Professional Baker Career Guide: What It Is Really Like Running a Home Bakery

Transcription

(Music)

Dan: Cookies inside of cookies, two kitchens in a house. Today, we're revisiting being a professional baker. Is this the right career for you? Let's find out. Today, on Time We Discuss, I wanna welcome Brandy Smith LeCours from the Enchanted Flour Bake Shop. And it's time we discuss what it's like working as a baker. Brandy, thank you for joining me today.

Brandy Smith LeCours: Hi, thank you for having me.

Dan: I've said this before on other episodes. I have a awful sweet tooth. It is a blessing and a curse. Even if I don't like something and I see it, I'm hungry and it's sweet, I will eat it. So having a conversation about cakes and cookies and everything, right up my alley, super excited. But let's start with you. Let's start a typical day for you as a baker running your own business. What's it like?

Brandy: Basically, I start the morning super early, about 6:30, 7 o'clock, head downstairs because my kitchen is in my basement, and then I just start going. I really have no plan, except I know that one day I like to bake tons of cookies. So from like 6:30, 7 o'clock in the morning, every single kind of cookie you can think of, dozens and dozens of them. And then the next day I'll go into baking cakes and cupcakes and making marshmallows. And so it really just depends on what part of the week I'm in on what's gonna be just coming out of the kitchen.

Dan: It makes so much sense, but I never would have thought about this. It sounds like you said that if you have cookies, you'll do like cookies in one day. You'll kind of group like things together.

Brandy: Yes, all day, because it just makes it flow easier when you know that you're using the same type of ingredients.

Dan: That makes so much sense. And again, I never even would have occurred to me. That's awesome. Okay, so let's talk about, what's one thing that you've learned from doing this? Maybe a big mistake you've made in the past that you've rectified, something that you tried once will no longer do again. Give me something like that, some kind of lesson learned.

Brandy: Lesson learned is going into doing this, thinking that you already know everything. You run into the business thinking, "Well, I can bake a cookie, so everything else has to just come just as easy." It doesn't. So along the way, everything is just such a big learning process. Even like 10, 12 years into it, you still learn, okay, well, making money, how do I make money? How do I market my goodies? How do I find the right clients? It's just basically such a learning experience through the entire time.

Dan: So one thing you mentioned, you talked about, and I'm gonna call it like research and development, because that's where my mind goes, that's where I come from. So when it comes to R&D, how do you learn new things? Do you watch a lot of baking shows? Do you read? Do you do podcasts? How do you stay creative and grow?

Brandy: My biggest creative outlet is walking down the candy aisle in the cookie aisle in the grocery store. You basically go down there and see, well, what are they selling this week? What is popular? What type of cookies do they have? What can I add to what I'm already making to make people want to buy it? I'll give an example. Oreo. Oreo always has all of these different flavor combinations that they're coming out with constantly. Oreo is a big part of my creative outlet. I would say, they're like, this week we're doing lemon. And I'm like, oh, lemon's good. All right, let's see how I can add lemon into what I'm making.

Dan: It's funny, it reminds me of my mother. My mother's a fantastic baker. Not professional, but I mean, she is just wonderful. And you talk about these different flavors, it makes me think of the different icings that she comes up with. She's done lemon and cappuccino and peanut butter.

Brandy: Yes.

Dan: So what's one of those flavors that maybe someone requested that you were like, oh, okay, I could try to do that.

Brandy: What's really big right now is like an ube. So purple, it's a purple sweet potato. I actually just this week made Oreo ube cookies and they were a huge hit. Like people just loved it.

Dan: I've never even heard of it. So, okay, how did you find out that that was so trendy right now? It's probably obvious, but how did you find that out? And I'm surprised people even know, because, like that, I've never heard of that.

Brandy: One of my customers, she was like, have you ever heard of a purple sweet potato? And I'm like, let me look it up. And then once you punch that into the search engine, it's everywhere.

Dan: I can't remember if you mentioned, so I'm gonna change gears slightly. I can't remember if you mentioned this before we started recording or after, but we talked about the idea of you having your own home business as a bakery inside of your home. Talk to me about some of the challenges of that, maybe getting it started, getting the proper licensure certifications. Talk to me about starting the actual business side of things.

