08/27/2026
I'll let you in on the worst kept secret among cottage bakers -
Most cottage bakers who sell any kind of volume freeze your product before you get it. It's quite common to prep a loaf of bread, or cinnamon rolls, bake them, and then wrap and freeze. On delivery/market day, the product is thawed, and sold.
As a customer, why should you care? As a paying customer you deserve to know how that product was made, stored, and when.
Does it degrade the quality: There are different opinions on if it enhances, degrades, or makes no difference in quality. My personal opinion is it dries out products, and has the potential to impart unwelcome flavors to baked goods regardless of how well wrapped. Wrapping prebake can also alter the volume of active yeast, so bakers will often up dose 10% to take that into account.
Why do some bakeries do this? Most cottage bakers are solo entrepreneurs, where this is a side hustle/hobby, using home equipment. If they needed to produce 30-40 loaves in a 12-24 time period right before a farmers market, there's not a real feasible way to do that, short of renting commercial kitchen space.
In FB groups, I always advocate for transparency with consumers, and always serve products that were freshly baked within the previous 8-12 hours (usually much fresher as many of my regulars can attest).
When buying from anyone, I would always ask when was this made, and was it frozen at any point in the process (especially if post baking). Once you know that, you can make an informed decision.
