How to Start a Successful Cottage Bakery with Maria Baradell of Leaf & Loaf

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Have you ever thought about turning your love for baking into a real business? That’s exactly what Maria Baradell, founder of Leaf & Loaf, did. Starting in her home kitchen, she quickly scaled her sourdough micro-bakery into a thriving business. In this episode, she shares her journey, tips for success, and how she turned a viral moment into brand growth.

We discuss:

• How Maria got started in the cottage baking industry
• The realities of running a profitable home bakery
• Using Hotplate and other tools to streamline orders
• Social media marketing for micro-bakeries
• Her viral TikTok moment—mixing sourdough on an airplane

MARIA BARADELL
Maria's Instagram (Leaf & Loaf) and TikTok
Find Maria's resources
Buy the bread pans Maria uses

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris Spear: Have you ever thought about starting your own home bakery or cottage food business? Maybe you love baking bread, and you're wondering if you could actually turn it into a profitable business. Well, today's guest, Maria Baridel, did just that. Starting in her home kitchen and quickly scaling up to meet the growing demand.

[00:00:18] Chris Spear: She's here to share her journey from baking loaves for her family To running Leaf Loaf, a successful home sourdough bakery and community resource. This is Chris Spear, and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting.

[00:00:38] Chris Spear: I have 32 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants, and currently operate a personal chef service called Perfect Little Bites throwing dinner parties in the Washington, D. C. area. Well, welcome! To all of my new listeners and for my repeat listeners, welcome back. This is the start of season six after taking a much needed three month hiatus [00:01:00] from the podcast.

[00:01:01] Chris Spear: It's given me a lot of time to think about the direction I want to take this podcast and my new podcast. It's given me the opportunity to talk to lots of people already and I have a lot of episodes lined up and in the can. So today I'm joined by Maria Baridel, the founder of Leaf and Loaf, a sourdough bakery that's grown into a thriving business and resource for the cottage baking community.

[00:01:24] Chris Spear: I wanted this episode to be tactical and told Maria I really wanted to make sure people get benefit from listening to the show. While she focuses on exclusively baking bread out of her house, we do talk about You know, many ways to start a cottage food business. And I think most of her advice will transfer over.

[00:01:41] Chris Spear: So whether you're making, uh, jams and jellies or cookies, I think this will be a great episode for you. We talk about the realities of running a cottage bakery, including regulations, scaling up and managing costs. She'll tell you how she turned to technology and social media to grow her business and reach more customers.

[00:01:59] Chris Spear: We talk about [00:02:00] doing things like drops and using platforms like Hotplate to sell your goods. And if you stick around, you'll hear about her now famous viral TikTok moment. Which was mixing sourdough on an airplane. So whether you're an aspiring home baker, or just love a great business story, I think this episode is packed with valuable advice.

[00:02:22] Chris Spear: And if you're interested in an entire podcast dedicated to building and growing a personal chef business, check out my new show, Personal Chef Business Startup Guide. The show is now part of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast network, and it is linked in the show notes. As always, thanks so much for listening and have a great week.

[00:02:41] Chris Spear: Hi, Maria. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on. 

[00:02:44] Maria Baradell: Hi, thank you so much for having me. 

[00:02:46] Chris Spear: I'm really looking forward to talking to you today because this is something that I know so many of my listeners are either actively doing or trying to start. So I'm excited to kind of find out how you started your [00:03:00] business and, uh, tips for success.

[00:03:02] Maria Baradell: Absolutely. I can't wait to chat with you about that. 

[00:03:05] Chris Spear: I'm really hoping that this is going to be a tactical conversation today. Like, let's get into the nuts and bolts of, of doing this. So I want to jump right in. How did you start a cottage bakery? And what does that look like for you? Because there's so many different things you can do as a cottage baker, and I know you do bread.

[00:03:22] Chris Spear: So can you talk us through how you started that whole process? 

[00:03:26] Maria Baradell: Yes, absolutely. So I started making bread for my family and I remember this exact moment when I said, I want, I remember seeing somebody making bread on Instagram or TikTok, and she was talking about how good her house smelled, and I remember thinking, I want to make my house smell good.

