in general. I baked with my children too and now my daughters are really good at it. My son doesn't bake but loves to eat it all as fast as possible.

It tastes better. Without exception.

I enjoy baking and nothing I make hangs around for long. We never buy cake, always make our own. A good fruit cake can last for ages - and a sponge will be eaten in a day or two. Nope, really not seeing the problem. (We are slim BTW).

"I meant store bought bread and cakes can be extremely cheap, under a £1 for both whereas making them from scratch would always cost more- butter alone cost loads."

Home baked bread is far cheaper than any shop bought and far better. I have been baking bread for around twenty years. 2 x 1.5Kg bags of flour = £2. That is 20 large baguettes for less than £3 - I added in the salt and yeast.

Home baking WAYnicer than bought!

I bake because I can't eat any of the baked items from the shops due to multiple serious food intolerances. I don't bake often as I can't afford it & am trying to lose weight. If I was naturally thin (& rich) I'd bake all the time, & I'd live on organic fruit cake, homegrown salad & homemade organic sourdough bread with fish.

You can’t beat something fresh baked though. My DDs can whip up a small batch of scones which are lush and gone as soon as they’re cool enough to scoff

My job is baking but it gets tedious! I agree that when you bake at home you feel obliged to eat it all, I usually end up giving stuff to the neighbours so we don't need to eat it all. However I would take home baking over shop bought any day!

For me, it is very therapeutic. I have had some health struggles the past year and feel quite weak and unfit. Baking and cooking gets me moving, and is putting me back in touch with things I liked to do before career took over.

I am lucky to have teen grandchildren who eat up the proceeds.

I have muffins with applesauce, banana, raisins, and walnuts in the oven right now. They smell amazing as I put some mixed spice in them

YABU and/or a bad baker!
Home made are always better and shop bought are rubbish tbh.
If we had proper bakeries like in France then maybe you'd have a bit of a point. I suppose you can buy cakes from good coffee shops where it's home made and tastes great but then it's more expensive than home made at home.
How it is expensive anyway? Sugar, eggs, flour, butter are all staples and cheap. We use all of them for other purposes. After that you can have baking chocolate - cheap enough. Vanilla extract - expensive but lasts a while. Nuts/fruits/whatever you want in it - cheap again. Almond powder/coconut - pretty cheap. Lemon - cheap. All quite easy to access.
I love baking, chocolate cakes, upside down cakes, just simple cakes with flour/eggs/butter/sugar in equal portions, fruit or chocolate tarts, brownies, banana cakes... all yummy and easy:) and great to do with kids!

I like baking sometimes, but I am sure when I was little there was less fuss made about it. Shop bought is fine for people who don't want to and it definitely is not obligatory. I love a supermarket birthday cake for cutting down the stress.

I love baking and shop bought cakes have a fraction of the flavour of those I can make. I also find it relaxing. I don’t make a often as I’d like to but if I make a big cake I often freeze half. I make fairy cakes weekly for my kids packed lunches and am so excited because I’m making DD1’s birthday cake next week 😁😁

YABU Shop bought cake is average at best.

Any choux pastry, profiteroles and eclairs etc are so much better homemade, they are crisp and tasty, shop bought are soggy and bland.

Chocolate cake needs to be liquid going into the cake tin, they have a tendency to be dry. You just haven't found the right recipe yet. Always use full fat milk, (proper) butter and cream.

I love baking but don't do it much as we will eat it all. Some of my favs are Danish pastries, chocolate dipped meringues, pavlova, vanilla sponge, profiteroles and scones are great, 10 minutes from start to putting them in the oven.

I am usually modest, but I am a great baker, but I cannot make steamed sponge puddings, they come out like sloppy sweet vomit. Any one got any tips?

I have an excellent baker DD. This week we have had fruit pavlovas and white chocolate profiteroles

When you have chickens it's a necessity,

Maybe Theo Randall keeps chickens. This lemon tart is one of my absolute favourite things https://www.theorandall.com/en/amalfi-lemon-tart/

Two yokes in the pastry, six whole eggs and nine yokes in the filling. Oh, and some lemon. I suppose you could add meringue topping, or make a separate pavlova. Sigh.

My mouth is literally watering as I think about it now.