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Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
I've worked in two different donut places and did some schooling on food costs and such, and OP, you have absolutely not thought this through and you're setting yourself up for failure. At the very least, get a job somewhere making food on a large scale. You might be able to get a job at a grocery store bakery that makes donuts, for example. You need to know the work and what's required, like the equipment and the process

Are you going to make yeast-raised donuts? You don't fill cake donuts, you know, Boston cream and such are made with yeast dough. Gonna need a proofer. Large racks to hold the screens of the donuts. The screens for the fryer, a hopper for the fryer, a glazing table. It's filthy work, you get grease everywhere and glaze stuck to your clothes. You have to work overnight to be ready in the morning, are you ready to work the overnight shift?

$75K is not enough to start even a small donut shop. Two or three pieces of equipment break, and that money could be eaten up by replacements/repairs, plus restaurant equipment is expensive, even second-hand stuff. You're not going to be able to get everything on sale, either. Have you at least perused a couple equipment websites to get an idea of what you need and what it'll cost? What size mixer are you going to use? You can't use a tabletop stand mixer, you're making 15 lbs of mix, minimum, before adding water

Do you love baking? Can you bake the same thing, night after night, seven days a week? This is one of the most important things you need to consider. I love baking, and working overnight was fine for me because I've got a circadian rhythm disorder. Making donuts is a mind-numbing job, despite switching off donut-duty once or twice a week and working with other people

For the love of God, take some classes on restaurant math and costs, you can probably enroll through community college, and get a job making donuts before you open a business making donuts

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Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

pentyne posted:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2005/12/my-coffeehouse-nightmare.html

All of this presumes simply paying the normal minimum wage, not whatever weird social program you are envisioning.

And before you wave this away with, well they got too fancy, OP: you're going to be in the same exact boat with a simpler product

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Pretty much everyone uses donut mix, including the fancy shmancy places. Same with fancy cakes, you're getting cake made with mix bought in fifty-pound bags. That's one thing I don't find fault with, to be honest

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

pentyne posted:

It usually comes down to a lot of really specific baking, precise weights and all, and someone on the back end to do all the fancy pastry decorating.

Hence why so many places, including fancy ones, use mix: all the precise mixing of ingredients is done ahead of time. All you need to add is wet ingredients and sometimes yeast. Someone using mixes doesn't make me bat an eye, they taste good, everyone does it, and it's incredibly impractical to make donuts entirely from scratch in bulk

It was the same at the fancy bakeries and restaurants I worked at, most of the cakes were made with mixes. The only ones that weren't, were specialty ones that were vegan or gluten-free or whatever, or at one place, a caramel cake that was the pastry chef's signature dessert and cost like $15 a slice

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Are you at least a hobby baker?
Do you have any experience with yeasted doughs?
Have you ever worked in the food industry?
Are you prepared to work overnight for the next few years?
Are you going to need to work another job to pay for the donut place and your regular bills until the donut place makes a profit?
Do you know how much money you need to keep the place afloat until it turns a profit? I don't mean your napkin scribbles about cost per donut, I'm talking about how many thousands you'll need to keep as a reserve
Will your wife need to work in the shop to keep expenses down?
Are you doing a sole proprietorship or an LLC?

Let me tell you a quick story. In culinary school, we had a semester-long project to make a mock business plan for a fantasy bakery or restaurant. One of my classmates was married to a business loan officer at a bank; she scoffed at us getting three months to put it together, because he works with customers for a year at a time to make a viable plan

You need a business plan, even if you're not going to apply for a loan. Also, everybody's costs ran into six figures, which is 100% average, because opening a business is expensive as gently caress even if you don't have to pay rent

Also, run this by the cooking forum, they'll have more advice. I can't get over the fact you've never actually made donuts and want to open this business, you idiot

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

i like that the OP appears to be categorically opposed to acquiring practical experience in the field in any way

it's admirable really

It's amazing. Everytime I come back to this, I think of something new that the OP isn't thinking about

OP, you need a business plan to figure out what to charge per product to break even/make a profit. Like to really sit down, price out the costs, compare prices to competitors: other donut places, the grocery stores, McDonald's, local diners, convenient stores--literally everywhere that sells coffee and breakfast foods. Remember that you're competing with places that aren't close to your shop, people commute and buy breakfast where it's convenient, which may be closer to their house than their job

I've officially put more thought into your business then you have

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

I just bought a Univex srm 40 for $1630 so you can’t tell me poo poo!