[00:03:46] Maria Baradell: And like my kids coming home and, you know, smelling that and be like, Oh, it smells so good. So, I started making bread and it went well, uh, which is kind of hard with sourdough. It's kind of tricky [00:04:00] sometimes. So the fact that it went well, I think made me to become hyper fixated with it. So I started making more and more and learning everything there was to know about sourdough.

[00:04:14] Maria Baradell: And I was making so much bread, I do have five kids, so we're a large family, and we eat a lot, but I was making more than what I could possibly feed them. So, I started just gifting the bread to my neighbors and our friends. And they liked it so much that they wanted to buy it. So I started offering it for sale and it grew my, I had to launch my bakery.

[00:04:42] Maria Baradell: So I had to do all the research and all of that, which I can tell you about in a minute. But my bakery grew so fast. Like I started getting a lot of customers really quickly. All of a sudden I was, uh, home bakery, a micro bakery, a cottage bakery. [00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Chris Spear: Well, and sourdough is a whole thing. I've, I've been in the food world for 30 plus years and I've, I've never even personally made sourdough myself.

[00:05:08] Chris Spear: It seems so daunting. So for that to be your starting point, I think is really ambitious. 

[00:05:13] Maria Baradell: Yeah, I know. Um, I think it's. Probably something great for other cottage bakers to start with if you can figure it out. And the reason is because I feel like there are a lot of cookie businesses, like not only people making cookies or cakes or cupcakes from home.

[00:05:33] Maria Baradell: I feel like that's Well done by a lot of people, but also there are bakeries that specialize, like you have crumble cookies or all sorts of stores where you can buy cookies, where you can buy cupcakes, cakes, and you can buy them at the store as well, right? Even if they are not like homemade and have the best ingredients, you can find them at the stores.

[00:05:58] Maria Baradell: But bread, [00:06:00] they're not, bread bakeries or like they are very rare, um, just bread bakeries. And then if you go to the store, of course they have like all these ingredients that are not actually real sourdough and got healthy. And so I think that sourdough, that's why I focus on sourdough because there is not a lot of that out there.

[00:06:24] Chris Spear: Should I start making sourdough? Should I just give it a shot personally for my family? 

[00:06:28] Maria Baradell: Yes. Yes, you sure. It's not that bad. It's not that hard. I think, and I'm guilty of this. Uh, some people make it seem a little bit more complicated than it has to be. And when that's all you do and that's your business, you want to make the best.

[00:06:47] Maria Baradell: bread possible. Right. I, especially because you are selling it to others. And to do that, then you have to get a little bit more specific, um, like, um, follow certain processes [00:07:00] and steps. But if you are just baking for your family. It can be very simple bread and it's still going to be great bread. 

[00:07:08] Chris Spear: I think as a chef, I personally overcomplicate things.

[00:07:11] Chris Spear: It's like when I started making beer, you know, the first batch I made, I didn't really know much about, and then I started reading so much and nerding out. And to be honest, I don't know that it even got that much better. The more that I read about it, you know, there was a little intuitiveness and I think I started to make it too complicated and I can see myself potentially doing that with bread as well.

[00:07:33] Maria Baradell: It's true. It's true. And I do love that you brought that up about intuitive cooking because I do, sometimes we get comments saying like, well, if people did it back in the day without a scale and without, you know, then you don't have to overcomplicate things. And I do believe that the fact that some people fail at sourdough is because they.

[00:07:59] Maria Baradell: [00:08:00] Don't have those intuitive skills of like really getting to feel the doll and knowing what it means, like just add a little more water or add more flour or do this or do that, like we don't, we have lost a lot of those skills precisely because we are not playing with it. We're just like trying to measure everything out so exactly instead of actually feeling it.

[00:08:26] Chris Spear: Yeah. And I, I was just talking to people about this the other day with cooking in general, I working as a personal chef. I go into people's homes and I talked to a lot of people who everyone seems so scared of cooking these days. Like it was a totally normal thing that I'm assuming like your parents did and your grandparents did like they all did.

