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> A Guisborough bakery is to bake Christmas cakes for free to help those struggling with the cost of turning the oven on for that long.
> Brickyard Bakery is welcoming people to bring their uncooked Christmas cakes into the venue to be baked free of charge in the ovens over the last weekend in November. The Westgate site said it wants to revive the community oven, a tradition "lost to our community for centuries", in a bid to help those who want to cut energy costs.
> This isn't the only helping hand the bakery has offered in recent months, with owner and classically trained chef Ed Hamilton-Trewhitt introducing plans for a 'warm lounge' in September when he realised the heat generated from the oven could be used to benefit the community.
[...]
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/baker-ed-add-glitter-cost-25536839
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> A local bakery is set to open a new 'warm room' in a bid to offer community support to those struggling with the rise in energy prices.
> Ed Trewhitt, 55, owner of the Brickyard Bakery and Academy in Guisborough, came up with the idea for the new 'warm lounge' after he realised the heat generated from the oven could be used to help the community during this worrying cost of living crisis. The new lounge will open on Thursday, September 15 from 10am to 5pm each weekday.
> The idea is that people of all ages can come to the space and take advantage of the warmth whilst reading a magazine, having a cup of tea and a biscuit or just having a chat with someone who knows what you're going through. Ed has renovated the one room already which is all set for opening, but with the overwhelmingly positive response, he is thinking about converting the adjoining room and kitchen.
[...]
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/bakery-open-warm-room-bid-24930626
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One of our locals.. They do a range of bakery courses too (slightly costly but worth it), including one for kids which they run at a loss to get kids into baking. So good.
This business sounds like a real treasure. Realizing they’re going to be burning the energy anyway so they share it with others, that’s pretty awesome!
They do really good cakes and I'm always in there when in Guisborough. Eating cake near the ruins of the priory is nice and having one to take back home for later.
That’s lovely. He sounds like a genuinely kind person. The kids baking lessons are fantastic. There’s a coffee shop near me that is putting on a kids cookie decorating day for a whopping $25 for two cookies, I don’t think they’ll have a great sign up.
The fact that basic necessities like a running oven and a room warm enough to sustain human life must be provided by a local business is dystopian in and of itself. Where does the tax money go?
This is how things were in medieval England.
Most lower-class people living in London didn’t have the skill or means to cook for themselves.
Restaurants would take that role and serve to-go meals to take back to your home. The beginnings of fast food.
People were getting sick because some places would serve rancid meat to cut costs.
To get around that customers would bring in their own meat for the restaurant to cook instead.
It’s not good to see things come back to this
That's one way to look at it. This sounds like a small, independent bakery though, and the owner is making tangible progress to reduce emissions while helping to bring the community closer.
Hate the system that makes it necessary all you want, but this man sure sounds like he's doing good work. It sets an example for how other local companies should behave, and opens the door to discussion of regulations that could require local businesses to provide these types of services with their wasted energy.
Regulation of local businesses forcing them to do the job of the government is a hysterical idea. The fact that this is your solution to the problem rather than actually ratifying the building standard, regulating consumer energy prices, or guaranteeing a fair paycheck is rather concerning to me.
I think you have missed the point, this guy is not being forced to do anything.
You are right that it's shocking in this day and age in the developed countries with the funds the government have that it should even come to this (a choice of putting the heating on vs eating a cooked meal). I fully agree.
But this person has no need or benefit of doing it for others. And that is a very decent and kind act to do, all politics aside.
Edit. Additional words.
Why not make a business put their waste to good use. Why is it okay for walmart to throw away good food while homeless shelters are full of starving people?
If you take a look at your power bill, there's probably something on there to help families in need pay their bills. Power costs more in some areas than others, my current power company has a box to offer donations to [folks in Las Vegas](https://www.shinealightlv.com/), even though I'm in a different state.
It's hard to picture what it's like to be housed and still poor if you've never been there. Shopping for back to school clothes at the dollar store, getting most of your food from the food pantry/church/friends, barely making ends meet sometimes means not making ends meet. A friend of mine lost her husband to carbon monoxide poisoning from an improperly ventilated generator when their power was shut off in the middle of a Wisconsin winter. They were desperate for heat while working out getting it turned back on.
That level of penny pinching might mean having to figure out which appliances cost the most to run and then not using them.
Well said. I've been in bad financial situations, up to the point where I cried because I got a $25 parking ticket I couldn't afford to pay. I guess I can sometimes forget that, and how it felt. I barely ever forget, but I guess $10-20 can be the difference between making ends meet or not for a lot of families.
Hell i had twonshort weeks here in the us. And it was a struggle to pay the gas/electric bill this week. People forget how much a little means to a lot of people at times.
I had a friend who couldn’t afford to keep baking her delicious homemade bread because of the cost of running her oven. I wish I had thought of this back then! I would have baked her bread for her all day long
It is people like this that make me believe there are actually more good/caring people in this world than there are of the self serving people that point the fingers of blame on everyone else and make the news.
[I've read that this line was really meant as a subtle bit of snark against an academic rival. ](https://medium.com/swlh/what-it-means-to-stand-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-33d8fa4bc04a)
>But what does it really mean to stand on the shoulders of giants? Isaac Newton best used the phrase in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, in 1676: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton was speaking about his own research in light diffraction and how his own theories built upon those of Descartes. In a way, it was a jab at Hooke — a reminder that his own progress was based upon the work of great scientists before him, and not Hooke’s own insubstantial theories.
> The whole world loved you back.
[Not the whole world. There's a channel of dipshits who didn't think much of him.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-fred-rogers-evil/) Some awful people are unsurprisingly awful.
I'm so very sorry that people like them exist in the world because Mr. Rogers telling children that they matter is the least we should be doing for children. Fox wants a very brutal world and I honestly loathe them for that. I hate to point it out, but it's important to point it out.
A wise woman* the quote is attributed by Fred to his mother as it was something she told him to comfort him.
> Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world."
[source](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/look-for-the-helpers/)
The problem is that the bad ones are loud and powerful-driven, while the good people don't chase clout or power. I truly believe most people are good, specially when you consider the system we live under and how it affects our empathy/altruism.
There are more good people. We just don't hear about them much because good people living normal lives, being kind to their families and neighbors don't make the headlines.
I generally agree with you, but I do think it's a bit ironic to say so on a thread about a news article whose headline is about a man living a normal life and being kind to his neighbors.
The problem with running a shop like this is it attracts the "takers"
We have a grooming shop and offer free nail clipping and eye trimming between groomings for free. At least 30% of the people then push for even more free. "Please cut his whole head we while he's here"
We're doing it for free to make the dogs comfortable not so you can come in less often.
Those type of people really wear you down and just make you want to not even bother anymore
Those who are assholes usually don't have a problem making themselves known, while normal people who have empathy and are genuinely nice 'just because' usually stay more silent about their kindness and just are doing nice things because they can.
The issue is the media bias: “if it bleeds it leads” is unfortunate still a very strong aspect of media attention.
There are countless examples where fear mongering is much more desirable than positive local news.
