Over the past few months I have had a lot people leave comments on my blog asking me to send them my recipes, especially for the giant cupcake (even though the tin comes with a recipe). This has been a tough one for me. I don’t like to disappoint but this is my business, it’s how I earn my living now. I put the question out to my twitter followers who overwhelmingly responded that I should not share my recipes. Some suggested that maybe I could do some mini tutorials or maybe offer to sell recipe sheets. Some even suggested I write a book – maybe one for the future! 🙂
Anyway, I hope this doesn’t make me seem mean and unapproachable, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I will put together some small tutorials in the new year for those of you who are interested and I am also looking into starting my own classes too.
In the meantime, I am happy to offer a tip to those of you who like baking. A lot of my basic sponge mixes are based on weighing the eggs before you start and using the same weight in each of butter, self raising flour and caster sugar. This always produces a lovely sponge cake or cupcakes. You can add a little baking powder too for a light, fluffy sponge cake.
10 comments
Joanna says:
Dec 7, 2009
I don’t think you should share your recipes, no but I do think that perhaps giving some baking tips, hints, tricks etc might be helpful and nice for people to read.
balloonbaboon says:
Dec 7, 2009
I agree with Joanna. Keep your recipes but baking tips would be great – as well as classes. That would be one that that I think could well take off.
Rebecca Jones says:
Dec 7, 2009
Hi,
I agree with the twitterers, you should keep the recipes to yourself. Especially if the success of your business depends on it.
My biggest hobby is baking and I spend time looking for new and tasty recipes. If I come across somebody who wishes to keep their recipe a secret, I really don’t mind! There are plenty of recipes out there, in books and on the internet.
Your cakes look lovely. :o)
Lizcupcakes says:
Dec 7, 2009
I agree with the tweets too. I wouldn’t give away any special recipes. The internet is absolutely full of recipes for cupcakes and Amazon full of books of recipes too. I think there are more than enough to go around already.
I was recently interviewed for a Greek national newspaper who asked for a recipe so I simply gave them one that anyone could find in a basic internet search. I also posted it on my blog. Similar to the ‘tip’ you just gave up above.
Definitely don’t give away any of your special recipes but if there is anything that anyone could find anywhere else easily, you could mention that you have used it successfully from time to time. Giving out tips and tutorials is also helpful to a lot of people who have no clue about baking.
Regards from a fellow baker.
Liz
Kirsty says:
Dec 7, 2009
Liz, and the others, are right. Keep your special recipes special.
Someone told me that tip about weighing the eggs before you start and using equal quantities of ingredients lately and I feel like I’ve found the holy grail. Perfect cakes every time.
Ask Delia says:
Dec 7, 2009
Perfectly reasonable not to give away your intellectual secrets! I love to look at the photos you post and then re-create your designs using my own recipe. As others have posted, theres plenty of books and internet recipe sites out there and a basic sponge recipe is not exactly difficult.
KnitCave says:
Dec 7, 2009
You are a business and part of your success relies on your own developed recipies. I agree with your commentors and tweetbuds
Your blog is interesting to read and I too have more than enough recipes to play with and adapt. However, I love the idea of hints and tips, even if they are just ones that can be found on the internet/in books.
Good luck with the classes and the books, if you do decide to do them.
amylane says:
Dec 8, 2009
Thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate that you’ve taken the time to let me know what you think. I’m glad that the general opinion is that I am not being mean by keeping some ‘secrets’ to myself! I shall definitely put my thinking cap on over the holiday season and come up with some tutorials – watch this space…
Graham White says:
Dec 14, 2009
This is a really interesting question for me, I find myself debating the benefits and drawbacks of what I can only describe as an “Open Source” cake 🙂
I completely understand the need to keep your recipes private but for me I’d be wondering about the benefits of sharing them too.
Perhaps a small experiment is necessary, why not think up a license you’d be happy to share a recipe under. It could,for example, have conditions placed upon it that the user not keep it private and also share any improvements they make on the recipe to the rest of the community (similar to the GPL license – Dale will explain that if you’re not sure), or that they provide feedback when they use it, etc. Try giving away just 1 recipe under these terms and you’ll be able to assess whether you’d want to do it again in the future.
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