[00:08:44] Chris Spear: And now I'm meeting all these people in their thirties, forties, fifties who are like, I don't know how to cook. And I asked them why. And they say, Well, you know, it just seems like so much I read all these recipes and there are all these ingredients I've never heard of and all these techniques. I don't know.

[00:08:57] Chris Spear: And it's like, well, my mom wasn't like an [00:09:00] amazing chef, but she still cooked dinner on a pretty regular basis. And I just wish more people would kind of, um, not get in their heads about it. So hopefully people will hear this. And even if they're not looking to start a cottage bakery, maybe take the first step and just make a loaf of bread.

[00:09:16] Maria Baradell: Yeah, do you think that that might be because of this era of social media and like online and everybody wants to have their own recipes so they start adding things to it that maybe You know, maybe you didn't have to use shallots, maybe you could use just onions or something more simple, you know, but then things start getting more complicated because people want to be original and like add their own flair to things.

[00:09:44] Maria Baradell: And then, yeah, I don't have that ingredient at home, but it could actually be made way more simpler. I don't know. Maybe. 

[00:09:51] Chris Spear: Yeah. Well. Where do people start? I mean, I would assume you start with maybe like your local board of health and see what your regulations in your [00:10:00] area are. Is that what you would recommend for someone who's, let's say, maybe been doing this a little bit and they're ready to take the leap and start selling their products?

[00:10:07] Maria Baradell: Yes. So you go, um, I think online, there are several websites where you can just, just Google it, cottage food laws in my state, and then you will get a list of what they are because they do differ. Quite a bit from state to state and, uh, the main rules are, um, where you are allowed to sell and what you are allowed to sell.

[00:10:34] Maria Baradell: So, some pe uh, most of us are only allowed to sell face-to-face or um, direct to consumer. So that means that people need to know where you live basically, and come pick it up from you, or you need to sell it at a market or you need to deliver to that person. So that's, uh, how you sell it. And the other thing is what you sell.

[00:10:58] Maria Baradell: So a lot of us are not [00:11:00] allowed to, uh, I mean, like many different states are different, but a lot of the rules are that you cannot sell meat unless you are like certified for that, uh, cheese might be a lot, a big one, uh, like cream cheese, for example, uh, things that need to be temperature regulated. And then you need to like label your things, your, your items, and say that this was made in a home kitchen and not in a, in a, uh, inspected kitchen and all that.

[00:11:34] Chris Spear: Where are you located? What state are you in? 

[00:11:37] Maria Baradell: I'm in Dallas, Texas. 

[00:11:38] Chris Spear: Okay. Yeah, I'm, so here in Maryland, I've already looked at them and have a pretty good understanding. It's a lot of like the moisture activity, like they don't even want things like fruit in your breads. You can't be making a buttercream, a cream cheese icing, any of that kind of stuff, but I could do cookies, basic breads, things of that nature around here.

[00:11:58] Chris Spear: I know a lot of states also [00:12:00] regulate how much income you can make, like, per year, how much money, so I would recommend everyone check that out in their local areas, but I think that's a great place, um, obviously to start. So, you started this business. Where did you start? Like when you really were like, okay, I'm doing this.

[00:12:17] Chris Spear: Like what were, I want to hear what you did. And then also what would you recommend people do? Like, is there something that you put a lot of time and effort into? And in hindsight, if you started over again, like you'd do it a little differently. 

[00:12:29] Maria Baradell: So, um, when I started, I. Um, I was doing something called drops, which are you familiar with that?

[00:12:38] Chris Spear: No, not really. 

[00:12:40] Maria Baradell: Yeah. So the first time I heard about drops was when my teenage son was like, mom, you need to buy a, I was buying him some, some clothes for Christmas and he's like, you need to buy it this day at this time, or it's going to be gone. It's a drop. It's like a limited edition. Oh, got it. 

[00:12:57] Chris Spear: Yeah.

[00:12:57] Chris Spear: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. 