We can ask, though, and you literally only answered one of our many, many questions

And actually, we CAN tell you poo poo, dumbass

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
OP, I really hope you're starting to get nervous from reading this thread, and you realize that you haven't done nearly enough research or groundwork

gently caress, dude: turn the space into a convenient store and sell your baked goods there. Once you learn to bake, I mean

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
OP, I apprenticed at a family-owned bakery that did all the good stuff you want to do, like bread shares and union wages. They had to let me go after a month because there wasn't enough work for me, the two owners, and their single part-time employee. They helped me find and secure a new apprenticeship before cutting me loose, which was very respectful and kind. Just something to think about for hiring

Literally every single time, I just think of something new the OP hasn't considered

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Captain Hygiene posted:

The one cool outcome to this would be if they fail so spectacularly that they get a shorthand moniker that everyone instantly recognizes without context, like the zipline goon or hotdog man. I don't think there's been a donut guy we can all name to instantly laugh at yet.

Even the last contender for Coffee Fail Goon abandoned the idea before buying equipment or renting space, and thank God: it was right before Covid

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Frank is The Warthog, you're goddamn right he knows business

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
What are you going to do with 200 shot glasses and 44 chairs? Why did you buy stage lighting?

I can't wait for you to actually start making donuts and realize that you hate the work

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Those chairs look like actual garbage

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Elephanthead posted:

I want to hire you to open a donut shop across from the OP.

Hell yeah, someone start a goon fund for Upgrade's Coffee and Donuts: It's an Upgrade on the Competition

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

I’m closer than I was last week

Are you, though? You don't know what works, you spent money on literal garbage--those chairs aren't firewood, especially the plastic and metal ones in the U-Haul picture--you don't know if you even bought the right kind of fryer--but talking about expanding into making french fries when you haven't even made a single example of your main product

Go make some donuts, I can't say it enough. YOU NEED TO KNOW IF YOU LIKE AND ARE ANY GOOD AT MAKING DONUTS

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

What did you do yesterday?

I made money at my job instead of spending thousands on garbage and equipment that might not work or suit my purposes

Go make some donuts, dumbass

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

Your job must be really cool if you can’t fathom trying to do something else

You don't read, so I'll repeat this: I actually did make donuts for a living. I'll never work in the food industry as a primary job again, though, I just sell small amounts of things on the side for fun sometimes

GoGoGadgetChris posted:

I have no math and I must cream

Lol

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

Sorry I spent $80 on fryers that aren’t specifically for donuts

So you wasted time and money on equipment you can't use and will have to dispose of or store indefinitely, but you don't need a business plan. At least it's a small waste of time and money this time. Maybe you can fix and clean them and sell them so they aren't a total loss

I get that you're one of those assholes who's edgy and flippant and supercool and feeds off this poo poo, but you're doing yourself a massive disservice by being a shithead and ignoring the voices of experience trying to help you out. Especially the advice to learn how to bake, my God

I hope you and your wife keep your finances separate, for her sake. It's bad enough you guys decided to use her inheritance on this folly, make sure she saves herself something for the inevitable rainy day

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
It's so perfect that your user name is Rationale and not Rational

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Scrum posted:

I agree, now that I read this, this is likely an elaborate troll. I'm holding out hope, though, that this is just another failed goon business venture like all the other smoldering craters that came before it. With that said, it's too on the nose.

You got me OP.

I really hope it's a troll, but there are so many people exactly like the OP, it's like they're made in a factory

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
It reminds me of how I get when my ADD is bad and I'm hyper-focused on an idea or plan, like the lack of planning and hostility towards the advice I solicited

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
If only there was a way to figure these things out ahead of time instead of making all your decisions on the fly. Some kind of a plan, maybe, for your business? Is that anything?

