Would you share you most prized recipe?

If you don't live in Maryland please feel free to share with me

I think it would be very sweet and generous of you to share with someone, especially if they won't be your competition! You should feel flattered that someone likes your creation so much they want to use it!

I'm confused. Is the OP is asking us to send her our most prized recipes? Or is she thinking of giving someone else her recipes? Personally, I worked long and hard and paid for plenty of ingredients to perfect my recipes and I'm not giving them to anyone. Except maybe my niece. But only maybe.

I would share recipes and I have - hasn't affected my business at all !

Yes, I worked long and hard to perfect them.... BUT I have also benefited from 'tutorials' or 'how-to's' along the way - all given to the global cake decorating community for FREE

A recipe is only a blank canvas for a decorater - and 7 bakers can make the same recipe and have 7 different results

I don't see a problem

I do it all the time and my business keeps growing and growing. Goodwill goes much farther than holding on to a recipe. We all have "prized" recipes. They are as plentiful as there are bakers. In this age of the world wide web, no one needs any baker's recipe when so many are so willing to share their great finds and creations.

My business was built on goodwill and I can trace every growth spurt and branch of new business to sharing, giving, helping, etc.

I have given recipes, even my best, to all who have asked in pm's for the last two years. I wish them the best with those recipes, whether they are for retail or personal use.

We all have phenomenal recipes. What we do with the structure of or businesses and how we conduct business will determine success or failure, not some secret recipe. And honestly, any great baker can taste a dessert, analyze it, and come close to duplicating it, most of the time making it better than the original.

So keep your recipes to yourself. No one really needs them with so many others happy to share.

Past customers have asked me but I haven't given them up because then they won't get cake from me!! However, I have no problem sharing my recipes and offer suggestions to fellow bakers on cake decorating forums I have some recipes that are my best sellers and if another baker is looking for that same flavor I always share

If anyone is willing to share any of their recipes that would be cool

My most popular one is the one in my signature!

Yes, a few of us on here have done that....
I don't mind sharing with other Cakers.....
However i do draw the line with customers......

Bluehue

Customers can use Google to find my recipes anyway

As I said, I really don't think just having a recipe is going to lose you a customer. If they could bake AND decorate the way we do then they could/would make their own cakes. The number of capable cake decoraters has increased ... oh I don't know about 500% over the past 10 years - when I first started cake decorating we were few and far between - now it seems every man and his dog AND the dogs fleas is doing cake decorating in one shape or another. People can purchase ready-made AND coloured fondant, tools that make caking a punch and press game, they can purchase toppers from Etsy/Ebay, cheap asian made gumpaste flowers and any number of other aids to make cake decorating something the average Mum can do.

All of this SHOULD mean that there is less work out there for all - but instead what HAS happened is that more and more people are wanting 'designer cakes' for all sorts of ocassions and sometimes 'just because'. There is a bit of a problem with people being so eager to make a cake that they are not only prepared to do it cheap - they offen unknowlingly end up paying somebody to take the cake (ie spend more than they charge)

Taking all of this into account - my business has still remained static over the years - I have slowed down at times when my life priorities changed and picked up again when I chose.

You've always been more than generous with your recipes, and I have always loved comparing notes with you!! Thank you

Well if you are looking at webpages then you are looking at shared recipes. The idea of a "swap" kinda doesn't hoid when they are all posted online.

People use www.google.com to find just about everything that has ever been written down. Google has gone out of their way to make that happen. If you want a recipe, try google. You will get more recipes than you can bake in a year. Of course there's no guarantee that they will be any good.

Given your emphasis on goodwill and generosity I am curious why you require people to ask for your recipes. This board has seen you used the freely published work of others to make some of your prized creations and then keep it close to the chest so that you can make money of it. Sure you indicated that you would share with anyone who asked but they still have to ask which means you still control where the recipe goes. Indeed this is simply a matter of degree you still attempt to assert control, less control but control nonetheless.

And that is fine, however, I findthat you are disapproving of others who choose to keep recipes to themselves, particularly when some of your creations are indebted to the freely published work of others. If generosity and goodwill are your benchmarks then there is simply no reason to require others to ask.

gator, I always know that you take every opportunity to oppose anything I post. I am used to it.

But for your information, I will tell you why I do it the way I do.

First, I know that the people who consistently make a habit of just posting the opposite of what I post, no matter which side I'm on (yes, we all know who are in that "opposite of scp group"), I am assured of never having to share with that group that I have no desire to share with.

Second, my business is growing exponentially, opening my retail store in about 8 weeks in the most desired spot in the city. My site and my store will be much more high profile and I have always planned to post more recipes on my site. I do not want searches to come to CC. When I am ready, the searches will be to my site.

Which leads to the third reason. CC threads and posts eventually become search results. When a recipe is shared publicly, it is shared worldwide. I control the recipes from being public by sharing in pm's.

Fourth, I have written two books that I will consider publishing after my store has been open and I expand from there. By sharing in pm's and all of those who have received them have been kind enough not to publish, I still have control over which I will publish on my site and which will be shared in a possible book. By the way, neither book is a cookbook.

But in the mean time, I have no issues with sharing with the great people I have met on CC and any customer or friend that needs a good recipe.

I still maintain that there are an infinite number of great recipes on the web. If you can read a recipe and determine the outcome, it becomes very easy to see just how many incredible recipes are being shared. One person's recipes are not the Holy Grail of recipes. There are too many great bakers out there.

Sharing, giving, helping, teaching... these are all of the things we can do to promote our businesses on a personal, and sometimes one-on-one level. I have seen this form of business growth prove successful so many times in my career. My father was the greatest promoter of goodwill I have ever encountered. I learned it from him. His businesses and his life were a testament of someone who always went the extra mile and always was willing to give. Goodwill really comes from the heart and wanting to give and share. I don't think you can do it by greedily planning it to be a marketing tool.

I'm not preaching and I don't really care what anyone else does. I will be doing a diary blog on my site detailing how I came into the opportunity to open my retail store. I hit the jackpot with this opportunity. And every turn of events can be traced to something I did that was good for someone else or good for someone else's business. Even in my negotiations, thinking of other surrounding businesses and how we affect each other has been a top priority for me. And I am being repaid in kind.

I won't share the blog about the shop for about another month. The shop will open the last week of October or the first week of November.

I practice what I share and my growth in a very short period of time validates my knowledge in the subject.


Evoir, and I am always amazed at your incredible talent.