[00:12:59] Maria Baradell: And so. [00:13:00] I missed the date, I mean, because I was like, Oh, I'll buy it later when it's like Black Friday, and it was gone and he was very sad. So, uh, then, uh, I do something that is called drops for like, uh, bakers use this method, which is that I use a platform like hot plate and there are others.

[00:13:24] Maria Baradell: But my favorite is hot plate and it, you can go in there and say, I'm going to make this amount of goods. So for example, I'm going to have available 25 breads. Or some people make ice cream or some people make cookies or different things. And this week, the flavors are these. You have your menu and people go and buy and they can pay right away on the app.

[00:13:51] Maria Baradell: And then you know how much you're making. So I'd really like that. I will set it up for, um, to open my menu [00:14:00] on Saturday and then people can order until Tuesday. That's when I close. And then I know how much I need to make. Wednesday. It's my dough day, I call it the dough day, I make all of the dough, I do all of the coil folds, all of that is like a very long process, like almost 12 hours.

[00:14:20] Maria Baradell: And then the next day is my bake day on Thursday, and then people come and pick it up from my house Thursday evening. And, uh, in terms of the processes and like what I did. Go from, you know, from starting to a, like having my business really blooming. So once I started getting a lot of orders, you have to figure out how am I going to bake all of these without spending all day in the kitchen and.

[00:14:57] Maria Baradell: You have not made sourdough before, but if you [00:15:00] were, you will know that, uh, you can bake it using Dutch ovens. And so you can only really feed two Dutch ovens at once in your oven, in a home oven. Or some people do open bake, uh, and you might be able to feed maybe four of them at once in your oven. If you push it, maybe eight.

[00:15:21] Maria Baradell: And so I figured out a method where I can use loaf pans. It's the classic artisan recipe of sourdough, but I put it in a loaf pan and then I put another loaf pan on top and we call that the two pan method. So I use two loaf pans and I'm able to fit 12 at once in my oven and I have a double wall oven so I can bake 24 at once.

[00:15:50] Maria Baradell: And when I first started, I started seeing all these, uh, other micro bakers who do bread and they have this, uh, commercial [00:16:00] bread oven and they will turn their living room into another living room, their, uh, formal dining or a spare bedroom or their office in their house into a bakery. And I thought that that was so dreamy, but that oven is like 9, 000.

[00:16:18] Maria Baradell: And when you're starting out, you're like, uh, I don't want to, I just started making money. I don't want to like start making payments and like basically work for the oven rather than the oven working for me. So I didn't want to do that. So figuring out this method of baking 12, 24 at once in my home oven was really life changing because now something that will have taken me all day baking two at once.

[00:16:48] Maria Baradell: Now it only takes me one hour. 

[00:16:51] Chris Spear: I love that. There's, there's so much, there's so much there. First of all, I mean, I think, I think the drops is great because in my mind, I'm thinking, Am I going to make 20 loaves of bread and hope that [00:17:00] I sell them? Which then you're just like wasting time and money and effort.

[00:17:03] Chris Spear: So it's the pre orders, which makes sense. I totally understand the Dutch oven. While I haven't done sourdough, I've done like the Jim Lahey bread where it's like in the cast iron Dutch oven and use parchment in there and all that. And I can realistically fit four maybe in my oven. Cause I have two, just two shelves.

[00:17:21] Chris Spear: And I don't even know that I could fit two side by side in that traditional Dutch oven there. So again, like trying to figure out how this would work in my home. I have one oven. It doesn't make sense for me to be making four loaves of bread at a time. But I love that. That method. So are your loaves smaller than a typical loaf of sourdough or are they just shaped differently?

[00:17:42] Maria Baradell: They are just shaped differently. Yeah, they are 900 grams. And the most typical recipe that you find online is like 960 grams. So it's slightly smaller, but it really, once I package it, it feels the same size because of [00:18:00] the way it rises. So it does like, It's taller, but it's just 900 grams and people really love it because then you can slice it much easier than the typical round shape and you can use it way easier for sandwiches or toast and it's way easier to store as well, like in a bread box, it fits just better.

[00:18:28] Maria Baradell: It fits better in the toaster. 

