tablespoon.bakery

I am going to take a blog break for a few days. many things are going on and I need to focus my attention. Thank you so much for riding on the bakery train with me this year.  December 31st will mark the 147th day of the business.  I think that is incredible and many times I forget to stop and realize just how much has been accomplished. I want to wish all of you a very happy, very safe, and lovely holiday season and start to your new year. May all of your dreams come true, and may you discover a few new dreams along the way. And, may you smile more than ever before, and find love and happiness in places you never knew existed. do everything in your life with love, you will not regret it.  

In the mornings while walking to work, albeit a short walk, I sometimes reflect on really what is the hardest part of owning a bakery.  Here is a list of ten things (in no order): 1.  time of day I have to get up 2. continual costs to the government 3. baking bread people do not want (on a particular day) 4. do paperwork 5. not knowing if the bakery will break even on any particular day 6. working on a new recipe that just keeps failing 7. the feeling of unappreciation 8. never knowing if it was the right decision 9. seeing other bakeries and how much more beautiful they are, and 10. with #9, seeing how many more options they have and how guilty I feel every single day because I do not offer as much. As I look through this list, #1 is by far the hardest of most. It is so difficult to get out of bed so early in the morning and then work so long, so hard, and so much.  Some days I do not move until 6 AM and that is the truth. I am just too tired. I also think #10 is very hard on me. Some...

We are a bit more than one week away from finishing out 2018. This puts us at almost 5 months of operations. Oh we have seen many ups and downs and continue to experience such things. But, we push and push and push for the purpose of doing better every single day. This week we have had to say tomorrow is the last day to place orders. We have many requests and in order for us to be able to complete all of them, we have had to pick a day to say no more.  I wish we could take orders up until the last minute, but it is nearly impossible with me to be able to fulfill all of the orders without some time.  It would be so great to have a large space and a few bakers so we could take more orders, but, I would rather deliver a smaller amount and make sure we do a great job. We also have decided to take the first week off from the bakery to get some air and rest a bit. It is predictably a very slow time so we might as well use it to rest a little bit.  I will actually do my best to not even go to...

Today I baked those lovely croissants and they are indeed much bigger than I expected them to be.  I also got two more orders via facebook today, one of which is due for tomorrow.  That makes me happy. I wish I had more time for preparation but I am happy to deliver the order. I noticed on our delivery schedule today that many of the ensiamadas are medium sized, not small. This means I have to make more of them because the ones I have prepped are all small (100g). The medium sized ones are 250g. This will heavily impact my ability to deliver a video this week and I am not happy about that. Making them weekly is important to me, along with this blog. I admit that some days the blog is a blur and I forget to get the posts done, but, I always do my best to go backwards and write the necessary updates to keep each day up to date. How much longer will this go on? I am writing today's entry early because I know it will be a long afternoon/evening in the bakery and I will be very tired wh...

Today is a day of preparation. This means we had to go shopping in a few places and then come back and do prep work for tomorrow. I am excited about this because it means I get to use the laminating machine. That is fun. So, I made 5 batches of croissants. When they are normal size I suppose this would be roughly 100 croissants in total. But, I decided to make oversized croissants for fun and I made 70. These are very big but I am sure they will turn out lovely after being baked. I also spent a couple of hours making ensaimadas. We have orders for them so I need to get them prepped and ready for baking for the delivery days. We decided to not have many in the store due to the demand with orders, it will be too much work for just me to get done for sure. And, my assessment of the day is that it turned out to be way too long for the one day off (I think I worked 10 hours), and this is the reason I wanted to be closed two days a week, so I could actually have one day off completely. Uff!!...

The weather in Mallorca has been cold. Ok, maybe not as cold as expected in the great north, but, I am cold a lot of the time. Today was no exception. But strangely in the evening it warmed up a little bit and got very windy. This time last year we went away for a few days and the wind blew 80kph and broke out our windows in the apartment. The police where there, the firemen where there, and when we got home, it was a big open hole to the world. The bakery was quiet today. A few spurts of people but not overly busy. I look around the neighborhood and I see everyone else is very quiet too. I think it is the time of year and the cold. Ha! We are getting more and more holiday orders. I am not sure if I should be nervous or not to get them completed, but I will try my best to not be. I am happy about the orders, but I do wish we could take a few days off and relax afterwards. I cannot imagine my entire life being about working and no time to enjoy life. Short and sweet.. thank you for read...

