Guides

Practical, plain-English guides for running a home bakery, written by people who do it. No fluff, no legalese, and a clear note wherever you need to verify something with your local authority.

• Cake order form template

  Every question a custom order form needs, ready to copy, and the four that quietly cause most of the problems. Works in any form tool.

• Deposit policy wording you can copy

  The same policy in four lengths, for a bio, a DM, an order form and an invoice. Plus the messages to send when someone cancels.

• Keeping track of custom orders that arrive as DMs

  Why an inbox stops working somewhere around ten orders a week, what to ask up front so the back-and-forth ends, and how to move off DMs without losing the customers you already have.

• Cottage food label laws by the numbers

  What 61 governments actually require, counted: how many mandate exact wording, how many set a minimum type size, and how many require no statement at all. Two thirds of Canadian jurisdictions ask for no "not inspected" line, against 6% of US states.

• Home kitchen label rules, province by province and state by state

  What goes on a label wherever you bake, who to ask in your own province or state, and a link straight to their rules. All 64 jurisdictions in one directory.

• Selling home baking in Alberta: what's legal and what's not

  What you can sell from a home kitchen, what needs a commercial kitchen, how labels work, and where to confirm the details with AHS and your municipality.

• What to charge for custom baking

  How to cost a batch exactly, why "three times ingredients" breaks on decorated work, and the one sum that tells you what your price is really paying you per hour.

• e-Transfer for a home bakery

  Autodeposit, security questions, and how to tell three $50 transfers apart on a Saturday. What the rail is good at, and the three things it will never do for you.

• Deposit policies that stick

  How much to ask for, how to word the policy, and how to stop no-shows without scaring off good customers.

• Selling home baking in Ontario

  Ontario's rules for low-risk home-prepared foods, explained the same way: plainly, with sources.