[00:18:31] Chris Spear: Oh yeah, there's no way to fit those. I love a big artisan boule, but like, the first five slices, you know, they're very tiny, and then they're kind of tiny, and then they get medium, and like, if you're making sandwiches for the family, everyone's sandwich is a different size and shape because the loaf of bread isn't consistent, so, uh, another benefit to going with the loaf there.

[00:18:52] Chris Spear: Well, you had You had said you didn't want to spend 9, 000 on an oven, but what do you think the must haves? Like, if someone [00:19:00] has a couple hundred bucks, they want to start this thing, where is money best spent? And it doesn't have to be on physical tools, it could be on a, I don't know, a book or a service or something, but if someone has some money to spend, where do you think they should put that money if they're just getting started?

[00:19:15] Maria Baradell: Yeah, I think that's a great question because there are lots of, um, online marketplaces where you can find things really affordably, like, for example, I buy a lot of things from Timo and it's great. I buy a lot of my packaging. So that's something that you need. That's a must. And the first thing I will say you need to buy is packaging because you can bake using the pans you might already have in your home.

[00:19:45] Maria Baradell: Uh, you might need to buy a few more if you are planning to bake in bulk. But at first, when you are just starting, you are only getting one, two orders at a time. So if we're talking about when you first start, then maybe [00:20:00] you don't need to buy anything, like any more pan and all that. Yeah. So you can buy in bulk and it comes out really cheap.

[00:20:07] Maria Baradell: Um, yeah, I will say that that's the first thing, but. Then once you start growing, then in my case, if you're baking the way I'm baking and you're dedicated to making bread, then a loaf pans, some people start investing in bannetons. I don't do bannetons, which is like the basket you use to proof the bread in the fridge.

[00:20:31] Maria Baradell: And that's something else that's great about this method is that I put the dough directly in the loaf pan and I put the loaf pan in the fridge. So that saves me another step, but it also saves me money because I don't need to spend in bannetons. So. That's great. 

[00:20:50] Chris Spear: I love finding the ways to, you know, I call it bootstrapping.

[00:20:53] Chris Spear: It's, as a personal chef, it's the same thing. I see a lot of people spending money on silly things. Like I provide all my [00:21:00] own China and I say, you know, go to Goodwill. Like people are always donating whole sets of like really beautiful looking stuff and you can get 'em for nothing. Or even places like Ikea or you know, but just you can go pick up.

[00:21:12] Chris Spear: Used mixing bowls and used pots and pans for like dollars. You don't need to be buying all this fancy stuff, like focus on starting to make some profit early on so that you can keep this thing going and then you can invest more and more. I will say that good equipment was huge for me, like getting a commercial food processor for my business, getting a Vitamix, you know.

[00:21:35] Chris Spear: A KitchenAid mixer, I, they last, I've had mine since 1998 and it's still going strong, you know, and I haven't had to do any repairs. So I would say like whatever business you're in, quite often there is, you know, two, 300, 400 for like one specialized piece of equipment is money well spent. 

[00:21:53] Maria Baradell: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:55] Maria Baradell: I did, and that's a good point because I did spend nearly [00:22:00] 1, 300 in a mixer. So I didn't want to spend money in the oven, but I did, it got to a point where mixing all of that dough by hand was too much and it wasn't getting mixed well enough because when you are mixing in bulk, then the flour wasn't getting mixed well enough.

[00:22:17] Maria Baradell: So I had to invest in a mixer. But that's funny because that's the purchase that I regret the most. Yes. And so I, I, now I tell bakers, like I've been telling bakers, like, maybe you don't have to buy a big commercial oven. You can bake it using this other method. And now I'm telling bakers, like, maybe you don't need to spend your money on this huge mixer because of several reasons.

[00:22:46] Maria Baradell: Like. The batches are too big and they are so heavy. That it burned me out. Like I, I felt like I didn't want to do that. And it was hard on my body. It [00:23:00] was hard mentally and emotionally to be carrying those big tubs that were like, I don't know, like 40 pounds each and, um, then different reasons. Like I couldn't add my inclusions in the bean because the batch was too big.

