With the rising cost of baking supplies and dwindling social media support, the city's home-based chefs are considering returning to the industry.
, was furloughed from his job as a legal assistant in March 2020. Full of “nervous energy,” he said, he started baking, drawing on his past work at a pie shop. While he was running a bakery out of his home, De Sena took orders via Instagram messages for a $25 weekly pastry box featuring things such as Chicago dog focaccia and cheesecake with homemade graham-cracker crust.A Basque cheesecake order made by microbaker Stephen De Sena.
And in an industry so small and tight-knit, one person’s financial difficulties can affect everyone; Bonnie Shultz, who ran the Instagram-based bakery, remarked, “It was a joke for a little while that were all just passing around the same $20.” Plus, Shultz shared that fridge with roommates. One of the biggest drawbacks of microbaking, she says, “was all the clanging around at 4 a.m.” She’d run a white noise machine and try to work as quietly as possible so as not to wake up her roommates — a skill not required in a commercial kitchen.She’d baked on the side before, making cannabis-laced edibles in college until her customers started asking for the same pastries THC-free.
But the financial realities were hard to grapple with. Selling mini-cakes that served two to four people in new flavors every weekend for $25 each, she now estimates she wasn’t breaking even. As Linsemeyer built the business and inflation sent the cost of ingredients skyrocketing, she upped her prices and made larger “celebration cakes” that fed eight to 24 people, and custom cakes that served six to 100.
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