Brandy: Oh my gosh. So we actually started thinking about it here in Pennsylvania in 2020. So it was right when, you know, everything in the entire world shut down. And I was like, you know what? Let's see about putting a kitchen in our basement and see what we would have to go through in order to have the township allow me to do that. I basically started with the Department of Agriculture, contacted them, they sent me an entire paperwork of what was allowed, what wasn't allowed, and then what path you have to take in order to get it approved through your township and through them. So, I mean, that's basically where I started was the Department of Agriculture. And they have such a good packet of information. And, you know, once I did that, I went online and was like, are other people doing this? You know, what's happening? And you can find so many different Facebooks, Reddit posts, you know, everywhere you look has information regarding, you know, where you are, what township you're in, you know, what city you're even in. And then it'll tell you, well, how many people in that area is doing it also.

Dan: Okay, so that's cool. So you can actually kind of see what your competitors are like almost.

Brandy: Yeah, yeah, because you basically want to make sure that you are offering something that somebody else doesn't offer. You know, competition is fantastic, you know, and I would like to say that everyone, there's room for everybody. But, you know, some people, they do what they do the best, and you don't want to go, well, maybe I can do that too, when you can offer something completely different that people still want.

Dan: Like sweet potato cookies.

Brandy: Like sweet potato cookies, exactly.

Dan: So you said you had, it sounds like you have a kitchen in the basement.

Brandy: Yes.

Dan: So you have an oven that's part of your main household upstairs, and I guess one downstairs as well?

Brandy: Yes, yes, we have an entire like residential setup for the kitchen. I have, behind me I have my sink, my oven, my refrigerator, I have an extra freezer, and then we have everything in the pantries. So, you know, we have the big containers of flour and sugar and, you know, icing. Frosting and everything. I mean, you just basically have it, I'd say like a mini commercial kitchen, but as a residential kitchen.

Dan: That is so cool. Okay, so Brandy, talk to me about the why. Okay, there's so many things that people can do professionally. Why did you go down the road of being a professional baker, having your own baking company in 2020? Why baking?

Brandy: Well, I enjoy baking. I enjoy baking everything, you know? I enjoy seeing people enjoy what I'm making. I like to see their reactions, especially when I'm putting together like very creative cakes, you know? And they're like, this is just wonderful. How did you come up with this? The design is just perfect. It's exactly what I was looking for. That's basically it, is you're allowed to be creative and do what you want to do and what you like to do. And make money doing this, you know, doing it at the same time.

Dan: Let's talk about required skills to do something like this. Did you go to any kind of culinary school? I see you have ink, you're obviously very talented. Were you an art major? Talk to me about the education that's required to do something like this.

Brandy: Actually, I have no formal training unless you want to like consider a Wilton cake class, you know, something like that. But the great thing about everything being on the internet now is you can physically go to YouTube and find people showing you how to do things like this. Like there are actually websites of cake decorators that have their own, you know, program where you can learn how to do what they do. And I think that's like the most fantastic thing is if it's something you enjoy, you can find it anywhere. You know, and I'm not saying anything against, you know, people who have formal training because there's absolutely a need for that also, especially if you're doing, you know, very specific pastries and, you know, things like that. ... bread making. But when you want to put frosting on a cake, it's, you know, you have so many outlets right now that you can just find people that will show you how to do it.

Dan: That's so cool, and I absolutely love that too, because in this day and age, when people, they really crave that job satisfaction and it's so, it can be so challenging to switch careers midlife because you might've gone to school for something that is very specialized. And to exit that industry could be a huge challenge. So I love hearing things like this. If you have the passion, there's no large barrier to entry, just as long as you have the passion, you can do it. I love it.

Brandy: Yes, absolutely.

Dan: You talked about starting in 2020, right around COVID.

Brandy: Yes.

Dan: So this leads me to this question, and I don't think you mentioned this. Do you ship anything? And I'm thinking specifically cookies, because I think cakes would probably be kind of difficult to ship, but do you ship anything or is it all just done locally?

Brandy: Everything is done locally right now. I do, like when you sign up for your limited food establishment in the Department of Agriculture, you have a box on there that says, "Yes, I want to do shipping." So you can actually do that and then arrange to have it done, but we haven't looked into it. So everything is basically within the local area.

Dan: Okay, and I'm assuming that's something you change your mind on pretty easily, I assume?

Brandy: Yeah.