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Hey, we've been over this: knowing things is for losers, OP's got this on lock

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

Some other dick said

“$75K is not enough to start even a small donut shop. Two or three pieces of equipment break, and that money could be eaten up by replacements/repairs, plus restaurant equipment is expensive, even second-hand stuff. You're not going to be able to get everything on sale, either. Have you at least perused a couple equipment websites to get an idea of what you need and what it'll cost? What size mixer are you going to use? You can't use a tabletop stand mixer, you're making 15lbs of mix, minimum, before adding water.”

So I went and got a commercial mixer at an astonishing discount and dude’s still acting like I’m not…serious enough? I don’t know. Maybe focus less on my disdain for your “go take some classes about it” vibe and more on the advice that I am taking from goons and implementing in the real world.

What you guys present as fatal flaws are what I call “challenges” that can be “overcome”.

You're NOT taking it seriously. Buying/acquiring things is the easiest part of pretty much any venture. It's a cliché that people will buy all sorts of art or crafting supplies and then never make a thing, because buying things and daydreaming is fun and easy. You can buy tons of lumber and hammers and nails, and still not be able to build a house. Building a house requires things like planning and knowledge. You build things, yes? Are there not plans that you follow? Do you go to jobs and just start building with no idea of what materials you need? Are there no schedules to at least try to adhere to? Do you just start sawing and hammering without knowing what needs to be made?

You've got this idea in your head of what it's going to be like, but you don't know if you even like to make doughnuts. Working a fryer in the middle of the night sucks, even for an asocial night-dwelling baker who takes visceral pleasure in the sight and smell of a well-made doughnut. How do you think it's going to be if you hate the work itself? You don't even know if you're good at it.

Dude, I get wanting a change. I worked in offices, then I became a baker, then I dipped out because the sexism was discouraging, the pay was terrible and I hit my limit re: productivity. There's a level of productivity you want to be at for any job, and I'm pretty slow at baking. I'm good, but I'm slow, and I Got the 'Tude Now can vouch for me on this: you can't be slow. My left wrist is also hosed up from repetitive strain. I'm in the process of looking for a new position right now, cuz I love my coworkers but my job isn't what I ultimately want to do. I'm the last person who would tell you that you can't change your occupation or lifestyle. I'm telling you that if you're going to make a drastic change and take on the risks of owning and operating your own business, do it intelligently. "Drastic" doesn't mean "stupid" unless you go about it stupidly. You are going about this stupidly

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
What I don't understand is, why are you so allergic to planning and learning?

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Admiralty Flag posted:

I think it's both from the future and mistranslated into English. It should read "I am absolutely penniless."

:lmao:

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Weatherman posted:

Hey guys remember zaurg?

He's back

In doughnut form

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

ilmucche posted:

OP name your store Doughn't Nuts

Whether it's real or not I want to learn more about the donut and patisserie making lives of Powerful Katrinka and I Got the 'Tude Now

If you're serious, I'll do an effort post about making donuts when I have some time later. If anyone wants to know what the job is, anyway

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Tempora Mutantur posted:

you should 100% do this but in A/T so that the OP doesn't get any spoilers they don't want to see, and also because that's cool info in its own right

Well, thank you! I'm just going to put it in this thread, it doesn't seem like something that has enough material for a separate one.

I worked at a Tim Horton's for a summer, which was just heating up premade rings in an oven and then filling, glazing, and decorating them. I baked a few things, but it was either frozen or came from a bucket of batter.

The other place was in a local grocery store, that one was real baking and I did it for a few years. Since it was a shared space--the donut fryer was in the same area as the fryers and ovens for non-baked goods--everything had to be finished and the space cleaned by 5:30 AM at the very latest. So my shift started at 8 PM on donut days, 9 PM if I was on breads. The store's bakery made up about a quarter of the store's profit, so it was going 24 hours a day. Also, since I was working in an all-purpose bakery, there was no donut machine; cake donuts and donut holes were made with a hand-cranked hopper, and yeast raised were made with hand cutters, a bread rolling machine, a sheeter, and a good ol' fashioned metal dough cutter. Oh, and there was hand-cut donuts, a cake donut cut by hand for peanut and coconut sticks. ("By hand" includes rolling dough cutters that save a lot of time.)