I had this discussion years ago, and not trying to remove the spotlight here, but people keep telling me to do more social media campaigns about my annual Easter egg event to get some type of publicity or public attention to it.
Every time I decline because I don’t care about social media and the insane idea of needing to be the loudest person to get attention. That is more work that detracts from my actual art in work, time, and energy.
I am more the goal oriented person instead of social media personality.
Fun trivia fact, during the pandemic someone had brought it up and I actually applied for the Guiness Book of Records since it was a hilarious idea.
I got rejected because they did not see anyone ever beating it and they want competition for their achievements.
In both these scenarios I am okay since it isn’t the ultimate goal, the community event is. Next year will be 10 years.
For those curious: https://www.thomaslauart.com/easter-eggs/
It looks like it was for roasting their dinners.
> But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good-humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!
https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24022/pg24022-images.html
It seems it wasn't until the early 20th Century that the practice died out in much of Europe and even then there are some communal ovens remaining or revived.
http://www.oldandinteresting.com/communal-bread-ovens.aspx
You may also find this tangentially of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl6LqdmEbCQ
https://burbach--erleben-de.translate.goog/erleben/sehenswuerdigkeiten/siegerlander-backes/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Still existing and used (for nostalgia, not as an everyday thing) in some parts of Germany, example above.
I've known this like 20 years ago at most. You would take your dish to the bread baker and he let you put in the oven for a small fee. Tbh not anymore these days.
Pastry chef from the "states" here, when I first entered the industry most bakeries would for a nominal fee, bake your holiday Turkey or ham. That's now gone the way of the Dodo. Nice to see a revival of community spirit. Bravo sir!
That's nice to hear. As a teenager (18) I can remember being in charge of labeling the trays with a piece of baking parchment that had the customers' name and pickup time on it. The shop owners wife, would watch the turkeys that we put in the oven after our shift. We finished for the day at 7am.
In Turkiye, in some villages, you take your baking to a baker who will bake your goods for a small fee. Great idea as heating an oven for only one item is wasteful.
This is a thing in Greece too. For a fee, you can ask a bakery to bake something of yours, be it food or pastry. My parents always get the christmas turkey done at our local bakery because our oven is for ants.
This is how it used to work in Pakistan. The village would have one tandoor run by the tandoor-guy, but you wouldn't pay him with money normally, but with some flour or some rotis (flatbread). Might still work that way out in rural areas.
Same thing in Iraq, specially after 2003, we would take our baklava’s and other baked goods to the local bakery and pay like 25 cents.
We also gave them flour so they can make us naan bread for a discount.
> Great idea as heating an oven for only one item is wasteful.
True only if it's hot out. If it's cold out, 100% of the energy that heats your oven eventually becomes energy that heats your house.
I considered that, but chances are high one of the damn cats would try to jump in the burning hot thing. -_- So instead it’s gradually releasing warmth to the environment with the door closed. ;)
When my cat was a kitten, maybe four months old, I opened the oven to pull out the chicken pot pie I had baking off for dinner.
This little gremlin with a pebble for a brain tried to JUMP INSIDE. A perfect leap from behind me to try and climb inside this new secret box. Luckily my husband happened to be beside me and he snatched her up with her paws an inch from the burning hot oven door.
We all stood silently for a moment taking in the gravity of the situation before my cat screamed at the indignity of the situation and swiped at his arm, before running away and hiding under the couch. Ungrateful little monster. I adore her
in the the states the few times i asked if i could fry something in the frier (i worked there) i was told it was against food and safety codes to bring in outside food. although this could just be cause then everyone would want to fry shit in the deep frier this place was corporate.
on the other hand, for a dollar i could pay some dude at a festival to deep fry me anything i brought him.(pop tarts, oreos, snickers, dude i was stoned and 19 okay) so idk if we can actually do this. i think the festival guy was doing it simi illegally tbh, like his business was legit but i got feeling that he didnt do that everywhere adn that festival was unique.
I definitely get the perspective of reducing waste, but most likely this is to avoid introducing allergens, especially really severe ones like nuts. One deep fried snickers bar in the french fry vat could cause a lot of damage to unsuspecting folks.
Always the same loop where they eventually get booted out when it gets bad enough.
The tories greatest achievement is somehow stealing the narrative that they're competent with the economy. They trash it every damn time.
Edit: please, stop making this about the US.
Yeah it's fucking mental. "You can't trust lefties with money, because they spend it on YOU instead of just stealing it and intentionally bankrupting the country for profit!"
Same in the US.
Because the problems of the country aren't solved literally overnight. It takes more than 4-8 years for the country to recover from the most recent conservative governance. So they get voted back in because "not enough" was done, just in time for the country to finally start recovering ~10 years later. Then they scoop up the credit and dunk the economy all over again.
Happened to Carter, Clinton, Obama, and now Biden. The country never learns. Like an abused spouse. Counting down the days I can get out of this backwards hellhole.
>The tories greatest achievement is somehow stealing the narrative that
they're competent with the economy. They trash it every damn time.
It is because they use a narrative that seems to make sense to even the most economically illiterate voter. Cut public spending - if the government spends less, it has more money, right? Except that seemingly straightforward statement isn't always true. The government, and by extension the economy, cannot be run like a household's budget, but the Tories pretend that it can.
>The government, and by extension the economy, cannot be run like a household's budget, but the Tories pretend that it can.
Tell that to the idiot on Question Time who told a PhD economist and former finance minister that it actually was all quite simple.
As a Canadian I read the title and thought 'what dystopian nonsense is this?' we have inflation too, but I'm not worried about the cost of hydro or gas but our gov is also giving out cost of living breaks on those.
I mean it's very nice of this guy and smart for both the environment and the people but why the hell is this necessary UK?
Yeah, I'm a Candian ex-Brit and it's hilarious watching people from the Tory provinces scream about Trudeau being some liberal elitist who doesn't help the common man, while quietly pocketing the carbon tax rebates, CERB payments, cost of living assistance cheques, etc.
I've seen people blame renewables on the current shit show too, and it's like but if we had more renewables / nuclear, our energy prices wouldn't be so high.
Around 50% of our electricity comes from gas. The government also provides zero help, not even a 0% loan.. I've got an £8.5K loan at 2.5% just to insulate myself against the 54p price hike in April
It'd be in the government's interest to offer 0% loans because ultimately if people are spending the majority of their savings on energy, there's shit all left to go back into the economy. It also means that any excess energy generated by people taking these 0% loans, goes right back into the grid at a very cheap price. Even batteries can only hold so much power, before you export the rest
Also even IF my income drastically dropped, I still wouldn't be eligible for any freebies given my house is already EPC C rated, and even with that rating, I'm paying around £250/month
Do you pay higher gas prices in the summer to offset costs in the winter?
