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Microbakery Monthly Review: $3,245 From Just Two Bake Days | Episode 99

  • Sep 5, 2025
  • 7 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


Most of us run our bakeries one week at a time. We bake, we sell, we clean up, we open pre-orders again, and somewhere in there a whole month disappears without us ever asking whether any of it was working.


I close out every month with three questions: what worked, what didn't, and what am I changing because of it. It takes me about an hour, and it is the biggest difference I see between a bakery that grows on purpose and one that just keeps going through the motions.


August was my quietest month of the year on purpose. I baked for customers twice, skipped the porch pickup weeks I normally run, and spent the rest of the time with my kids and getting a commercial space ready. Here is the whole month, numbers included, and what I would do with the same information in your bakery.


What two bake days actually brought in

My gross revenue for August was $3,245, and all of it came from two Saturday markets. The first market brought in $1,604 and the second brought in $1,641, which is remarkably close for two days that felt very different to bake for.


At the second market my pre-orders came in around $600. The reason they were that high is worth stealing: my regular pre-order menu is just the staples, the original loaves, sandwich bread, focaccia and a dozen cookies. When I want to lift a pre-order total, I add one thing I already know sells hard. That month it was six-packs of jumbo coffee cake muffins at $20 each, and ten of those added roughly $200 to my pre-orders without changing my bake day at all.


I sold out of both markets somewhere between 11:30 and noon. Two bake days, a month of margin in my calendar, and revenue I was genuinely happy with!


The product changes that paid for themselves

Two menu decisions carried this month, and neither one required me to bake more.

  • Mini inclusion loaves. I used to sell my inclusion loaves as a 900 gram loaf for $12. Now I bake them at 450 grams and sell them two for $12 or one for $7, with four to six flavors on the table so people can mix and match. Customers love that they can grab a few, freeze some, and not worry about a big loaf going stale. Only one or two people have ever mentioned missing the larger size, and no one has complained.

  • Smaller brownies at a better price. I bake my brownies in an eight by eight pan and I was cutting them into four by four squares. When I calculated the cost of the ingredients against what I was charging, the margin was terrible. So I cut them into a two by four rectangle instead. I get more pieces out of the same pan, the price is close to what it was, and my margin finally makes sense. They are rich enough that nobody misses the extra square inch, and people ask for them every single time.

Look hard at that second one. I did not raise my prices or add a new product. I changed the yield of the pan and the size of the portion, and the same bake day started making more money.


Your capacity number is real, and pushing past it costs you

My sandwich bread sells beautifully in the summer, and every summer I try to bring more of it than I should.


I know my true capacity is 24 sandwich loaves. That is what fits in my mixer, that is how many loaf pans I own, and that is exactly 12 loaves in each of two cold proofing bins overnight. At 24 the process is smooth: shape the next morning, into the pans, an hour or two to get puffy, then bake.


In August I tried to push it to 36. I ended up with dough waiting around, pans shuffled in ways they don't like, and a refrigerator door that would not seal because a lid was sitting wrong on the door shelf. I lost the dough for about six loaves. At the second market I went back to 24 and baked the prettiest sandwich loaves I made all summer.


There is a time to test your limits and see what your setup can really do. There is also a point where the answer is clear, and the profitable choice is to stay at the number that works and sell out. Find your number for each product and write it down.


The efficiency change I am keeping

My English muffins sell out every time I bring them, and they were eating my life. I measure and roll each one by hand, then it was four minutes a side on an electric griddle plus eight more minutes in the oven. When I make ten or twenty dozen, that is three hours of standing in one spot.


So I tried baking them in rings instead. I preheat my sheet pan and the rings at 400 degrees, coat the proofed dough balls in semolina, scoop them into the hot rings with a small spatula, set the hot sheet pan on top, and bake for 16 to 18 minutes.


The edges come out squarer and slightly less fluffy than the griddle version, and in exchange I get most of an afternoon back. That is the kind of trade worth hunting for anywhere you have a product that sells well and holds you hostage.


Packaging is my biggest bottleneck

Here in Texas, cottage bakers have to label and seal everything at home before it goes to the market. Even when I pre-print my labels, and I am not always good about that, packaging is the part of the day that flattens me, because it lands at the end when I am already tired.


If packaging is your drudgery too, here is what I would do:

  • Print your labels earlier in the week, before bake day, when you still have energy.

  • Pay someone to help with the last push. My kids help me label sometimes and it genuinely moves the needle.

  • If hiring feels like too much, ask a friend over, put on something to watch, and knock out the last hour or two together.

This one eases for me only because I am moving into a commercial space, where I can display bread on a rack and bag it when someone buys it. That option is not open to you at home, so please go solve it the practical way.


What I got wrong in August

I ran out of time before my first market and never baked the pizza crust dough I had ready. Three or four customers asked for it, so I baked it that week and had them pick up from my porch. I lost the momentum of the market day, but I did not lose the sale.


I also dropped an entire pan of brownies on the floor, right side up, and my family ate very well that week! And I sliced my finger open scoring loaves because I was moving too fast.


None of that means you are bad at this. Losses and mishaps are a line item in a real business. What matters is that you troubleshoot the cause, the way I found the lid blocking my refrigerator door, so the same money does not walk out twice.


For the baker who is a year or two in

If you already have steady revenue, run this recap monthly and make it a document, not a feeling. Write down your gross revenue by sales channel, your top three to five sellers by unit, your true capacity for each product, and every dollar you lost to waste or a mistake.


Then pick one thing to change before the next month starts. In August mine were the brownie portion and the English muffin method. Small, boring, permanent improvements to margin and to my hours, and they compound faster than any new product launch.


One more growth note: when I announced my storefront, I handed out 48 individually wrapped cookies with a sticker and a QR code inviting people to join a text list for updates. That cost me almost nothing and put 48 local people on a list I own. If you are building toward something bigger, start collecting your people now.


Final thoughts

A slower month is allowed to be a good month. Two bake days, $3,245, a better brownie margin, a faster English muffin, and enough time to jump in the pool with my kids before fall got loud. That was August, and I would take it again.


Sit down with your own month and ask what worked, what didn't, and what you are changing. Then actually change the one thing. That habit is what turns a bakery into a business.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


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