French crullers and croissants came pre-made, because gently caress making those by hand for $10/hour. (The store also made and sold regular baked croissants, that was part of the morning crew's job, though.) Since I got into the store first, my job included turning on the (giant) oven and the proofer, so they'd be ready for the rest of the night crew. I also got first crack at the cooling/storage racks, which was nice, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. I'm very particular about my equipment, as was the woman who filled and decorated the donuts and other pastries, we liked the same racks and wouldn't let anyone else touch them, lol

On a typical day, I made four kinds of cake: sour cream, vanilla, hand-cut, and chocolate, but sometimes we'd get random extra flavors like cherry. Autumn was loving brutal, because we'd have to make apple cider and pumpkin spice donuts, plus donut holes, and we'd have to double the output for orders and the randoms who forgot to order donuts for the office Halloween party and came to the store in a panic in the morning. Anything getting just glaze, is glazed right out the fryer. Everything else was cooled before getting powder sugar or peanuts or sprinkles, because glaze will slide right off a hot baked good, along with whatever was sticking to the glaze. Cake donuts are easy to make, just kinda sloppy. And you've got to made sure to thoroughly clean the hopper at the end of the day, or there's half-raw dough that was cooked in the dishwasher stick to it. (Cleaning was the other thing I was very particular about. The other guys didn't clean as they went when they made donuts, and I just can't abide that. Shameful.)

I think yeast-raised donuts are going to give Rationale trouble, partly because I don't know if you can make yeast donuts in a donut machine, which as far as I can tell is an automated hopper. A quick look over Google doesn't look promising, anyway. I'm also pretty bad at estimating size, so I honestly know if his mixer is the same size as the ones we used for bread and yeast-raised. I don't know what the size of our biggest mixer was, but it could hold 80 pounds of flour/mix and 50 pounds of water without fear of spilling or overheating the motor. The bowls of the two Big Mixers had wheel stands so because the bowls themselves were too heavy to be moved otherwise. Again, though, this was an all-purpose bakery that cranked out breads and cakes, so what he has could be just fine for his operations.

Weekdays I made a 40 lb batch: 40 lbs of mix, 20-some pounds of water, and about a pound of yeast. The yeast comes in compressed cakes of a pound each, they were kept in a fridge by the donut decorating area with other supplies. Friday and Saturday nights, I made 50-75 lbs of mix and the respective amount of water and yeast. We used a standing scale to measure mix and flour, and a balance scale for yeast. (Water's weight is its volume: a fluid ounce of water weighs an ounce. "A pint's a pound, the world around.") We always used ice water, to retard the yeast and give ourselves a little extra time in a warm bakery. The dough was cut into proper weight and shapes: spheroids for round filled donuts, oblong pillows for the rest. After being laid out on the work table, the dough got covered and was allowed to proof a little while I finished up the cake donuts and prepped for frying off the yeast-raised

Round filled donuts were made by flattening the dough out on a special disc that went into the roller, a machine that was at least as old as I am ("Made in West Germany") and bolted into the floor. It cuts the dough into 24 pieces, then presses down on the pieces and rolls them into a ball. Leave it on too long, the dough is too tight and the donuts will be small and rise in a weird, off-balance way; don't leave it on long enough, and the dough is too loose, the donuts will over-rise, over-inflate in the fryer, absorb extra grease, then deflate and sag into themselves. The pillow-shaped dough went through the sheeter twice, because rolling out proofed yeast dough by hand is difficult and time consuming. (If I could have one absurdly professional and oversized bakery device in my home, it would be a sheeter. You can make real laminated pastries like danish dough and croissants with a mechanical sheeter that would be terrible to make with a rolling pin. I've tried and failed, lol)