[00:23:15] Maria Baradell: I had to like divide it first and then the batches ferment way faster if they are larger. So I do think that having smaller batches is better. So now I'm telling bakers like you should get a mixer like the Bosch mixer, which is being around for, since the seventies, like there are people that are saying to me, Oh, my mom has one and it's still works, so I'm going to ask my mom for her mixer so that they can, you know, mix bread and you can mix six at a time in a matter of two, three minutes.

[00:23:54] Maria Baradell: And then add it to the bin, make six more, add it to the same bin. And then [00:24:00] you have a batch of 12, and I think that a batch of 12 is way more manageable than a batch of 25. 

[00:24:08] Chris Spear: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. 

[00:24:09] Maria Baradell: Yeah. So I think, and that, and that mixer, you can get it for under 400. So. I think that that's a way better investment, and now I'm selling my big mixer.

[00:24:20] Chris Spear: Well, that's great insight. That's the kind of stuff that, um, I love hearing because I would assume that it would make sense to go buy the bigger one. So hearing that maybe that's not quite where you want to be is, I think, good advice. 

[00:24:33] Maria Baradell: Yeah. Um, cleaning that big bowl, it's not removable. It's the type that is like the fixed part mixer.

[00:24:41] Maria Baradell: So it was a nightmare. It is a nightmare. I just don't use it anymore, but it's still there. I have to sell it. And so cleaning a smaller bowl is way easier. 

[00:24:53] Chris Spear: So. One of the things I'm always curious about, and I've talked to a lot of people about this, is how viable [00:25:00] is this as a profitable business that you could make money at, like it were any other job?

[00:25:06] Chris Spear: And we don't have to talk numbers, but I guess my point is I know so many people who do this, quite a few have a really good social media following. It looks like they're really successful, but I know them personally, and I know they're out there hustling, doing a night job as a line cook, or maybe even working at like a Barnes Noble because, It's not netting a lot of money.

[00:25:25] Chris Spear: I mean, even the very beautiful. You know, loaves of bread I buy from my friend, they're 9. You have to sell a lot of bread at 9 to make money. And, and this is also for people who are like, maybe at a job. Let's say you're making 50, a year and you want to quit to become a home baker. Like. What is the realistic expectation for doing something like this?

[00:25:47] Chris Spear: Not like it's a side hustle or my spouse makes tons of money so I can just do this. And it's like some fun side money. Can you talk a little bit about the viability of this as an actual money making endeavor? 

[00:25:59] Maria Baradell: [00:26:00] Yes, absolutely. I love that question. Um, If you want to grow, you will need to hire people because you, and I, if this is something that I do talk about, because when you first start, you are like, you want to go all in and you want to buy the big oven and the big mixer, because you are thinking, Oh, the orders are picking up.

[00:26:21] Maria Baradell: I need to invest. I need to grow. And what happened to me, and it's happened to a lot of bakers in my com, in the sourdough community is that. Once, I baked 100 loaves one time and I almost quit. It was so hard, I was like I cried. I had like two mental breakdowns that day. I was so exhausted for like two, three days after.

[00:26:47] Maria Baradell: It was so hard. So 

[00:26:48] Chris Spear: that was one day you did a hundred lo you did a hundred loaves in one day? 

[00:26:52] Maria Baradell: Yes. It was actually 120. Oh wow. Yeah, it was so much. And I've done that maybe a couple [00:27:00] times, uh, like. I had a, I guess I forgot how bad it was. And then I did it again, like a couple months later. And I was like, what am I doing?

[00:27:10] Maria Baradell: This is horrible. So I decided that I was going to. Cap my orders at 60 or 66, which is like the, I was making when I was using that big, uh, mixer batches of 22. So like around 60, 66 breads. Um, now here's the thing I'm 37, right? I'm not old or anything, but, uh, there are a lot of bakers who you see with a lot of followers and they are in their twenties.

[00:27:41] Maria Baradell: And they have like all this stamina, like, you know, I have five kids too. Some of them might have only two, they might have no kids, right? So they can be baking a hundred, 120, and that's easy for them. Once a week, you only have dough day, bake day. So then you can rest four [00:28:00] days, five days. Right. But for me, it was not doable.

