Good Afternoon,

I have always wanted to have my own business from home to bring in additional income. I love baking. My focus will be pastries and maybe down the line I will add desserts. Does anyone have any advice on the first steps I need to take? I wanted to take a pastry class just to learn more about baking, but there are none available where I live.

If you can't find any baking/pastry classes near you, look online for you tube videos. There are some very excellent ones. For the business end, check the regulations for your state's cottage food law; then contact your county clerk's office to see if you need a business license. Good luck!

yes i do -- one of the first steps is to do something boring and hard to face -- pay for a marketing study also called a feasibility study -- this gives you a projection based on population, existing bakery businesses and other factors to let you know how likely your chances of success will be -- and what type of baking business would work in your area --

this is not fun like gathering happy clients or decorating something awesome  or acquiring mixers and ovens and tools oh my -- but it is real dang important -- more important than any other thing really -- tells you which if any direction to go in -- 

the cake decorating field is not only saturated it is getting soggier and soggier -- flooded with hopefuls for which there is not enough business to support them --

unless you will wholesale 'pastries' alone will not support a business to make an appreciable living --

so having a sideline or a hobby will almost always work but a reallio trulio pastry business is a very long shot -- starting with you being able to field my post - please don't shoot the messenger --

however you could ovelook that whole thing and just determine if and how it is legal in your area to do this by contacting your local health department, zoning board, code enforcement, Dept of agriculture --

best to you

Thank you so much for your advice, I am definitely going to do what you suggested. This is something I want to do to meet the demands of an already huge following an people that I already bake for. It's really a hobby that I love and get paid for, so I'm not really trying to use this for my only income, just to bring some extra money in. I'm already doing it, but I want to be able to offer more to my currant customer base. I absolutely love it, I love to explore and try new things, so I decided why not get paid for doing something I love. Your advice is very helpful, so I wont shoot the messenger, Lol....

Thanks Again

Mimi Thank you for the advice. I will start looking on you tube this evening. This is a hobby that I have been working on for years so I already have a customer base that I bake for, I just wanted to bring an extra income in. I have 3 grown children that are on their own and 1 left that will be off to college in 2017. So i have more time to devote to it now.

Thank you again for your advice

 cool -- thanks -- hope you will be the exception to the current state of affairs in the baking business world -- would love for you to come back and let us know how it went -- what you learned -- you're very welcome -- and thanks

another idea is to get one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WL8L6CA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Baking-Edition-Wayne-Gisslen-ebook/dp/B008R0S37W/ref=pd_sim_351_15?ie=UTF8&dpID=51vcwKcvyZL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&refRID=12HT8NG4GCP52NJNNZBT