When people ask for your recipes

I've spent years developing some of my recipes. And since every baker bakes differently, what works for me might not work the same way for someone else. For those reasons, I prefer not to share my recipes. If she's a true friend, she'll understand and not press the issue. If she's not, she doesn't need my recipes anyway.

I direct people to publicly available recipes (online or in recipe books), letting them know that while I can't give out our proprietary recipes, the publicly available recipe should work.

I agree with Jason. I tell them the name of the cake and tell them to google it!

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This is a question that always comes up when I teach how to start a home-based food business. I tell my students to Never Never Never give out their recipes, This is how they make money. Some requesters understand but others can get a little testy. My suggestion is to answer in the affirmative. "Yes, when I am no longer in business I can give you the recipe." Or, "Thank you so much. I'm glad you like my recipe. When I stop making that item I will give you a copy."

I just laugh and say "if I told you that I'd have to kill you"

I don't, the majority of my recipes come from my grandmother and my great grandmother. When I decided to open a small home bakery (just like my grandmother but she does dainties, and cookies) she told I could use her recipes as long as a certain percentage of each cake went into a savings account for my kids It's worked out really well actually. And I love my Gma!

I NEVER share recipes, only references to cookbooks.

And after I loaned my most expensive cake book, it never came home...so I do not lend books any longer. Tell people to search for them on abebooks.com the prices are very reasonable (that's where I get many books).

I quit sharing recipes when I realized that a lot of people don't follow them anyway - you see it all the time on some baking/cooking sites. It's funny to read comments that say, "Instead of ABC, I did XYZ and this was the worst recipe ever!"

I only share few recipes that can be found easly online too.
If is a friend I usually I say -Sorry I dont give out my recipes, but u can check this website out, it's really good"; If is a stranger I just ignore the request.

I have learnt the hard way not to give out recipe's, something I used to have no problem with. In my experience, that unless someone is actually standing in your kitchen and miming every movement the cake will not turn out the same even though you have given them the recipe. This is due to different brands, cake pans, measuring cups, oven temperatures and timing. I used to give out recipe's no problem but after being accused more than once of specially leaving out some ingredients when the cake doesn't turn out identical I have hardened my heart (something I find hard to do bc it's not my nature) and now just say that bc it's business I can't/won't give out recipes. Most people understand this but you have the odd one who won't. I had a very good friend who has taken umbrage to this and is always asking me how to do this that and the other and when I deflect her questions she gets all offended and goes into a speech on how she is not going into competition with me etc etc and I somehow always end up telling her what she wants to know. Long story short, I have a much cooler relationship with her now bc of this; I feel if she was a good enough friend she wouldn't push it when I tell her (nicely, too nicely) no & then I wouldn't give in to her, tell her and then be furious with myself so I have found the easiest way to deal with the problem is to have a lot less contact with her which pains me.

That's a completely personal decision - if you want to and feel no hesitation, go for it! If you have really worked hard on your recipes and don't want to share, don't - especially if they're family recipes or ones you've come up with yourself through hard work - but after you've made your stance, DON'T WORRY ABOUT WHAT THE OTHERS WILL THINK! (Granted that can be the hardest part lol!) ;o) Don't let others pressure you into doing something you just don't want to!

I think it would be common sense, but sadly alot of people don't have it. Do you walk into McDonalds and say I love your xxxxx can you share the recipie? I tell my students to be upfront and let their customers know that they paid alot of money to train themselves and effort to perfect their recipies and as a business policy, they do not give them out- to be fair to all customers.

There's nothing wrong in sharing recipes, we do it all the time on CC. But when ur in buisness you have to be wise..giving out the recipe for your most requested cake to someone in your area that has an interst in getting into the cake buisness is like giving out your bank account number.