Dan: That's good. Okay, so let's hang on that for a second. I wanna go back to when you first started this. Time frame, from a paperwork standpoint, was it a very long process? It was with a couple weeks, a couple months from filing the paperwork to being approved. How did that all work?

Brandy: It was very quick for me. So when you look it up and you join the Facebook pages, they're like, "Oh, it took 12 weeks for me." It felt like I sent in my paperwork and the inspector called me like a week later and was like, "Let's schedule the come out "and make sure everything is okay." So I'm saying probably within like three to six weeks, they were running at that time, but I don't know if it was just because it was COVID and there weren't a bunch of applications waiting.

Dan: Let's talk about some of the cakes you made. I'll throw them up on the screen for people to see. So there was a snake cake that you made, which I thought looked really cool. You had some Sonic the Hedgehog cake pops.

Brandy: Yes.

Dan: You also had a car or a truck with a Christmas tree on it. Very artistic. So do you have an innate artistic side of you or is it you just practice a lot? How do you turn those out?

Brandy: That's actually my favorite thing is being able to have somebody come and go, "This is what I was thinking. "Do you think you can make it happen?" Most of the time, I'm gonna say yes. I do like to paint outside of baking. I like to draw, I like to do everything along the same lines, which makes it easier when you're bringing it into cake decorating. Because everything that you learn doing, drawing and painting and sculpting and things like that, you can basically do the same thing out of cake.

Dan: Brandy, one thing that you alluded to this before, but I'd like to put a number on this. You talked about how many hours you're putting in. If you were to put a number on it, just thinking quickly, do you think you're putting in 40 hours a week, 60 hours a week? What are your weeks looking like from a time commitment perspective?

Brandy: I'm going to have to say that I definitely work more than a 40 hour week. I do farmer's markets twice a week. So on top of doing custom cakes and custom orders and catering and things like that, I also have events that I do. So some weeks are, it feels like 120 hours, (Laughs) and some weeks is maybe 60.

Dan: I'm glad you mention farmer's markets. This made me think of this. So when I was growing up, my mother had a ceramic studio. And for a brief period in time, she tried to do flea markets with the things she created. And she learned very quickly that was not for her because you got a lot of people haggling, trying to get the absolute lowest price, and it just wasn't worth it for her. So when it comes to farmer's markets, is there anything, I'm assuming probably not if you're continuing to do it, but do you encounter any of that where people are more haggling or talk to me about that experience broadly.

Brandy: When I first started doing farmer's markets here in Pennsylvania, I did have a few, not often, but you would have a couple people come up and go, well, why would I pay this amount of money for this cookie? Why are you selling it for this price? And then I'd be like, well, just try it and find out. I would have very many return customers after they've tried what they were, I don't wanna say complaining about but what they were questioning. And then come back the next day and be like, it was totally worth the money.

Dan: When it comes to return customers, where do you think you get the most bang for your buck? Is it from people that get introduced through farmer's markets? Is it through maybe people seeing one of your cakes at a wedding or something like that? Where do you seem to get most of your referrals coming in?

Brandy: Most of my referrals are farmer's market. Yeah, they come in and they'll grab the treats. And then most of the time it's even later on that day, they'll be like, it was fantastic. You get the messages which just make you feel great. The cookies were fantastic. Can I put in an order for a goodie box? Or do you do cakes? Or what else can I buy for you?

Dan: That is awesome, I absolutely love it. Okay, now I know the answer probably when it comes to your family, when I'm gonna ask this question, but for you specifically, what is one of the hidden perks that comes alongside with you having your own bakery?

Brandy: With having my own bakery, I've actually met a lot of people of like mind. So it's fantastic to be able to talk cakes, cookies, what are they selling? What are they like to sell? What are you doing? What could we collaborate with? Do you have something you can offer to sell maybe our farm stand or to sell in our bakery or things like that? It's just being able to find people that have the same passion as you.

Dan: So sticking with that, do you have the opportunity to take the things that you bake and kind of sell wholesale to another bakery to actually sell or opportunities like that? Talk to me about that.

Brandy: Yes, actually, we get that often where I'll have people contact me and say, "Hey, can we sell your cookies in our shop? Can we do your marshmallows? Can we do your cake pops?" I've actually had a couple of people, I'm currently working right now, possibly doing a farmer's stand. So a wholesale farmer's stand right now where they want to be able to sell my products to their usual customers.

