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How to Run Your Microbakery with Kids at Home | Episode 37

  • Nov 14, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


A baker named sunshinebakes218 sent me a question that I think about constantly: how do you bake with your kids around? She tries to bake early in the morning, but there is no family help.


I do not have much family help either. My husband works 24 hour shifts, so he is often gone for a full day at a time. Every system in my bakery got built around that, out of pure necessity.


So here is my real answer, from the schedule mechanics through to the activities that buy me an uninterrupted hour. There is trial and error in all of it, and it does get easier as they get older.


Pick a rhythm and stop changing it

The first fix is simply picking one routine and repeating it.


Early mornings work well if you can get up before your kids do. Mix everything, then do your stretch and folds while they eat breakfast. If mornings are not doable in your house, flip it and mix your dough in the evening, shifting the whole schedule back.


What matters is that it is predictable. When you change your bake schedule every week your kids have no idea what to expect, and they get needier right when you need your hands free. A steady routine settles the whole house.


Bend the fermentation schedule to fit your day

Once you have your rhythm, adjust the dough to fit it, not the other way around.

  • Slow fermentation down with colder water or less starter when you need more room in the day.

  • Speed it up with warmer water or more starter when you want it finished before nap time.

  • Or move the timeline entirely. Mix, do your stretch and folds, then put the whole bin in the fridge for a cold bulk instead of shaping and fermenting in bannetons.

That last one is my favorite for a full family week. Mix early one morning, do your folds, cold ferment 24 hours. The next morning before the kids are up you pull the bin out, let it warm enough to handle, shape into bannetons, and it can cold ferment another day before you bake.


Two days of cold fermentation is fine and gives you a beautifully flavorful bread. Just watch that a big bin cools fast enough in the fridge, because dough in a large bin proofs faster than you expect.


This buys you flexibility, so you are not locked into one long day that has to go perfectly.


Make the schedule with your kids, not around them

My kids are six and eight. Over the summer I wanted to be mindful of my time with them while still getting real work done, so every morning we pulled out a piece of paper and wrote the day out together, hour by hour.


Eight to nine is breakfast and mommy cleans the kitchen. Nine to eleven, mommy is baking and we keep ourselves busy. Eleven to noon we go to the library. Three to four is another work block and they watch a movie. They helped choose what went in the open blocks: the pool, a board game, the occasional bit of screen time.


Knowing what was coming next changed everything. They could check the paper instead of checking with me.


Do not assume your kids are too young for this. If yours are two or three or four, draw it instead of writing it, a little picture next to each hour for breakfast, playtime, lunch, coloring. We did that in 2020 when my kids were tiny and they understood it fine. Kids rise to what you expect of them, and they love routine more than we give them credit for.


Let them earn their place in the business

Older kids can genuinely help. My six year old daughter is excellent at putting on labels. I print them, do a couple as an example, and she takes it from there. She earns money doing it, which fits what we are teaching our kids about saving for their own goals.


They do not touch the actual hands-on baking. Hands washed and hair up any time they are in the baking space, no exceptions.


What they get out of it is bigger than the labels. My kids tell their friends at school that if they are eating some other sourdough, they are eating the wrong sourdough, because they should be eating Bluebird Bread Co!


Include them at a level that actually fits their ability and they turn into help rather than hindrance.


Use the downtime for the small stuff

Nap time or quiet time is short, so give it a job. That window is where you preshape and shape and get dough into the fridge, pre-measure ingredients for tomorrow morning, or scoop cookies. Small, finishable tasks.


Breaking your work into smaller pieces across the week is what keeps a bake from turning into one enormous day that has to go right.


If you are running real volume with kids at home

At a certain point the number to look at is your order volume.


Do not be afraid to work while the kids are up and active. It is genuinely hard with a little one hanging on your leg, and that is a season. Wear the baby in a sling, or take fewer orders for a stretch so you are not running yourself into the ground. Fewer orders at a price that pays you properly beats more orders at 1am.


Then sort your tasks by how much quiet they need. Mixing and shaping need your hands and your attention. Labeling, packaging, measuring dry ingredients and prepping your week can all happen in the chaos, so move those to the noisy hours and save the quiet ones for the work that needs them.


Activities that buy you an hour

Here are the ones that reliably work in our house.

  • Cardboard box forts. Save your boxes. My kids supplement with blankets and chairs until it takes over the living room, and I love it! We use a Make Do kit, with plastic screws and safe serrated blades that cut cardboard, so at six and eight they can cut their own windows and connect panels. They decorate the walls, build a little library corner, and it doubles as a cozy movie spot.

  • Homemade play dough. Flour, water, cream of tartar and salt, cooked up. Add food coloring. This is the one if your kids want to play with your dough. Give them rolling pins and cookie cutters and their own dough, near you but separate from your work.

  • A craft box saved for bake days only. Stickers, coloring books, washi tape. Washi tape is the winner here because it goes on bookshelves and walls and comes off with no residue. I buy reams of paper and markers without guilt, because it is cheaper than babysitting.

  • A toy kitchen for the little ones. They get to do exactly what you are doing in their own space. Facebook Marketplace usually has them, and it makes a good Christmas gift if you are planning ahead.

  • Audiobooks and story podcasts. They cozy up in the fort with a couple of chapters. I search for wholesome audiobook options for kids or wholesome historic podcasts, then vet it before I press play.

  • A sensory bin for toddlers. Fill one of your dough bins with dry beans and larger pasta shapes, add scoops, funnels, spoons and cups, and let them dig.

If independent play is new to your kids, it is a learning curve. Their attention span stretches with practice, and they will grow to love that parallel play time next to you. Blanket forts across the living room and a train track through the house are fine by me, as long as they are creating and I am not needed every four minutes.


Final thoughts

This is the part I feel most strongly about. When our kids watch us show up diligently, consistently, and with pride in work that serves our community and feeds our families, we are modeling something beautiful.


I struggled for a long time with trusting my own ability to do big, hard things like run a business. Doing those things anyway, in front of my daughter who has every CEO trait I can see, matters more to me than a tidy bake day ever will.


Build the rhythms that serve your family. Adjust the schedule where it makes sense. Cherish this season, because it really does get easier.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If this one landed, here are three more on building a bakery around a real family life.


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