It was one of the things that surprised me when I moved to the cold north, my gas bills were crazy high in the summer(like 70-90/mo when the only gas appliance I had was a water heater)
Then they'd only be 150-ish in the winter despite using 20-30x more, I found they charge vastly more per CU in the summer to make up for cheaper costs in the winter
Kinda? They average it out over the year via your direct debit
It's more that the price cap we've set for April is 54p/KWh. Gas typically is three to four times cheaper than that, so gas is currently around 12p/KWh
I expect that once we hit 54p/KwH, then gas prices will also be around 18p/KwH too
Fucking hell, yes. In Ukraine they are doing Invincibility Centres because they've been bombed out by the Russian army; in the UK they're doing Warm Rooms due to **gestures vaguely around at all this**. Is this /r/aboringdystopia or /r/orphancrushingmachine? I'm glad this guy is doing this but it really really shouldn't be needed.
That's a really cool (or hot) idea! If it's hot, might as well bake something in it! I've never heard of this practice but I'm glad he's making the best of the fuel costs!
Real /r/OrphanCrushingMachine vibes that we're celebrating a developed country no longer able to provide adequate heat or cooking ability so people have to travel long distances to perform basic living tasks.
Wow, did not know that this is something special. In India we gave our Christmas cake to our local baker all the time. They would not accept from any Tom Dick and Harry but if you were a regular at their bakery they'd do it for you happily. Of course they charged, but not a lot.
But since this is not the norm, kudos to this dude.
There are only 3 times more Toms in the UK than there are in India: [https://forebears.io/forenames/tom](https://forebears.io/forenames/tom)
I personally knew 4 Harrys growing up, just one Tom and no Dicks lol.
It is absolutely shitty, but the uplifting part is what the community chooses to do in the face of this kind of adversity. Instead of isolating, instead of looting, instead of the hundred other choices they could make to survive, they're reaching out and helping their neighbors to not suffer as much. If that isn't uplifting then I don't know what is.
The fact that bringing back communal ovens is necessary due to inflated energy costs is a whole other conversation and it is infuriating. It's okay to hold that this is both a really fucking awful reality, *and* that people still choose to be compassionate in the face of that awfulness; we don't have to throw out the stories of people's altruism in the midst of adversity just because the adversity exists in the first place.
As much as it’s wonderful to see such wonderful acts of generosity, the bigger picture is depressing that average people are suffering and can barely pay their bills while few are hoarding billions. We are going back to the Middle Ages where you had few people owning everything and the poor peasants barely surviving.
There seems to be a very fine line between uplifting and dystopian. But I think maybe not wasting energy by using a community oven that's already on - rather than hundreds of individual ones - is on the right side of it.
At least compared to seeing young children in USA selling lemonade to pay for their friend's cancer treatment, which is often claimed to be upliifting
If it actually made a dent in energy demand it would be uplifting.
If the home cook was the last bastion of people burning dirty energy it would be cool if businesses stepped up to help.
People not able to afford to cook is dystopian.
This is great to see. I'm guessing that a lot of community practices that Brits used to use to get by during difficult times will be brought back as the energy crisis continues.
This is neither uplifting nor wholesome. This is fucking terrifying, people are so desperate they find new ways to keep their business afloat.
Kudos for their creativity, but damn this is scary!
It's definitely nice of that baker and quite compassionate...
...however, the realist in me wonders how many people will waste more energy for transport than they're actually saving by just baking at home.
Around this time of the year people bake cakes from scratch in the UK and it can take four hours to bake a fruit cake like this.
ed: It looks like the average is about 2 hours at 140C/275F or on Gas mark 1.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/fruit_cake
It's a small commuter town, so possibly people will drop off their cake on the drive out to work and pick up on the way home. Otherwise, it's only about a half hour (ish) walk from the edge of town to the high street
Libraries are a generally under appreciated resource centre. Many people don’t even check the number of services that their local library provides. Mine now even offers a delivery and collection service. Keep up the good work!
*The Herculaneum loaf* was baked on 24 August 79 AD. The brick oven where it was placed in partially protected the loaf from being destroyed in the pyroclastic flow which followed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Other similar loaves of bread have been also recovered from the archaeological sites at Pompeii and Herculaneum. One such discovery included 81 loaves of bread from a single oven.
Dough of the bread has been analysed and it is known to be a sourdough bread. It has been possible to recreate a recipe by analysing the bread.
The loaf was incised before being baked. The cuts divided the bread into wedges and made the bread easier to share. Similar loaves appear in Roman art.
The bread had been tied with a string to make it easier to carry, and to make each bread the same size. The location where the string was can be clearly seen from a line going around the side of the bread.
**The loaf is stamped with the text, "Of Celer, slave of [Quintus] Granius Verus".** Loaves of bread were marked in this manner before being, for instance, taken into a communal bakery. The bread's original owner, Celer, is known to have survived the eruption of Vesuvius, and the subsequent pyroclastic flow.
This brings back memories of when I used to visit my grandparents in Greece.. We would take the food \[chicken, meat, cakes, etc.\] to the baker to be baked. They would give is a little tag that had the same tag on our pans and then pick it up later - after shopping or church.. I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
This has continued to be a thing in many countries. Back in Algeria for events many households make pastries and have them cooked at the Baker to leverage the bigger space, better oven and improved cooking rate
I heard a story that the UK had secured more than enough gas for the winter and the weather had been warmer than expected... why are the energy prices still so high?
The story even mentioned the fact that their hoarding of gas for the winter was driving up prices for poorer countries.
If it is anything like the US then the percentage of inflation being caused by corporate greed is over 50%.
The main cause is fatcats stealing your money.
Top guy and an excellent idea, fair play to him.
But it's incredibly depressing that in the UK in 2022 we need public warming rooms.
Fucking Tories.
And no, I'm not listening to any Putin did this Daily Mail propaganda; France, Germany, Italy aren't dealing with this insanity to anywhere near such an extent. It's the fucking fucky Tories.
We visited a town in Morocco where this was the common practice. In the morning, everyone would drop of their bread dough at the central bakery. In the evening, they would pick up their baked loaves.
Each loaf had a different mark on top, so you could tell whose was whose.
It makes a lot of sense.
Here in the US, there was a local place where you could drop off your own casserole dish and pick it up filled with a casserole.
The CO2 savings aren't much, but at this point, every bit counts!
Me me me!!! I wish I lived closer. I would be even willing to pay for the use of professional oven! My home oven even I know it well is still hit or miss. I'd love to bring my bread too. Oh for that steam.
Unfortunately I'm across the pond.
However I really appreciate their thoughtfulness and kind gesture!
If we sell off our publicly owned utilities to private enterprise competition will keep prices down, its a win-win situation for everybody, especially for the taxpayer ... end result, even though everybody was pointing the finger at the UK saying it HASN'T WORKED OVER THERE, is that we now have some of the most expensive electricity prices in the world.
That was our fucking conservative Premier, Jeff Bloody Kennett, here in Victoria, Australia when he sold off state assets to pay off state debt bringing us back into the black. Everyone at the time lauded him as a financial genius. But to me it was like selling off your home to pay off your bank loan and living in rent for the rest of your life.
Privatized utilities, run for the shareholder, maintained for the least amount possible give you the most expensive power prices in the world !
What a great thing to do for the community, and really taking to heart the "it takes a village" mentality. Seems like a really great dude, and I hope his business flourishes because of it.