Dan: When they do that, is it more of a white label where they put their own label on top of it or no, you're getting the promotion as well when that happens?

Brandy: Yeah, no, it's my product, so it's more like a consignment. So basically, you are bringing your products, they get a percentage, I get a percentage, everybody wins, including the people who are getting the stuff.

Dan: What makes this the absolute best job?

Brandy: Me being able to make every single decision along the way. So if I put pressure on me, it's me putting pressure on me to get something done. Or if I decide to take it a little easier, it's still me, in the long run, this is my own business and I'm in charge of everything.

Dan: So hang on the business for a second, because I'm assuming you probably also didn't go to school for business based on what you said before, but I could be wrong. When it comes to the business side of things, how did you fill in all those knowledge gaps? Was it trial and error? Was it you just read a lot, you listened to a lot, you saw a lot, how did you fill in those gaps?

Brandy: I actually used to run human resources for a company before this. So having a human resources background definitely helped me to be able to figure out a business plan, be able to know how to do all of the paperwork, figure out the accounting part of it. But they also offer, so I use a very specific bakery based software. So the software, you basically can put anything in it you want, recipes, everything, and it'll come up with this is how much it costs for you to do it. This is how much you should sell it for. So that's another big part of it, is when you have the software that helps you figure out everything along the way and a nice accountant.

Dan: Other side of the coin, what makes this the absolute worst job?

Brandy: The hours. (Laughs) Some days the hours just seem extra long. Especially when you have your family going out and going, oh, do you wanna come out and do this? Well, I can't because I've booked six wedding cakes this week, so I have to go ahead and do those first. Sometimes you really miss out on just what's outside the kitchen.

Dan: That's really good to know because a lot of times people don't take into consideration those other trade-offs they have to factor in. Okay, perfect, okay. When it comes to being a baker, percentage wise, how much time do you think you allocate towards actual baking? Versus paperwork, versus promoting, versus going to farmer's markets. I'm sure some you can multitask while things are in the oven. Maybe you can do other things, like make more cookies, for instance. But talk to me about how all that breaks out percentage wise, if you can.

Brandy: I would say 50% of my time is spent baking. The other half is where I allow for packaging, you know, boxing things up, driving back and forth to farmer's markets, setting up your whole event space while you're there, decorating cakes, but the biggest percentage is the actual baking part of it.

Dan: That's really good, because a lot of times I talk to people and they might say, where it's like, oh, well, 2/3 my time, I'm doing paperwork, and the other third, I'm actually doing whatever it is. So it's good to know that you're actually spending a healthy chunk, and I say, yeah, I was like, a healthy chunk.

Brandy: Yeah, absolutely.

Dan: So let's talk about maybe some of the niches that maybe you've encountered. Do you focus on anything specifically? Maybe gluten-free recipes, or maybe just a lot of weddings? Where do you tend to put a lot of your focus that differentiates you between other bakers?

Brandy: I do stuffed cookies. So yeah, a majority of my cookies have a filling inside of them. You don't find that here. Here you'll find the extra large cookies, so my cookies are pretty good size, four or five ounce cookies, but they always have that surprise filling in the inside of them.

Dan: They sound amazing. (Laughs)

Brandy: Yeah. (Laughs)

Dan: Brandy, this has been a very tasty conversation, but unfortunately I am running out of time. Before I hand the floor over to you, I want to take a second and thank Tara Thistlethwaite for introducing us. Tara was in episode 140 as an event planner. Everyone, please go check out that episode. Link is in the description. Now, Brandy, this is the part of the show where I'd like to offer my guests the opportunity to talk about a project they're working on, cause they believe it, more about their business. So if there's something specific you'd like to discuss, the floor is yours.

Brandy: Oh my gosh, absolutely. If you're in Chester County, you need to make yourself aware of all of the farmer's markets that are available here. Local produce, you know, cookies, marshmallows, anything that you want, you can find at the local farmer's markets. Growing Roots is a huge one that we do. They're in Eagleview, Downingtown, and Malvern. So Thursdays, they're in Eagleview. And then Saturdays, Malvern and Kerr Park in Downingtown. And then I also do West Chester Growers Market on Saturdays.

Dan: We've actually gone to both the, the Kerr Park one and the one in West Chester. We've done both of those on occasion. So I'll have to make sure we look for you the next time we are and about.

Brandy: They're fantastic. (Laughs) If I do say so myself.

