Or, how many decisions can one person make about butter?
There are a lot of things I expected when Ann said she wanted to open a bakery.
Early mornings. A lot of baking. Probably a lot of cookies.
What I didn’t expect was how many decisions it would take to get there.
Not big decisions. Not the obvious ones like “where should the bakery be” or “what should we call it.” Those happen early. They’re almost easy by comparison.
It’s everything after that.
What kind of butter.
What kind of chocolate.
How much salt is too much salt.
What happens if you change one ingredient by a few grams.
I’ve learned that baking, at this level, is less about creativity and more about precision. You don’t just make something and move on. You make it, taste it, adjust it, and then make it again.
And again.
There have been cookies that were “almost right” that got remade five or six times. Not because they weren’t good, but because they weren’t exactly what she was looking for.
That’s the part I didn’t fully understand at the beginning. This isn’t about making something good. It’s about making something consistent. Something that holds up every time.
From the outside, it looks like a bakery is just a place that sells cookies and cupcakes.
From the inside, it’s hundreds of small decisions that most people will never see.
But they’ll taste them.