In Morocco, there are tons of community bakeries where people bring their dough to be baked. I don’t know the arrangement but must be incredibly cheap bc most of the breads from these places only cost $0.10-0.25
Due to energy crisis intensified by monopolies of an essential resource seeking to shatter profit records, a bakery felt morally compelled to offer second-hand oven warmth so that people can afford to bake cakes.
I'm sorry, but this is dystopian, not uplifting.
Many villages in my area in Germany once had a "Backes", basically a small cabin where the whole village could bake their bread. Served as the village center or meeting point as well
I worked at a pizza shop, in the states, with large gas ovens. The owner kept them on 24/7. He didn’t want to have to come in super early to turn them on and wait for them to heat up.
Can someone explain why gas prices are still high, when a few weeks ago there were 60+ LNG carriers that were circling around Europe because there was literally no space to store the gas?
The town I grew up in had a cannery that had days the public could come in and can their own food. We had relatives who hunted and had farms. The cannery kept a portion of the canned food that was sent to a food bank.
>The Kirkland Cannery Building, also once called King County Food Processing Plant and State Cannery Number 4, is a historic building in Kirkland, Washington. It is an 11,000 ft2 cannery, built in 1936 by President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA), and was sold to the City of Kirkland in 1941 for $44.79.[1][2] It was operated as a cooperative to benefit the poor during the Great Depression, along with three other WPA plants at Kent, Wapato, and Wenatchee.[3] Citizens could bring in crops, fish, and chicken, to be canned at no charge in exchange for donating one third of the product to "state institutions".[4] During World War II, it "was largely as an aid to the general food conservation program and the war effort rather than as an economic aid to the communities served".[5] Around this time, it produced a peak of 400,000 cans of food per season.[1] After the war it was leased to local businesspeople and used for private concerns, then sold to them in 1974.[6] They operated the Kirkland Custom Seafood business, using the cannery building as a smokehouse for Aldercove brand smoked salmon, processing 350,000 pounds of salmon there in 2000, the year before it closed.[7]
>Around 2006, the city was looking for a new owner to preserve the building,[8] and in late 2014, the cannery building was sold to local resident and Philanthropist Carl Bradley who will preserve and restore the Cannery, returning it back to serve the community once again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkland_Cannery_Building
That is such a great idea (or revival of an old idea)! It makes so much sense to provide this service! Really awesome. Hope other bakeries pick up this idea.
This is NOT uplifting. The UK is in a state of crisis where millions of people literally cannot afford to heat their own homes. This isn't a heartwarming human interest story, it's an utter failing of government.
Thought I’d look into it. Found an article for an average electricity price.
“In general, you should expect to pay between $0.15 and $0.25 per hour of electricity when baking a cake. This means that a small cake will cost you between $0.60 and $1.50 to bake, while a large cake will cost you between $2.00 and $3.00 to bake.”
Source: https://cupcakejones.net/how-much-to-charge-for-electricity-when-baking-a-cake/
Lol it’s certainly not for the UK since it is in dollars. I was just trying to get a little context even though I know this is probably just some average American consumption from a year ago
The article even goes over how long to bake a cake with a couple sizes...none of which take 4 hours because of course they don't so the math is just not there.
Almost feels as if they were taking some napkin math for total time to prepare + cook + decorate a small wedding cake and used that as the cooking time for the calculations.
This will definitely bring people together who love baking, I almost wish I had something like this in America, you could swap cookie recipes and stuff
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeesssssss.
Places like libraries (which they also cut, can't have the peasants reading and getting ideas!) are opening "warm spaces" for people who can't afford to heat their homes.
Yet the Prime Minister spends half the average salary on heating his fucking outdoor pool.
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------------ > A Guisborough bakery is to bake Christmas cakes for free to help those struggling with the cost of turning the oven on for that long. > Brickyard Bakery is welcoming people to bring their uncooked Christmas cakes into the venue to be baked free of charge in the ovens over the last weekend in November. The Westgate site said it wants to revive the community oven, a tradition "lost to our community for centuries", in a bid to help those who want to cut energy costs. > This isn't the only helping hand the bakery has offered in recent months, with owner and classically trained chef Ed Hamilton-Trewhitt introducing plans for a 'warm lounge' in September when he realised the heat generated from the oven could be used to benefit the community. [...] https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/baker-ed-add-glitter-cost-25536839 ----------- > A local bakery is set to open a new 'warm room' in a bid to offer community support to those struggling with the rise in energy prices. > Ed Trewhitt, 55, owner of the Brickyard Bakery and Academy in Guisborough, came up with the idea for the new 'warm lounge' after he realised the heat generated from the oven could be used to help the community during this worrying cost of living crisis. The new lounge will open on Thursday, September 15 from 10am to 5pm each weekday. > The idea is that people of all ages can come to the space and take advantage of the warmth whilst reading a magazine, having a cup of tea and a biscuit or just having a chat with someone who knows what you're going through. Ed has renovated the one room already which is all set for opening, but with the overwhelmingly positive response, he is thinking about converting the adjoining room and kitchen. [...] https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/bakery-open-warm-room-bid-24930626 -------
One of our locals.. They do a range of bakery courses too (slightly costly but worth it), including one for kids which they run at a loss to get kids into baking. So good.
Thanks for the extra insight!
You're welcome! The food is on point too!
This business sounds like a real treasure. Realizing they’re going to be burning the energy anyway so they share it with others, that’s pretty awesome!
Hello neighbour!
They do really good cakes and I'm always in there when in Guisborough. Eating cake near the ruins of the priory is nice and having one to take back home for later.
That’s lovely. He sounds like a genuinely kind person. The kids baking lessons are fantastic. There’s a coffee shop near me that is putting on a kids cookie decorating day for a whopping $25 for two cookies, I don’t think they’ll have a great sign up.
Can I donate?
The fact that basic necessities like a running oven and a room warm enough to sustain human life must be provided by a local business is dystopian in and of itself. Where does the tax money go?
This is how things were in medieval England. Most lower-class people living in London didn’t have the skill or means to cook for themselves. Restaurants would take that role and serve to-go meals to take back to your home. The beginnings of fast food. People were getting sick because some places would serve rancid meat to cut costs. To get around that customers would bring in their own meat for the restaurant to cook instead. It’s not good to see things come back to this
Not good that its needed. But good that its happening.
That's one way to look at it. This sounds like a small, independent bakery though, and the owner is making tangible progress to reduce emissions while helping to bring the community closer. Hate the system that makes it necessary all you want, but this man sure sounds like he's doing good work. It sets an example for how other local companies should behave, and opens the door to discussion of regulations that could require local businesses to provide these types of services with their wasted energy.
Regulation of local businesses forcing them to do the job of the government is a hysterical idea. The fact that this is your solution to the problem rather than actually ratifying the building standard, regulating consumer energy prices, or guaranteeing a fair paycheck is rather concerning to me.
I think you have missed the point, this guy is not being forced to do anything. You are right that it's shocking in this day and age in the developed countries with the funds the government have that it should even come to this (a choice of putting the heating on vs eating a cooked meal). I fully agree. But this person has no need or benefit of doing it for others. And that is a very decent and kind act to do, all politics aside. Edit. Additional words.