[00:28:04] Maria Baradell: So I decided 60. Now, if you. Want to grow, whether you have kids or not, or it doesn't matter your age, but if you, you know, your capacity is this much and you want to grow, then you have to start hiring help. And as a home baker, that's a whole challenge, right? Because then you have to bring people into your home and they will have to like use your kitchen and be there with you.

[00:28:32] Maria Baradell: And, and it's, it's different, right? It's not for everybody. It was definitely not for me. So I decided to keep it small and I've gone into other things, which we can speak about, but, um, if for people who want to just do this, the baking and the cooking, then they do need to grow in that direction of hiring help and then eventually.

[00:28:55] Maria Baradell: Getting a commercial space or like a commercial kitchen where they can [00:29:00] do this from. 

[00:29:01] Chris Spear: And does it make sense and everyone's different, obviously, but does it make sense to diversify your offerings? Because what I do see is a lot of people start with the breads and then it's like, Oh, well, we'll add bagels in or maybe dinner rolls or now I'm doing a focaccia.

[00:29:16] Chris Spear: And then it's like, Oh, I'm already baking and I have this business. Like, let's add cookies into the mix. It's like. I know you're in a community and you talk to a lot of people. What are you seeing and what are your personal opinions on that? 

[00:29:26] Maria Baradell: That is a great question because I love sourdough because it's three ingredients.

[00:29:31] Maria Baradell: It's flour, water, and salt. And so it's a long process of two days and lots of hours to get the dough just right. But it's one dough. Once you start making enriched dough, like for sandwich loaves, for brioche, for, um, croissants, for, um, and then you have other things like cookies and muffins and scones, they have butter.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Maria Baradell: They have sugar, they have eggs, then you're talking about more ingredients you have to buy. You're talking about more mess and more overwhelm and like more cleaning and more like, you know, I don't know. I'm just thinking of the kitchen like having like the, the croissants over here and the, the bread over here and the cookies over there, like all the mixing and all the mixers.

[00:30:24] Maria Baradell: It's just overwhelming. So I like to keep it at just the bread. Um, and that's what works for me because my community, just the bread, like they are buying a lot of it, but some different people, like if your speciality is like the cookies or other things, then you might want to offer those. And if that's what it's selling the most in your community, then you should definitely start there or offer those.

[00:30:51] Maria Baradell: Um, but you have to take into account like more ingredients. It's more mess, more cleaning, more overwhelm. So it's, [00:31:00] it's really up to you. 

[00:31:01] Chris Spear: How do you balance all of the business stuff with the baking? Because the baking, I know you, it sounds like you have a couple set days for things, but are you setting aside days to do the bookkeeping or the ordering?

[00:31:14] Chris Spear: Or, um, I want to keep social media separate cause that's a whole other thing I want to get into, but there's so much that comes along with running a business besides just the actual baking. How are you managing your time? 

[00:31:25] Maria Baradell: I think that using a platform like Hotplate helps a lot and that's the only way I sell it because then all of the like the income is there in one place and then just by setting up a business account.

[00:31:41] Maria Baradell: Then I know that all of my expenses come from this account and my money whenever I do the transfer from Hotplate, it goes into this account. So that keeps the bookkeeping really simple. Um, and I do use a system, uh, that does the, like [00:32:00] all of the documents for you. Honestly, it's not something that people If you are good at doing that, those things by yourself and you have the time and you want to do it, that's great, but there are online services that you can pay and they do everything for you.

[00:32:16] Maria Baradell: So I think that's worth it to me. Um, so that's one way. And then, um, what else besides bookkeeping? A big part of my business is social media. So I do spend a lot of time doing that. But if you want, we can speak. Well, let's, let's 

[00:32:33] Chris Spear: talk about that. Yeah, no social media. I mean, you have a large following on Instagram.

[00:32:37] Chris Spear: You're all over the internet. When, when did that start? Like, when did you bring social media into your marketing plan and start putting things out there? And how has that grown for you? 

