Hiiii! Happy December! I feel like I have so much to update you on, a lot has been happening, so this blogpost will be some interesting updates and a story! SO. Yesterday, I had my first bake sale!! It went so well, but was an extremely stressful process, and I wanted to write about it in case anyone needs bake sale tips, or wants to go behind the scenes of mine!
But before I get into that, I wanted to talk about how it’s almost this blog’s ONE YEAR anniversary!!! I seriously can’t believe all the stuff that has happened in one year. This blog and baking has become such a big part of my life, even as quarantine and online school has ended. I love everything about having Yummy Vegan Bakes and can’t wait to see it grow even more!
Okay so. In October, my mom signed us up to share a table at a pop up sale (she was there selling her amazing books), and I was sooo excited. I made a whole plan involving maybe 8 or 9 different types of bakes, and seriously WAY to much work, and eventually shortened it down and got a list of 6 different treats, including lots of chocolates. I still feel like I gave myself too much work with that, so if you are ever planning a bake sale, variety is great but only take on what you know you can handle. I somehow did manage to pull everything off, but it was so hard.
The bake sale was on (yesterday) Saturday, so the extreme baking started after school on Wednesday. One of the main things that was hard was balancing school and baking, because after school I’m always so drained (emotionally/mentally/physically), but the excitement of selling the things I baked was what helped me get energy. Wednesday was chocolate day, where I made chai chocolate and coconut chocolate truffles, and hot cocoa bombs, and it was going pretty well, but tempering chocolate is SO HARD and most of the hot cocoa bombs I made had lots of holes because they broke. This stressed me out so much, because it meant I had to do more chocolatiering on Thursday, so Wednesday evening I was a wreck. I was not very far into ALL this work I’d given myself, and things were already going wrong.
After that, Thursday (cookie day!) somehow went extremely well. I redid the hot cocoa bombs and they worked, and I made 2 types of cookie dough and croissant dough. Even though Thursdays at school are really hard, and I was exausted that day from my breakdown the day before, I got through it! Friday was kind of the same, it was “dough day” and I laminated croissants, made cinnamon rolls, and also made some doughnut dough for a special order! I was so excited/nervous for Saturday morning, because that was the day I had to bake everything, and then of course sell it.
I woke up Saturday at 6 am, and my dad (who used to work early morning shifts at a cafe) helped me shape croissants and doughnuts, rise everything, and eventually bake everything. Yesterday morning was really amazing, it was pretty much just my family helping in every way to do all the packaging, baking, decorating, and work that I’d given myself and procrastinated doing until the last second.
And then it was time for the bake sale! It was in this very talented clay artist’s yard with only me, her, and my mom, and I was very scared that barely anyone would come and want to buy from me, but once it started I was definitely proved wrong. Lots of people, and all my amazing friends who I had invited, came and bought stuff. Even halfway through I had already sold out of croissants! Some people even came back for more, and a few people bought a variety of almost everything I was selling. Hot cocoa bombs, even though they caused me the most stress, were definitely the most popular (closely followed by croissants) and cinnamon rolls were somehow the least. I was glad that people loved the bakes and said that it was cool that they were vegan, though one person was going to buy a croissant and when they learned it was vegan they changed their mind. Kind of sad, but I guess vegan treats aren’t for everyone. Anyways, after 3 very amazing, rainy, and cold hours, the bake sale was over, and I was so relieved and proud.
I did get all the credit, but my amazing parents and brother helped so much, with the baking and boosting my confidence. Also, thank you SOO much if you are reading this and came to my sale, it means a lot! I’ve been thinking about starting to take orders for YVB, and this experience was so amazing that I might start doing something like that. Anyway, thank you for reading, I’ll attach a gallery of the highlights of yesterday, though sorry I didn’t get that many good photos of me and my bakes! I hope you enjoyed this very long retelling of my first bake sale!