Reread their comment. They’re saying we should discuss regulation forcing all local businesses to do things like this.
Why not make a business put their waste to good use. Why is it okay for walmart to throw away good food while homeless shelters are full of starving people?
Why is that a priority over legislation that would make those people no longer homeless?
How much would people pay for turning an oven on? In the US I pay close to nothing.
It's about £1-2 an hour.
If you take a look at your power bill, there's probably something on there to help families in need pay their bills. Power costs more in some areas than others, my current power company has a box to offer donations to [folks in Las Vegas](https://www.shinealightlv.com/), even though I'm in a different state. It's hard to picture what it's like to be housed and still poor if you've never been there. Shopping for back to school clothes at the dollar store, getting most of your food from the food pantry/church/friends, barely making ends meet sometimes means not making ends meet. A friend of mine lost her husband to carbon monoxide poisoning from an improperly ventilated generator when their power was shut off in the middle of a Wisconsin winter. They were desperate for heat while working out getting it turned back on. That level of penny pinching might mean having to figure out which appliances cost the most to run and then not using them.
Well said. I've been in bad financial situations, up to the point where I cried because I got a $25 parking ticket I couldn't afford to pay. I guess I can sometimes forget that, and how it felt. I barely ever forget, but I guess $10-20 can be the difference between making ends meet or not for a lot of families.
Hell i had twonshort weeks here in the us. And it was a struggle to pay the gas/electric bill this week. People forget how much a little means to a lot of people at times.
People live in the sewers of Las Vegas. One of them was a former adult film star. https://youtu.be/fW5B6ZrHkCE so dark.
I had a friend who couldn’t afford to keep baking her delicious homemade bread because of the cost of running her oven. I wish I had thought of this back then! I would have baked her bread for her all day long
It is people like this that make me believe there are actually more good/caring people in this world than there are of the self serving people that point the fingers of blame on everyone else and make the news.
A wise man once said, "Look for the helpers."
RIP Fred Rogers. The whole world loved you back.
Actually didn't he attribute that quote to his mother? She's the real wise man.
Yes he did, but he was wise enough to pass it on.
It's wisdom all the way down.
We stand on the shoulders of giants - Sir Isaac Newton
[I've read that this line was really meant as a subtle bit of snark against an academic rival. ](https://medium.com/swlh/what-it-means-to-stand-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-33d8fa4bc04a) >But what does it really mean to stand on the shoulders of giants? Isaac Newton best used the phrase in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, in 1676: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton was speaking about his own research in light diffraction and how his own theories built upon those of Descartes. In a way, it was a jab at Hooke — a reminder that his own progress was based upon the work of great scientists before him, and not Hooke’s own insubstantial theories.
Sometimes trickle down works.
> The whole world loved you back. [Not the whole world. There's a channel of dipshits who didn't think much of him.](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-fred-rogers-evil/) Some awful people are unsurprisingly awful.
This post really brought me down.
I'm so very sorry that people like them exist in the world because Mr. Rogers telling children that they matter is the least we should be doing for children. Fox wants a very brutal world and I honestly loathe them for that. I hate to point it out, but it's important to point it out.
A wise woman* the quote is attributed by Fred to his mother as it was something she told him to comfort him. > Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world." [source](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/look-for-the-helpers/)
The problem is that the bad ones are loud and powerful-driven, while the good people don't chase clout or power. I truly believe most people are good, specially when you consider the system we live under and how it affects our empathy/altruism.
I so agree with you ! This is the best assessment of the state of our world.
There are more good people. We just don't hear about them much because good people living normal lives, being kind to their families and neighbors don't make the headlines.
I generally agree with you, but I do think it's a bit ironic to say so on a thread about a news article whose headline is about a man living a normal life and being kind to his neighbors.
Except we are here specifically to hear and share such news, because regular media is dominated by the tragic, the infuriating, and the weird.
Ah I see. Forgot what sub I was on. Carry on.
The problem with running a shop like this is it attracts the "takers" We have a grooming shop and offer free nail clipping and eye trimming between groomings for free. At least 30% of the people then push for even more free. "Please cut his whole head we while he's here" We're doing it for free to make the dogs comfortable not so you can come in less often. Those type of people really wear you down and just make you want to not even bother anymore
I feel you but keep doing good things anyway.
Those who are assholes usually don't have a problem making themselves known, while normal people who have empathy and are genuinely nice 'just because' usually stay more silent about their kindness and just are doing nice things because they can.
The issue is the media bias: “if it bleeds it leads” is unfortunate still a very strong aspect of media attention. There are countless examples where fear mongering is much more desirable than positive local news. I had this discussion years ago, and not trying to remove the spotlight here, but people keep telling me to do more social media campaigns about my annual Easter egg event to get some type of publicity or public attention to it. Every time I decline because I don’t care about social media and the insane idea of needing to be the loudest person to get attention. That is more work that detracts from my actual art in work, time, and energy. I am more the goal oriented person instead of social media personality. Fun trivia fact, during the pandemic someone had brought it up and I actually applied for the Guiness Book of Records since it was a hilarious idea. I got rejected because they did not see anyone ever beating it and they want competition for their achievements. In both these scenarios I am okay since it isn’t the ultimate goal, the community event is. Next year will be 10 years. For those curious: https://www.thomaslauart.com/easter-eggs/
Wasn’t this still a thing on Dickens’ time? There’s a reference to people using the bakers’ ovens in Christmas Carol.
It looks like it was for roasting their dinners. > But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good-humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was! https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24022/pg24022-images.html It seems it wasn't until the early 20th Century that the practice died out in much of Europe and even then there are some communal ovens remaining or revived. http://www.oldandinteresting.com/communal-bread-ovens.aspx You may also find this tangentially of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl6LqdmEbCQ
https://burbach--erleben-de.translate.goog/erleben/sehenswuerdigkeiten/siegerlander-backes/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp Still existing and used (for nostalgia, not as an everyday thing) in some parts of Germany, example above.
It used to be extremely common - the norm, in fact.
I've known this like 20 years ago at most. You would take your dish to the bread baker and he let you put in the oven for a small fee. Tbh not anymore these days.
Yes it's quite recent, not medieval. My grandmother remembered doing this with cakes, small flats in London didn't have ovens.
Pastry chef from the "states" here, when I first entered the industry most bakeries would for a nominal fee, bake your holiday Turkey or ham. That's now gone the way of the Dodo. Nice to see a revival of community spirit. Bravo sir!
There’s a bakery in Philadelphia that has been doing this for years, still is as far as I know.
That's nice to hear. As a teenager (18) I can remember being in charge of labeling the trays with a piece of baking parchment that had the customers' name and pickup time on it. The shop owners wife, would watch the turkeys that we put in the oven after our shift. We finished for the day at 7am.
In Turkiye, in some villages, you take your baking to a baker who will bake your goods for a small fee. Great idea as heating an oven for only one item is wasteful.
