Baldwin ? Baking has been a part of Karen Bayer’s life for as long as she can remember.

“In my family, there is a tradition of baking,” she said. “Every Sunday, there were pies, cobblers, homemade breads. I grew up with that.”

The Baldwin resident, who has been baking since age 7, wants the homemade breads and deserts she grew up with to the be available to others. This month, Bayer, along with her husband, son and daughter, will open Baldwin City Baking Co., a full service retail and wholesale bakery.

She said the new bakery, which will be at 215 N. Sixth St., Suite B, just north of C. Designs Floral and Garden, will offer a variety of breads, mfufins, cookies, pastries and desserts, as well as juice, milk and coffee, for carryout only. Bayer said it is not a sit-in bakery.

Specialty items will be offered, but will change daily as the bakery learns what’s popular with its customers.

“We’ll try to offer a large variety to get a feel for what customers want,” Bayer said. “We’ll have the standards available, but we might have turtle cheesecake one day and peach cobbler the next.”

The bakery will offer catering, and specialize in cakes for special events such as birthdays, weddings and graduations.

It also will house a dining room, Bayer said, in which small groups can reserve for dinners, lunches, meetings and teas.

Bayer’s daughter, Kristen Kinsch, who will soon be a massage therapist, will use one of the rooms in the bakery as a massage studio.

The wholesale bakery was to open April 20.

Bayer has already accepted orders for cakes, and has reservations through October.

She said the walk-in, retail part of the bakery would open May 1.