[00:32:48] Maria Baradell: Yeah. So I started selling in February and I was selling from my. Own personal accounts and one [00:33:00] time a customer wanted to tag me to say how good the bread was and she was like, Oh, but your account is private.

[00:33:06] Maria Baradell: So I cannot tag it. And so that moved me to creating a, a public Instagram account. And then I just started sharing there my regular baking, you know, activities. And other bakers started finding my content because of the way I was baking and they really liked it and they, they will try it, the Tupan method.

[00:33:30] Maria Baradell: And then they will tag me and, and other bakers will try it and then tag me, et cetera. And so. It became this whole thing, so that's one thing. And then the other thing that helped my business grow is that I got creative. Uh, I, I mixed a loaf of bread in an airplane. And people lost their mind over that, and I learned that you shouldn't do that.[00:34:00]

[00:34:00] Maria Baradell: Sorry. Um, I thought that it wasn't a big deal because in the airplane, and I did do my research on this, they serve crackers and bread and pasta. So I didn't think that it would be a big deal, but apparently something about the flour going airborne in the close air system. People lost their minds about that.

[00:34:25] Maria Baradell: So that went viral. And I did get a lot of coverage for that, and I got a lot of followers for that too, actually, so lots of hate, but also a lot of followers from that. 

[00:34:41] Chris Spear: I'm sure there was a lot of the gluten celiac people who just totally lost their mind. I can, I can almost imagine what the comments were like.

[00:34:48] Maria Baradell: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They lost it. And then I, I, I understand. I understand. I'm sorry. But, um, my content, I make bread content and my [00:35:00] audience loved it. They thought it was such a great idea, right? And so that's what I was thinking. I also had good intentions. I wanted to make a mix set so that when I arrived in Spain with my sister, it will be ready to bake.

[00:35:13] Maria Baradell: And so, and I wanted to like. Make it for her because she had not experienced my bread. So it was like good intentions and it was for my audience, but I didn't think of. Those other things, right? And people were like, oh, airplanes are nasty. And actually we came to, uh, realize that lots of pilots and, um, air, uh, crew commented as well saying like, they go through trainings on this and the airplane air is actually the cleanest air there is because they have to purify it so much in order to even be allowed to fly.

[00:35:53] Maria Baradell: So it's actually really clean. And I was. I had like a, [00:36:00] a disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer and all that. But yeah, people are like, no, still gross. 

[00:36:08] Chris Spear: That's amazing. I've never heard anything like that, but you know, it, um, it did what I think you probably want it to do. And maybe then some, do you think, um, giving away product is a great way when you're starting a business?

[00:36:21] Chris Spear: Like, should you just make some loaves and give them away and have people give you feedback on them? 

[00:36:27] Maria Baradell: Yeah, absolutely. That's pretty much how we all start out, and I do think that you need that feedback. Like, especially with sourdough, if you don't get the fermentation right, it might be, the bread might be dense.

[00:36:42] Maria Baradell: It might be, you know, not the right flavor. It should be like sour, but not overly sour or something like that. So I do think that giving away bread is a great way to get feedback and also get people wanting to buy from you. 

[00:36:58] Chris Spear: Great. Well, that's kind [00:37:00] of what I was thinking is, um, I've seen a few people do this, although no one's ever given me free bread.

[00:37:05] Chris Spear: So I guess I'm just hanging out with the wrong people. 

[00:37:07] Maria Baradell: Yeah, I think so. I might need to send you some. 

[00:37:11] Chris Spear: Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciated having you on today. 

[00:37:14] Maria Baradell: Thank you for having me. This has been really fun. 

[00:37:17] Chris Spear: And to all of our listeners, this is Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants.

[00:37:20] Chris Spear: Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. You're still here? The podcast's over! If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place, and that's chefswithoutrestaurants. org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter, get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef, catering, and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads.

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[00:37:59] Chris Spear: As always, you can [00:38:00] reach out to me on Instagram at chefswithoutrestaurants or send me an email at chefswithoutrestaurants at gmail dot com. Thanks so much.