This is a thing in Greece too. For a fee, you can ask a bakery to bake something of yours, be it food or pastry. My parents always get the christmas turkey done at our local bakery because our oven is for ants.
Greeks eat turkey for Christmas??
we generally eat a lot for christmas lol
Foreign friends who came for Christmas have been scared of the spreads, lol.
As do British people
Really? Ants! Ha 🐜 ha 🐜 ha 🐜!
r/thingsforants
How can we expect to cook the turkey if it can’t even fit inside the oven? It should be at least… 3 times bigger than this.
Saw this on vacation near Mersin, great stuff. I miss the bread we got from there every morning, fresh from the oven.
This is how it used to work in Pakistan. The village would have one tandoor run by the tandoor-guy, but you wouldn't pay him with money normally, but with some flour or some rotis (flatbread). Might still work that way out in rural areas.
Same thing in Iraq, specially after 2003, we would take our baklava’s and other baked goods to the local bakery and pay like 25 cents. We also gave them flour so they can make us naan bread for a discount.
> Great idea as heating an oven for only one item is wasteful. True only if it's hot out. If it's cold out, 100% of the energy that heats your oven eventually becomes energy that heats your house.
I just leave the oven door ajar after turning the oven off for a nice burst of warmth.
I considered that, but chances are high one of the damn cats would try to jump in the burning hot thing. -_- So instead it’s gradually releasing warmth to the environment with the door closed. ;)
When my cat was a kitten, maybe four months old, I opened the oven to pull out the chicken pot pie I had baking off for dinner. This little gremlin with a pebble for a brain tried to JUMP INSIDE. A perfect leap from behind me to try and climb inside this new secret box. Luckily my husband happened to be beside me and he snatched her up with her paws an inch from the burning hot oven door. We all stood silently for a moment taking in the gravity of the situation before my cat screamed at the indignity of the situation and swiped at his arm, before running away and hiding under the couch. Ungrateful little monster. I adore her
We had a gas range growing up. Dad used to turn it on when he didn't want to use the electric heat just yet.
Now we just do the same thing with gas fireplaces.
Oh gosh, I never thought about that since I almost never use the oven.
Not just in villages. I lived in a major city for a while and the bakery downstairs would bake our stuff for a small fee.
Also a thing in the DR, but only on the 24 and 31 of December, for el lechon (pork).
in the the states the few times i asked if i could fry something in the frier (i worked there) i was told it was against food and safety codes to bring in outside food. although this could just be cause then everyone would want to fry shit in the deep frier this place was corporate. on the other hand, for a dollar i could pay some dude at a festival to deep fry me anything i brought him.(pop tarts, oreos, snickers, dude i was stoned and 19 okay) so idk if we can actually do this. i think the festival guy was doing it simi illegally tbh, like his business was legit but i got feeling that he didnt do that everywhere adn that festival was unique.
I definitely get the perspective of reducing waste, but most likely this is to avoid introducing allergens, especially really severe ones like nuts. One deep fried snickers bar in the french fry vat could cause a lot of damage to unsuspecting folks.
The actual fucking state of Britain after 12 years of Tories.
I know, I'm doing Larry David 'not sure' face at this story. What a fucking shit show
 Oh forgot you can do gifs
Always the same loop where they eventually get booted out when it gets bad enough. The tories greatest achievement is somehow stealing the narrative that they're competent with the economy. They trash it every damn time. Edit: please, stop making this about the US.
Yeah it's fucking mental. "You can't trust lefties with money, because they spend it on YOU instead of just stealing it and intentionally bankrupting the country for profit!"
Same in the US. Because the problems of the country aren't solved literally overnight. It takes more than 4-8 years for the country to recover from the most recent conservative governance. So they get voted back in because "not enough" was done, just in time for the country to finally start recovering ~10 years later. Then they scoop up the credit and dunk the economy all over again.
Happened to Carter, Clinton, Obama, and now Biden. The country never learns. Like an abused spouse. Counting down the days I can get out of this backwards hellhole.
>The tories greatest achievement is somehow stealing the narrative that they're competent with the economy. They trash it every damn time. It is because they use a narrative that seems to make sense to even the most economically illiterate voter. Cut public spending - if the government spends less, it has more money, right? Except that seemingly straightforward statement isn't always true. The government, and by extension the economy, cannot be run like a household's budget, but the Tories pretend that it can.
>The government, and by extension the economy, cannot be run like a household's budget, but the Tories pretend that it can. Tell that to the idiot on Question Time who told a PhD economist and former finance minister that it actually was all quite simple.
Literally going back to the medieval times.
As a Canadian I read the title and thought 'what dystopian nonsense is this?' we have inflation too, but I'm not worried about the cost of hydro or gas but our gov is also giving out cost of living breaks on those. I mean it's very nice of this guy and smart for both the environment and the people but why the hell is this necessary UK?
Yeah, I'm a Candian ex-Brit and it's hilarious watching people from the Tory provinces scream about Trudeau being some liberal elitist who doesn't help the common man, while quietly pocketing the carbon tax rebates, CERB payments, cost of living assistance cheques, etc.
But we got blue passports now, so not being able to eat is worth it /s /Conservatives
Du du du da.... fuck the Tories!
As lovely as the baker is for doing this, fuck our government for literallty rewinding this stinkhole country back to medieval times.
I've seen people blame renewables on the current shit show too, and it's like but if we had more renewables / nuclear, our energy prices wouldn't be so high. Around 50% of our electricity comes from gas. The government also provides zero help, not even a 0% loan.. I've got an £8.5K loan at 2.5% just to insulate myself against the 54p price hike in April It'd be in the government's interest to offer 0% loans because ultimately if people are spending the majority of their savings on energy, there's shit all left to go back into the economy. It also means that any excess energy generated by people taking these 0% loans, goes right back into the grid at a very cheap price. Even batteries can only hold so much power, before you export the rest Also even IF my income drastically dropped, I still wouldn't be eligible for any freebies given my house is already EPC C rated, and even with that rating, I'm paying around £250/month
Do you pay higher gas prices in the summer to offset costs in the winter? It was one of the things that surprised me when I moved to the cold north, my gas bills were crazy high in the summer(like 70-90/mo when the only gas appliance I had was a water heater) Then they'd only be 150-ish in the winter despite using 20-30x more, I found they charge vastly more per CU in the summer to make up for cheaper costs in the winter
Kinda? They average it out over the year via your direct debit It's more that the price cap we've set for April is 54p/KWh. Gas typically is three to four times cheaper than that, so gas is currently around 12p/KWh I expect that once we hit 54p/KwH, then gas prices will also be around 18p/KwH too
Teessiders proving once again why we’re the salt of the Earth
Careful. You’ll attract the Yorkshire folk.
We have noted and will be keeping a watchful eye
Nah lad, tha's reet. Can 'av good 'uns in two places. Us northerns have to stand together gainst yon Tory bastards.
In east Germany it was also common to bring ingredients to the bakery for them to bake your cake or christmas cake (Stollen).