Somehow I am either too tired or just forget to post in the daily blog. Even though the bakery is not super busy, I still work a lot and try different things. Today, for example, I have made some small changes to my carrot cake and right now, I have both layers cooling down. Later I will go back to the bakery and complete them. The taste last time was amazing, but maybe I think I had too much oil, so this time I cut the oil down and used milk. One of the problems I had with the last cake is it was too soft and broke apart very easily. Also, I felt it was too heavy with oil. It is strange when I review different recipes and they all have so much oil. So, lets see what happens. I also added something different to help bind the ingredients after the baking.  I will know later today if that idea worked. If not, I try something different. and in other news.. even though my panettone's did not rise as much as I had hoped, I now have 5 orders for the holidays. THAT is awesome!!!! I am so ...

I do not know if the subject of today's entry is true or not, but I do believe we attract what we wish for in life, even if it is not a conscious wish.  Yesterday I said that we would be slow today, and for sure we were. Yesterday was the slowest Thursday since opening. Wednesday was REALLY the slowest day ever. I think even the very first day we made more money and we only had a few customers. These things, when they happen, I like to use as opportunities to see what I can change, or add, to remind people just how much we love baking for them, and giving them top quality breads, pastries, and desserts, at very good prices.   I know the next couple of months will be slow, but I do not worry a lot because I believe that once March comes and the winter weather subsides, we are going to be busier than ever. I also want to say that I am starting to see sales of our breads go up some and people are coming back. Time is going to increase this for sure and we will be ok. I do need money i...

Today was a slow day at the bakery, even for a Thursday. That is the bad news. The good news is it was slow for everyone. The outdoor market was slow, the other businesses had no one, and it was a very quiet day. Ok, this is not good news for business owners I know, but, for me I find the positive in this that it is not about the bakery, but the time of year, the weather (raining / cold / windy). Tomorrow will be a bit slower than normal because in part tapas was cancelled. We have a regular group of customers who come in, but this week they are unable to come so the chances are we would only have a few clients. The amount of work and money spent for a few sales really makes it impossible to even break even. Also, I think it is good to take a break from time to time from tapas so people miss it more :) ... For my YT channel I have this idea I have been thinking about for some time and I am going to try and make it work. I want to just have a conversation with other bakers and talk abou...

Exactly how long has the bakery been open in dog years? Seems like a lifetime or two, but I suppose no. The interesting thing about the bakery for me is every single day is completely different. You never know who will walk through the doors, or who will not. You do not know if a regular Wednesday customer will come again or skip this week.  What I can tell you for certain, today was indeed the absolute slowest day since opening on August 6th. We had three customers plus a person who came in last night and ordered a birthday cake for today.  Because of the cake, it was not the lowest day in terms of gross income, so that was helpful .. always something good to look forward to.... :) In a few minutes I will be heading back to the bakery so that I can prepare for tomorrow. It is the busiest day of the week and I will be alone. So, my hope is I can get as much done as possible in about 90 minutes so I can come back home, take a bath, and make it in bed with eyes closed at 8:00PM. This wil...

I worked solo today, so the first thing I made sure was to be at the bakery early (4:30). Last night I did bulk fermentations of two types of breads which made things easier for me. So, I used the extra time to bake some other things and finish off the carrot cake. It did not look beautiful, but I sold three pieces and they loved it very much. It has a texture problem I need to work out, and I will. The bakery was not super busy today, so I used every free moment to clean and organize a bit.  As much as I hope it is busy tomorrow, a mother and son stopped in tonight and asked me to bake a cake for their sons birthday for tomorrow. Ufff... tomorrow evening I must do a lot of prep as Thursday is the busy day and with me being alone, it will be very hard to manage getting it all done. I cross my fingers for good luck for sure. Maybe you can cross yours too :) Ok... not much to talk about so I will end here, it is bed time already. Thank you very much for sharing a part of your busy day an...

Dear friends, I have no idea what happened with the time but it is clear I missed two days of posting so today I will catch up on what has been missed. As you know from the 7th, tapas on Friday was sushi. We sold out by reservation. That was a great feeling. I admit it would have been nice if a few pieces made their way home to the house, but this is life. I am much happier to feed others than to worry about me.  I think the way tapas has been going it could be better to do it by reservation only.  I am not sure about tapas this week, I am thinking about making single sized pizzas instead.  I will be working alone and it could prove to be just a bit too much. Saturday was a very quiet day. As slow as almost it could possibly be. We did not sell all of the breads even, and that is sad. But Sunday turned out to be better than Thursday, and better than Friday.  I do not know why but I am very happy just the same. Now that we are back to six days a week I have been working in the bakery to...