Rings and long johns (the regional name for long filled donuts) were cut by hand, with the dough scraps set aside to be used. The largest pillow was used to make cinnamon rolls. (The day crew made baked cinnamon rolls.) Then all the scrap dough was pulled together to make apple fritters, which are easy and sloppy and kind of fun to make. Cinnamon, flour, and apple pieces are kneaded into the dough, which is cut into irregular shapes and sizes. Then it all went into the proofer so I could have a cigarette outside and grab a drink. (The best part of working overnights in a store like that was that we had free run of the place and took whatever we wanted. One night the manager made steak and potatoes for us.) (We did pay for stuff we took home, in the most inconsiderate way possible: leave a list of what we bought and some cash. Good luck with inventory, guys!) If the batch was big enough, or I was really running behind, sometimes the first rack of donuts would be proofed and ready by the time I finished the second.

Frying the yeast donuts took about an hour, hour and a half, all in one go. There was a screen that attached to the fryer for submerging the cinnamon rolls and apple fritters, since they're more dense than the other donuts. Once everything was fried and glazed, I did the peanut and powdered sugars (plain and cinnamon sugar) for the filled rounds, then brought the rack over to the woman who decorated and filled. The store had a row of fillers, each dedicated to a specific filling: apple, cream cheese, Boston cream, etc. There was also a set-up for the dip fondants: chocolate, white, and sometimes a seasonal color. The store didn't go crazy with decorating, maybe some sprinkles for a holiday on top of the fondant; the lady who did them, didn't have the time to putz around. Then I finished the rest of the donuts that needed sugar/peanuts/coconut, finished cleaning (scraping down the prep area, washing surfaces, scraping and washing the floor), threw my apron in the laundry, and went home

The thing about dough is that once you start it, the clock starts ticking and you have to see it through to the end, even the cake donuts. None of us took an extended break; we'd sit for a few minutes here and there between tasks. Same with the people on the bench: you had time for a cig and a sit, but not for a dedicated fifteen minutes. We all ate on the fly, usually making ourselves sandwiches or grabbing a pre-made meal from the deli department. That suited me just fine, along with the hours. I have some kind of sleep disorder, it's like I have permanent jetlag and I've been like this for literally as long as I can remember. I would drive home, shower off the filth real quick, then go to bed and wake up in the afternoon. That way I had time to do things during business hours, and could hang out with people in the afternoon/evenings, or grab an extra nap before work. On my days off, I just kept the same sleep schedule; even now, if I'm left to my own devices, I revert to a nocturnal schedule

Anyway, that's the general routine. If anyone has questions, let me know!

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av
Thank you, guys, you're so kind to actually be interested. Sometimes I miss working in the food industry, where we could jokingly threaten each other with knives

try more magnesium posted:

i have this too, it makes working "normal" jobs or going to school or conducting business during business hours into a federal loving issue. thank you for the donut post and thank god for adderall

Oh, another one! My new prescriber is determined to help me with my sleep disorder, so I've got a sleep study scheduled for December. There's a medication that he wants me to try, Hetlioz, that I guess is really hard to get covered by insurance without at least a sleep study. My last prescriber got me off Adderall because she was worried that it would eventually make my heart explode, and I'm doing alright without it. Everyone's got their thing

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Oh, NOW you want to listen to me

Everything is done by weight in baking, and it's been a few years, so I don't remember the number of donuts to pounds of mix. 5 lbs of mix for the cake rings was the minimum, I'd get at least three dozen out of that

If you have no experience with yeast dough, don't jump into making yeast-raised donuts. You can practice poo poo like bread baking and pizza crusts if you want some practice. Don't waste ingredients by trying to make a bunch of doughnuts if you don't have the right tools or literally any experience

You should hold off on round filled donuts until you have a roller, to be honest. You can cut rings and long johns by hand, twists are just twisted rings. But you need a roller. There's nothing else that will instantly cut a slab of dough into uniform weights and then roll all two dozen at once in a couple seconds. If you don't have a roller, you'll have to cut and weigh out 2 ounce (or whatever) pieces of dough and then hand roll them into spheres. You should get a sheeter, too

Aye you starting to understand why so many people told you to learn how to bake before opening a bakery?