Dan: Yeah, they are lovely. The vendors there are awesome. It's a great experience for everyone.

Brandy: It's a wonderful way to spend a, you know, a morning.

Dan: Brandy, that's absolutely awesome. I'll make sure I get all those links from you. I'll put them in the show notes. They'll be in the description. They'll be all over the place. So when people are trying to find information about you and these farmer markets, they can easily do that.

Brandy: Perfect.

Dan: Brandy, it's been awesome having you on Time We Discuss, and we learned all about what it's like being a baker.

Brandy: Thank you for having me.

Dan: So let's take a second and hit some of the highlights that we had with our conversation with Brandy. First, let's talk about starting the business. Seems pretty straightforward. You just have to start with the Department of Agriculture, fill out some forms. Within a few weeks, you should be up and running from a home bakery perspective. They'll come in, they'll do an inspection. Whether you have your own kitchen or it's your regular kitchen, that's fine. Remember when we spoke with Kathy a few weeks ago, she just had her regular kitchen that was certified. So you can have a second kitchen or you can have just your one kitchen and that'll be sufficient as well. So it seems pretty straightforward, pretty easy to get up and running. On the downside, Brandy is putting in a lot of hours. She was saying that she regularly puts in more than 40 hours a week and it feels like it could be as many as 120. So it could feel like a lot of work. Also bear in mind that if you are putting this much time, you might be missing out on other life events. You might be missing out on birthday parties, graduation parties, things like that. You might be missing out on your children's sports activities or concerts. So there definitely is a bit of a trade off when it comes to work life balance that you need to be prepared for. Like so many other professionals that I spoke with, I love that there aren't really any major barriers to entry in this. If you wanna start out young doing this, awesome. If you wanna transition mid-career, that's cool too. And later in your career, that's also a possibility. You don't need any special certifications. You don't need any special education. You can just learn on YouTube. You can learn through books, through podcasts. There are plenty of opportunities to actually learn and it seems like the most important thing is actually just doing it. The other really cool thing is that Brandy shared with us where she gets a lot of her clients from. A lot of those referrals come from farmer's markets. So that's good too. If that is kind of your scene, if you wanna be involved with that, that's good to know. If you're not a farmer's market kind of person, you don't wanna be up early in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday or a Thursday, whatever they are, that might not be for you. So that is really, really good information to know. Now, when it comes to income that you can expect, I did some research on this and I mentioned this during the episode of "The Home Baker with Kathy" a few weeks ago. And when it comes to what I discovered, it's that you're probably most likely, especially starting out, you're doing this as a side hustle. And if that's your thing, you can probably expect to make about $17,000 a year on average. Now, if you're doing this serious as a part-time person, you can expect to command more around $24,000 a year and full-time the jumps to closer to 50. Now, this is gonna vary wildly on a number of factors. It could include different niches that you're specializing in. Maybe you're a gluten-free bakery. Maybe one of the things that you offer are stuffed cookies, for instance. Okay, those different differentiators are really what are going to propel you to the top of your game. So that's gonna be important. You also wanna try to capitalize on those repeat customers. Like Brandy said, when she is at the farmer's markets, if someone is unsure about buying it, she'll have them have a taste. And then they come back and they often will buy and they often will put an order in for more. So capitalizing on those repeat customers is key. Staying ahead of the trends is key. Finding out what is going on right now what people are looking for right now, like those sweet potato cookies, for instance. Okay, that is key. So staying on top of that, and that will help guarantee your success. And I can't remember if I mentioned this before in the previous episode or not, but when it comes to pricing, underpricing is very common in a bad way. So make sure when you're pricing your baked goods, you're actually pricing competitively, but also at a good rate that's going to give you a good salary. Make sure you're not underpricing yourself and putting yourself out of business. When it comes to creating a fair price, I've spoken to a number of professionals that talk about how you can do this. Most recently, I spoke with Jayme Gittings, who was the grant writer. Go check out that episode. I also spoke with Misty Lynch, who was a financial advisor, and she offers some really, really great advice on making sure you're not undercutting yourself. So check out those two videos. I'll put links in the description so that you can check those out, your convenience. They both offer real good information on setting a fair price that gets you paid what you're worth. So what do you think? Some good things, some bad things. Is this the best job for you? Let's keep exploring, and I'll see you next time on Time We Discuss.