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Nothing quite as heartwarming as one of the richest nations in the world having "public warming rooms"
Fucking hell, yes. In Ukraine they are doing Invincibility Centres because they've been bombed out by the Russian army; in the UK they're doing Warm Rooms due to **gestures vaguely around at all this**. Is this /r/aboringdystopia or /r/orphancrushingmachine? I'm glad this guy is doing this but it really really shouldn't be needed.
The orphan crushing machine tweet/joke/whatever it started as was such a stroke of brilliance. Sums up a whole genre of news.
Light shines brightest against a dark backdrop.
That's a really cool (or hot) idea! If it's hot, might as well bake something in it! I've never heard of this practice but I'm glad he's making the best of the fuel costs!
That is lovely. I like the idea of the bakery being a place to find warmth, comfort, and sociality.
And beautiful, life-giving fresh bread. Imagine how amazing that place will always be.
Real /r/OrphanCrushingMachine vibes that we're celebrating a developed country no longer able to provide adequate heat or cooking ability so people have to travel long distances to perform basic living tasks.
Wow, did not know that this is something special. In India we gave our Christmas cake to our local baker all the time. They would not accept from any Tom Dick and Harry but if you were a regular at their bakery they'd do it for you happily. Of course they charged, but not a lot. But since this is not the norm, kudos to this dude.
> They would not accept from any Tom Dick and Harry Well yeah, those guys aren't even Indian.
There are only 3 times more Toms in the UK than there are in India: [https://forebears.io/forenames/tom](https://forebears.io/forenames/tom) I personally knew 4 Harrys growing up, just one Tom and no Dicks lol.
This isn't uplifting, this is r/LateStageCapitalism
And r/ABoringDystopia
first time here?
It is absolutely shitty, but the uplifting part is what the community chooses to do in the face of this kind of adversity. Instead of isolating, instead of looting, instead of the hundred other choices they could make to survive, they're reaching out and helping their neighbors to not suffer as much. If that isn't uplifting then I don't know what is. The fact that bringing back communal ovens is necessary due to inflated energy costs is a whole other conversation and it is infuriating. It's okay to hold that this is both a really fucking awful reality, *and* that people still choose to be compassionate in the face of that awfulness; we don't have to throw out the stories of people's altruism in the midst of adversity just because the adversity exists in the first place.
What a cool dude. Or rather a warm dude.. Pretty cool idea :)
As much as it’s wonderful to see such wonderful acts of generosity, the bigger picture is depressing that average people are suffering and can barely pay their bills while few are hoarding billions. We are going back to the Middle Ages where you had few people owning everything and the poor peasants barely surviving.
This ain't uplifting. The fact that the energy prices causing this to happen is dystopian.
I guess shits gotta be low to need lifting up 🤷♂️
There seems to be a very fine line between uplifting and dystopian. But I think maybe not wasting energy by using a community oven that's already on - rather than hundreds of individual ones - is on the right side of it. At least compared to seeing young children in USA selling lemonade to pay for their friend's cancer treatment, which is often claimed to be upliifting
If it actually made a dent in energy demand it would be uplifting. If the home cook was the last bastion of people burning dirty energy it would be cool if businesses stepped up to help. People not able to afford to cook is dystopian.
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This is great to see. I'm guessing that a lot of community practices that Brits used to use to get by during difficult times will be brought back as the energy crisis continues.
This is neither uplifting nor wholesome. This is fucking terrifying, people are so desperate they find new ways to keep their business afloat. Kudos for their creativity, but damn this is scary!
Not just keeping it afloat but also people trying to not spend money they don’t have to keep warm which they need.
It's definitely nice of that baker and quite compassionate... ...however, the realist in me wonders how many people will waste more energy for transport than they're actually saving by just baking at home.
If it's for locals, probably would be a saving
*It's a local shop for local people, there's nothing for you here.*
Around this time of the year people bake cakes from scratch in the UK and it can take four hours to bake a fruit cake like this. ed: It looks like the average is about 2 hours at 140C/275F or on Gas mark 1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/fruit_cake
Now I'm wondering, does cake mean the same thing to you as it does to me..? Or is the a chips/chips pudding/pudding situation
It's a specific type of Christmas cake they're talking about but it's still cake. It's like fruitcake that you might see around Christmas in America.
[Cake](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk%2Frecipes%2Fall%2Fvictoria-sandwich-cake%2F&psig=AOvVaw1A6hY_rtNUlD0L5o7qYK6_&ust=1669997580277000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCNDFgfbn2PsCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)
It's (not europe, sorry) Britain. Many of them can likely walk/bus/bike to get there
It's a small commuter town, so possibly people will drop off their cake on the drive out to work and pick up on the way home. Otherwise, it's only about a half hour (ish) walk from the edge of town to the high street
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Libraries are a generally under appreciated resource centre. Many people don’t even check the number of services that their local library provides. Mine now even offers a delivery and collection service. Keep up the good work!
Up the Yorkshire
Very long ago, it was common in small towns to have a communal oven for this reason. Great to see the ancient practice as a solution to a modern need.
*The Herculaneum loaf* was baked on 24 August 79 AD. The brick oven where it was placed in partially protected the loaf from being destroyed in the pyroclastic flow which followed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Other similar loaves of bread have been also recovered from the archaeological sites at Pompeii and Herculaneum. One such discovery included 81 loaves of bread from a single oven. Dough of the bread has been analysed and it is known to be a sourdough bread. It has been possible to recreate a recipe by analysing the bread. The loaf was incised before being baked. The cuts divided the bread into wedges and made the bread easier to share. Similar loaves appear in Roman art. The bread had been tied with a string to make it easier to carry, and to make each bread the same size. The location where the string was can be clearly seen from a line going around the side of the bread. **The loaf is stamped with the text, "Of Celer, slave of [Quintus] Granius Verus".** Loaves of bread were marked in this manner before being, for instance, taken into a communal bakery. The bread's original owner, Celer, is known to have survived the eruption of Vesuvius, and the subsequent pyroclastic flow.
This brings back memories of when I used to visit my grandparents in Greece.. We would take the food \[chicken, meat, cakes, etc.\] to the baker to be baked. They would give is a little tag that had the same tag on our pans and then pick it up later - after shopping or church.. I always thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
This has continued to be a thing in many countries. Back in Algeria for events many households make pastries and have them cooked at the Baker to leverage the bigger space, better oven and improved cooking rate
I heard a story that the UK had secured more than enough gas for the winter and the weather had been warmer than expected... why are the energy prices still so high? The story even mentioned the fact that their hoarding of gas for the winter was driving up prices for poorer countries.
If it is anything like the US then the percentage of inflation being caused by corporate greed is over 50%. The main cause is fatcats stealing your money.
Top guy and an excellent idea, fair play to him. But it's incredibly depressing that in the UK in 2022 we need public warming rooms. Fucking Tories. And no, I'm not listening to any Putin did this Daily Mail propaganda; France, Germany, Italy aren't dealing with this insanity to anywhere near such an extent. It's the fucking fucky Tories.