Edit: this is MY thread now

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

For the record I never said it would be simple or easy, just that I can do it

Can you, though? Can you bake well? Can you successfully run a bakery? Can you plan before jumping right in and investing in equipment and structural changes to your building? Not everyone can do all of that, or do it all well. Well enough to make a decent living, anyway

Running a business requires a whole set of knowledge and skills that need to be acquired. Baking is the same way. You might have a knack for something, but that doesn't automatically translate into "I can make my living doing this." I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger, then I took a class in education and realized learning and talking about history isn't the same as teaching children about history. And that's okay. It's okay to change your mind and not go through with a decision

You already have experience with building, I presume you enjoy the work. If you're going to open a business, why not open one you actually know something about? At least one person has suggested going into fixing and selling restaurant equipment, and that is so much more sensible. You already have the experience, skills, and knowledge to build off of, plus you can learn about the food industry, make connections, and make an educated decision about opening a bakery

I don't have recommendations for equipment, it's been years since I worked there and I couldn't tell you the brand name of our equipment to save my life. Mostly I remember that the roller was made before the Berlin Wall came down. The good equipment will last for decades, good luck finding anything of that quality, that a bakery will sell at a price you can afford

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Tarnop posted:

The Doughring-Cruller Effect

Thread title, por favor

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

a.p. dent posted:

great post, thank you for all the info! i was surprised to hear that the bakery made up 25% of the store's profits - do you think that's standard in big chain stores as well? it makes sense given the larger markup on baked goods

I don't know, honestly. It was a pretty small store that almost only sold food--there was no pharmacy, for example, and only two short aisles of non-food items. Baked goods made up a significant portion of the products available, though not a full 25%. It's also hard to be sure if that's 25% on an average day or if the holidays bumped it up, Easter especially. Easter in the bakery was crazier than Christmas and Thanksgiving combined

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Sundae posted:

Also, CarForumPoster - we're pissed at him because he hasn't even made a goddamned donut yet. I don't mean "on his new equipment." I mean ever.

And because OP is a stupid dick

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Motronic posted:

I think he was a bit too subtle with going from having made a single donut out of prepackaged grocery store dough or whatever to making 20 lbs of dough for a test to see if he can make donuts.

He didn't actually make any donuts, he air-fried a tube of croissants

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Rationale posted:

Yeah nobody had questioned my authenticity by the time we ate all the crescent doughnuts

Making a can of Pillsbury is not an indication of one's baking abilities. It's like saying you're a chef because you can open a can of Campbell's soup

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

Sundae posted:

I mean yeah, but we put up with a lot of dicks here if they actually know what they're talking about or follow through on things. Motronic is still here, after all. :v:

That's why I qualified that he's a stupid dick

CarForumPoster posted:

Donut trick: You can make meh cake donuts pretty good donuts but putting them in an air fryer with a light coating of PAM or spritz of cooking oil. Let it cool until inside is warm but outside is nice and crispy.

Yeah, that sounds viable for a business: give your hundreds of donuts an extra bake in your $80 air fryer from Walmart

Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

CarForumPoster posted:

A bunch of stupid things

"Find out if you like baking and are good at it" is immediately actionable. It's also just the most basic requirement that anyone should do before opening up a bakery where they will be the sole baker. Would you open up a plumbing business if you've never even unclogged a sink or toilet in your own home?

The OP is not admirable because he's sinking money into a business venture he knows nothing about. It's not admirable to ignore advice you've solicited. He doesn't deserve anyone's kudos when he's been an rear end in a top hat to people with experience and knowledge. You're stupid and irresponsible to encourage him to keep sinking money and time into a bakery when he doesn't even bake

Like, how do you even reconcile the sentiment that the OP is on the right path with the fact that he's literally never made a single donut, worked in good service, or baked even as a hobby? You might be the only person in this thread that's as dumb as Rationale, if not dumber

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Powerful Katrinka
Oct 11, 2021

an admin fat fingered a permaban and all i got was this lousy av

How are you going to shape them?

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