I got a message that my machine was delivered. Based on the photos and roughly how big I imagined the machine to be, I thought, it can sit on the front floor until I find time to open it.... and then.... I got to the bakery and it was literally in a box 130c long, 100cm high, and 100cm wide... I would say my estimations were off by double.. HOW was that possible?  It took up over half of the counter space. There must be a mistake. Once I opened the box, I say that it had a lot of space around it for protective purposes. But, it is still much larger than I expected. I admit, I was feeling my heartbeat faster and I was getting more worried. About an hour after I had a solid look at the box and the machine I started to feel sick in my stomach. Did I make a bad decision? Will this really help me with making great laminated dough's? I felt a lot of stress. So, I turned my attention to making the tapas for tonight and to forget about the stress for a few hours.  That kinda sorta helped :...

Today we decided to go back to 6 days. After many discussions, and requests from customers, it is better to be open 6 days than 4 for sure. If it is slow, it is slow, but today gave us no indication of slow for sure. We had, for a December day, a great day!! I got to the bakery today around 4:40am. I could not sleep well and so the best solution was to just go to work. Everything seemed to flow very nicely. I made a change with the oven this morning to see how it would impact hydration and wow did it help. The integral breads today were the best that have come out of the oven in four months, without exaggeration. Tomorrow I will repeat the same process and let us see how the results fare. I know there are many factors that play in to the results of breads, but I have to find a way to make sure I am 90% consistent. Once I am there I will work towards 95% and then 100%. I also made croissants amongst other things today and while I managed to not pull them out of the oven early enough (ye...

Today we celebrate the completion of four months of owning the bakery. I spent it in a not so exciting way, but more about that in a minute.  Every day the bakery is a roller coaster ride. Some days things are rolling smooth and other days the roads are filled with pot holes... I imagine in time those holes will fill themselves in, but really, it is not pleasant. We are having some problems with the building asked the owner come to the bakery today and I will tell him. One small problem. He does not speak English. I was very polite and what he did not understand of my Spanish, Sandy clarified, which was about 90%.  In the end I think he understands, well I hope he does and the problems will be resolved. Despite the problems we have had I continue to start over because I want peace and I want to be able to focus on the bakery, not other things. I hope tomorrow is a great day. It will be just Sandy and myself so let us see how it goes. I have no way of knowing how many people will come i...

Since the bakery was not open today, I decided to use the time to get some prep done. So I made croissants, 88 to be more specific. I am nervous about the laminator coming tomorow and I found out I need a new electrical line installed to make it work. It is the same line as the horno. (oven).  I am most worrried about how and where I will store it and use it. But, I am hoping today was the last time I need to laminate croissants by hand.. hehe We are not open again tomorrow but I need to be there early because I have a delivery of butter.  I also need to record the weekly  video and edit it for tomorow as well. So it will be a long day, as I need to make donuts and ensaimadas as well :) Any questions? #doeverythingwithlove

I found out this morning that the laminating machine we decided to buy will be at the bakery on Wednesday. THAT is awesome. But it got me to thinking about how much money continues to go out the window from the bakery. This machine, I really hope, makes a world of difference. I really believe that if we have more pastries (sweet and savory) to offer, people will want more. And, I am also hoping it fixes the little problems I am having with the croissants. The need to get that lamination perfect is important to me. I am sad because I do believe I should master it by hand first, but, I also want to produce more croissants and make sure the bakery is packed with more goodies on a regular basis. This, will help bring in more customers I am sure. The money for the machine.. it is not necessary to mention, but it costs more than a breadbox. This is madness!! So, tomorrow I need go get some ingredients and then I need to figure out exactly how I plan on working with the lamination machine. I ...

I am so happy to know this week is over. Poor Sandy worked so hard in the bakery and I was utterly useless. USELESS! The good news is I think I am starting to feel better. Right now I am at about 60% which is a huge improvement. One of the important lessons from this week, and directed to me by Sandy, is I have to really start paying better attention to my diet. Not dieting, but what I am eating and when and how much. It is a true statement. I hope you have had a chance to look at my bakery chronicles video. I would love feedback of course. ... This week my plan is to really rest one more day (tomorrow). I will run some errands and get any needed ingredients, but then I am going to start working first thing Tuesday morning with prep. I need to get a good process for continuing to make croissants. I was not happy there were none in the bakery today or yesterday. Also, I need to prep more ensaimadas, and cookies. And, this week I will post on facebook that we will start taking orders for...

Today I went to the bakery around 6:30 to prep the breads. I used that time to show Sandy some techniques about bread making and more importantly I understand why it is important for her to learn. Tomorow morning she will go to the bakery and make breads early in the morning like I have been doing. It was her idea and I think she will do just fine. It will be interesting to see how she does, but she insisted I rest another day. I am not as sick as yesterday but do not have much strength so the rest will do me well. Also, if she has any problems she will call me and worst case I can walk over and help her solve. ok that is it, short update. Thank you for reading! #doeverythingwithlove