If you loooove baking...

[Anonymous]

How do you handle wanting to bake more things than your family can conceivably consume or that are reasonable to take into the office?

Baking is something I do to relax and I find it deeply satisfying. I'm very good at it and have reached a point where I can tweak recipes and experiment and it works out well. I collect baking recipes and am always thinking up a new idea of something to bake.

But my household is just my DH and DD and we can't eat all the bread, pastries, cakes, and cookies I want to bake. I give things to neighbors and I always volunteer to bake whenever we are invited to someone's house or there's a bake sale or any excuse really. It's still hard! I often find myself choosing not to bake even though it's something I really enjoy because I don't want to wind up with an excess.

Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do? My DH's tongue in cheek suggestion was that I become a professional but I don't think that's the answer . I got a book of savory baking recipes to try and branch out but they are still mostly snacks foods, not dinner, so it's not helping that much.

[Anonymous]

Maybe a regular donation to your kid's teacher's lounge (partner with someone who'll bring in those gallon coffee cartons? Or to a nursing home, women's shelter, something like that. You could make 3-4 complicated recipes, freezing through week and deliver the selections?
Would your friends like to have you host a workshop?
I know what you mean as I did go through phases of enjoying baking but it coincided with trying to lose weight!

[Anonymous]

You can give it away on your Buy Nothing group.

[Anonymous]

The struggle is real I think teacher's lounge is a good one. If you have a local Food not Bombs or other free food/mutual aid organization, I'm sure they would take your baking, and smaller non-profits could be an option. I work for a small youth org with an afterschool program, we would totally put out cookies or muffins for our high school students (orgs that receive federal funding tend to have stricter rules around this type of donation, but we do not).

[Anonymous]

Cake4kids

Also we give baked goods as gifts a lot.

[Anonymous]

If you are in Montgomery County, the Shepherd's Table in downtown Silver Spring accepts homemade desserts for the meals they serve to their clients.

https://www.shepherdstable.org/we-need-your-help-here-are-how-you-can-support-us/

[Anonymous]

Buy nothing. Take to local firestation. Take to work.

[Anonymous]

Baking is a difficult hobby to have for this precise reason. Donate to homeless groups or agencies/non profits/fire stations etc?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you for the suggestions for local charities -- I'm going to look into those and reach out to find out when/what they will take and see if I can arrange that regularly to scratch my baking itch.

I am afraid to do the teacher's lounge donations or do lots of baked goods as gifts because I have heard too many people talk about how much they hate being given these sorts of foods as a gift or having it around their workplace if they are trying to watch their intake of certain foods. I used to work in an office where my officemate would complain about this almost daily Halloween through New Years, and also anytime people brought a treat back from a vacation, because she really struggled with not indulging when it was sitting right there. So I try to be very careful to never give unsolicited baked goods. Our friends know I love to do it and will often request something when they host us and I've even had friends ask me if I would make their kid's birthday cakes if they buy the ingredients and I've done that a bunch of times. But I won't just give baked good to someone unsolicited because I worry they will either resent it or just throw them away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for the suggestions for local charities -- I'm going to look into those and reach out to find out when/what they will take and see if I can arrange that regularly to scratch my baking itch.

I am afraid to do the teacher's lounge donations or do lots of baked goods as gifts because I have heard too many people talk about how much they hate being given these sorts of foods as a gift or having it around their workplace if they are trying to watch their intake of certain foods. I used to work in an office where my officemate would complain about this almost daily Halloween through New Years, and also anytime people brought a treat back from a vacation, because she really struggled with not indulging when it was sitting right there. So I try to be very careful to never give unsolicited baked goods. Our friends know I love to do it and will often request something when they host us and I've even had friends ask me if I would make their kid's birthday cakes if they buy the ingredients and I've done that a bunch of times. But I won't just give baked good to someone unsolicited because I worry they will either resent it or just throw them away.

I think most teachers would be thrilled for high-quality homemade baked goods to show up in the lounge.

[Anonymous]

I do small batch baking. Split the recipe into halves (or smaller). I have a variety of small pie and cake tins to accommodate small batches.

[Anonymous]

In my area, Meals On Wheels accepts cookies.

[Anonymous]

I just finished baking big batches of cookies to take to a family shelter for migrants today. We are always happy to take baked goods as donations.

[Anonymous]

I usually drop my extras off at the fire/police station. I also have learned to half recipes or freeze stuff so it's easy to pull out and bake/heat up when people are over - especially friends of my kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do small batch baking. Split the recipe into halves (or smaller). I have a variety of small pie and cake tins to accommodate small batches.

+1 This was going to be my suggestion — if you want to be trying lots of new recipes, just make micro batches. Or really expand your bread/savoury repertoire. My family can easily go through a loaf of bread in a couple days.