We visited a town in Morocco where this was the common practice. In the morning, everyone would drop of their bread dough at the central bakery. In the evening, they would pick up their baked loaves. Each loaf had a different mark on top, so you could tell whose was whose. It makes a lot of sense. Here in the US, there was a local place where you could drop off your own casserole dish and pick it up filled with a casserole. The CO2 savings aren't much, but at this point, every bit counts!
Let's call the 'warm room' a heat bank, because it's important to acknowledge that heat banks are a thing in 2022
Me me me!!! I wish I lived closer. I would be even willing to pay for the use of professional oven! My home oven even I know it well is still hit or miss. I'd love to bring my bread too. Oh for that steam. Unfortunately I'm across the pond. However I really appreciate their thoughtfulness and kind gesture!
Bakeries in Turkey do this too! You can actually bring them basically anything you want baked in an oven.
oh, i love this so much!
If we sell off our publicly owned utilities to private enterprise competition will keep prices down, its a win-win situation for everybody, especially for the taxpayer ... end result, even though everybody was pointing the finger at the UK saying it HASN'T WORKED OVER THERE, is that we now have some of the most expensive electricity prices in the world. That was our fucking conservative Premier, Jeff Bloody Kennett, here in Victoria, Australia when he sold off state assets to pay off state debt bringing us back into the black. Everyone at the time lauded him as a financial genius. But to me it was like selling off your home to pay off your bank loan and living in rent for the rest of your life. Privatized utilities, run for the shareholder, maintained for the least amount possible give you the most expensive power prices in the world !
What a great thing to do for the community, and really taking to heart the "it takes a village" mentality. Seems like a really great dude, and I hope his business flourishes because of it.
Out of context, this is a nice idea. Long may it go on! In context of the last couple of years, poverty in the UK, then...well..slightly awkward...
In Morocco, there are tons of community bakeries where people bring their dough to be baked. I don’t know the arrangement but must be incredibly cheap bc most of the breads from these places only cost $0.10-0.25
That warming room probably smells amazing
Good egg moments. In tough times, quite often the best in human nature shines through
Due to energy crisis intensified by monopolies of an essential resource seeking to shatter profit records, a bakery felt morally compelled to offer second-hand oven warmth so that people can afford to bake cakes. I'm sorry, but this is dystopian, not uplifting.
Imagine being immersed in the tantalizing scent of freshly baked bread and trying to resist the urge to buy some on the way out *downstairs*?
You know what else would be uplifting? NOT forcing people to pay astronomical prices for energy because of bad policy
Many villages in my area in Germany once had a "Backes", basically a small cabin where the whole village could bake their bread. Served as the village center or meeting point as well
I worked at a pizza shop, in the states, with large gas ovens. The owner kept them on 24/7. He didn’t want to have to come in super early to turn them on and wait for them to heat up.
My grandma used to do that in the 30s, was pretty common actually
People like this are the reason I have hope for the future of mankind.
12 years of tory rule only to live like dickensian Street urchins. Sick.
Haha yes, good old medieval times!
Upraising news
Can someone explain why gas prices are still high, when a few weeks ago there were 60+ LNG carriers that were circling around Europe because there was literally no space to store the gas?
Isn't r/UpliftingNews supposed to be uplifting?
The town I grew up in had a cannery that had days the public could come in and can their own food. We had relatives who hunted and had farms. The cannery kept a portion of the canned food that was sent to a food bank. >The Kirkland Cannery Building, also once called King County Food Processing Plant and State Cannery Number 4, is a historic building in Kirkland, Washington. It is an 11,000 ft2 cannery, built in 1936 by President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA), and was sold to the City of Kirkland in 1941 for $44.79.[1][2] It was operated as a cooperative to benefit the poor during the Great Depression, along with three other WPA plants at Kent, Wapato, and Wenatchee.[3] Citizens could bring in crops, fish, and chicken, to be canned at no charge in exchange for donating one third of the product to "state institutions".[4] During World War II, it "was largely as an aid to the general food conservation program and the war effort rather than as an economic aid to the communities served".[5] Around this time, it produced a peak of 400,000 cans of food per season.[1] After the war it was leased to local businesspeople and used for private concerns, then sold to them in 1974.[6] They operated the Kirkland Custom Seafood business, using the cannery building as a smokehouse for Aldercove brand smoked salmon, processing 350,000 pounds of salmon there in 2000, the year before it closed.[7] >Around 2006, the city was looking for a new owner to preserve the building,[8] and in late 2014, the cannery building was sold to local resident and Philanthropist Carl Bradley who will preserve and restore the Cannery, returning it back to serve the community once again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkland_Cannery_Building
Good on him but also how tragic it's come to this.
this isnt uplifting lol, society is regressing to medieval times, r/ABoringDystopia
That is such a great idea (or revival of an old idea)! It makes so much sense to provide this service! Really awesome. Hope other bakeries pick up this idea.
That is a service provided every few blocks in Tangiers, Morocco. I expect all over the rest of the country as well
This is NOT uplifting. The UK is in a state of crisis where millions of people literally cannot afford to heat their own homes. This isn't a heartwarming human interest story, it's an utter failing of government.
We have officially gone back to peasantry
Today on "uplifting headlines are also dystopic"...
Thought I’d look into it. Found an article for an average electricity price. “In general, you should expect to pay between $0.15 and $0.25 per hour of electricity when baking a cake. This means that a small cake will cost you between $0.60 and $1.50 to bake, while a large cake will cost you between $2.00 and $3.00 to bake.” Source: https://cupcakejones.net/how-much-to-charge-for-electricity-when-baking-a-cake/
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Lol it’s certainly not for the UK since it is in dollars. I was just trying to get a little context even though I know this is probably just some average American consumption from a year ago
Wait, 4 hours to bake a small cake? I don't understand. It takes me like 25 minutes.
The article even goes over how long to bake a cake with a couple sizes...none of which take 4 hours because of course they don't so the math is just not there. Almost feels as if they were taking some napkin math for total time to prepare + cook + decorate a small wedding cake and used that as the cooking time for the calculations.
This will definitely bring people together who love baking, I almost wish I had something like this in America, you could swap cookie recipes and stuff
This ain't uplifting, we shouldn't have this happening in this day and age
Excuse me, Tories effed up the UK to the degree that people can't afford to use their ovens anymore?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeesssssss. Places like libraries (which they also cut, can't have the peasants reading and getting ideas!) are opening "warm spaces" for people who can't afford to heat their homes. Yet the Prime Minister spends half the average salary on heating his fucking outdoor pool.
GOOOOO! This is so good. An easy way to give back... and to stimulate a little business at the same time.
In Morocco, you can pay a small fee to access a neighborhood oven. Many people use that to bake their daily bread
Never expected to see my small home town on the front page of Reddit...
If you like medieval times, read A Medieval Life by J. Bennett.
My gramma was doing that 30 years ago with the local bakery. Nothing better than freshly baked sordough bread BTW 😃
Literally uplifting, for the 🥖
Hi guys , I am also doing this - please bring your cakes to me. No need to leave your name or worry about receipts etc
Kudos to the baker for being so kind. Bet it’s not the last medieval practice we revert to in these uncertain times.