Home baking remains a measurable household habit, but the figures depend heavily on place, time period, and what counts as baking. A 1955 U.S. household survey found that 75% of housekeeping households made batter or dough during its survey week, while a January 2025 UK survey found that 58% of consumers had baked in the previous six months. More recent measures also suggest that baking occasions and flour use do not always move together.
Contents
- How many people bake at home
- What home bakers make
- Scratch baking, mixes, and ingredients
- Regional and household differences
- Why people bake and how habits are changing
- Time, repetition, and baking occasions
How many people bake at home
The strongest historical U.S. participation figures come from the USDA’s official national household food-consumption survey covering April–June 1955. Its definition was specific: a household counted if it made or mixed batter or dough for one of 11 specified products. It therefore provides historical context, not a current estimate of how many Americans bake at home.
During the spring 1955 survey week, 75% of U.S. housekeeping households did some home baking under that definition. When the measure was limited to oven-baked items, 69% baked at least one of 10 products. Across the year, about 90% had home-baked cakes, pies, biscuits, or similar goods appear on the family table. USDA, “Home baking by households in the United States - by region”
More recent UK and U.S. measures use different questions and populations. In a January 2025 UK survey, 58% of consumers said they had baked during the previous six months. Among those UK consumers, 20% planned to bake more often during the following six months; the figure reached 36% among consumers aged 18–24. AHDB, “Cereals market outlook”
In the United States, 27% of consumers in a 2023 survey said they were doing more baking at home than five years earlier. The comparable answer was 22% in the 2021 survey, a change in survey results rather than a direct measure of the share of households baking. Whole Grains Council, “2023 Whole Grain Consumer Insights Survey”
What home bakers make
The 1955 USDA survey shows how strongly the product mix shaped home baking. Cake with fat was baked by 36% of U.S. households during the survey week, the highest share among the 11 products studied. Biscuits followed at 31%, while gingerbread was made by 3%, the lowest share in that group.
Other product measures were also substantial. Cake or pie was made by 52% of households, and quick breads by 53%. Cookies were baked by 12%, while bread or yeast rolls were baked by 9%. These percentages describe households during one spring survey week, not the proportion that makes each item over a full year. USDA, “Home baking by households in the United States - by region”
The product pattern varied by setting. Griddlecakes or waffles were baked by 25% of urban U.S. households during the survey week, compared with 9.9% of rural-farm households. In the South, nearly 95% of farm families baked cornbread, biscuits, or similar quick breads. Half of Southern farm families made cornbread seven or more times during that week.
These historical results are useful for comparing types of home baking, but they should not be read as a current ranking of American recipes. The survey’s product list, household definitions, and 1955 food environment are all part of the measurement.
Scratch baking, mixes, and ingredients
Commercial mixes were already an important part of home baking in the 1955 USDA results. Among urban U.S. homemakers who made cake, 56% used a commercial mix. The corresponding shares were 31% for biscuits and 21% for pie. Among farm homemakers, commercial mixes were used by 34% of cake makers, 8% of biscuit makers, and 8% of pie makers.
Mix use differed by product and household setting:
| Product and household group | Share using a commercial or purchased mix |
|---|---|
| Urban cake makers | 56% |
| Farm cake makers | 34% |
| Urban biscuit makers | 31% |
| Urban pie makers | 21% |
| Urban griddlecake or waffle makers | 69% |
| Farm griddlecake or waffle makers | 47% |
For cookies, commercial mixes were used by 9% of urban homes and 8% of farm homes that baked cookies. Flour-based griddlecakes and waffles show a different pattern: 69% of urban households that baked them used a purchased mix, compared with 47% of farm households.
The same USDA source found that flour other than mixes was used by 72% of urban households, 89% of rural-nonfarm households, and 95% of rural-farm households. Home-baked products were used by 67% of urban households, 83% of rural-nonfarm households, and 93% of rural-farm households. These measures are from spring 1955 and should not be treated as present-day ingredient shares.
Preference data can add context without measuring participation. In Puratos’s 2024 Taste Tomorrow research, 73% of consumers globally regarded wholegrains as both healthy and tasty. The population was global bakery, patisserie, and chocolate consumers rather than a home-baker-only sample, so this is a preference measure, not a household baking rate. Puratos, “More nutrition in every bite with Puratos ingredients”
Regional and household differences
The USDA’s spring 1955 figures show a wide regional range. Among nonfarm households, 50% in the U.S. Northeast made at least one studied item during the survey week, the lowest regional rate in that group. In the South, the nonfarm rate was 80%.
Farm households reported higher participation in both regions. The Northeast farm rate was 88%, while the South farm rate was 97%. These comparisons describe the survey’s 11 specified batter and dough products and the households covered in 1955.
The number of different products made also separated urban and rural-farm households. Among urban households that baked, 38% made only one of the 11 studied kinds of batter or dough. Among rural-farm households that baked, 12% made only one. At the other end, 14% of urban baking households made four or more kinds, compared with 38% of rural-farm baking households.
Taken together, those figures show that participation and variety were different dimensions. A household could bake at least one item without making a broad range of products, while the farm-household results in this historical survey were associated with both higher participation and more kinds of batter or dough.
Why people bake and how habits are changing
Food-preparation data provide useful context for cost pressures, but the UK measures below cover household cooking more broadly than baking. In UK Food and You 2, 29% of respondents said they prepared more leftovers or cooked in batches for financial reasons in Wave 6, covering October 2022–January 2023. The share rose to 33% in Wave 7, April–July 2023, then fell to 26% in Wave 9, April–July 2024. Food Standards Agency, “Consumers’ Food Safety Practices in the Home: Trends and Insights From 2020 to 2025”
Across Waves 2–4, from November 2020 through January 2022, 59% to 62% of UK respondents who prepared household food said they cooked from scratch every day or most days. The share saying they cooked from scratch more for financial reasons was 25% in Wave 6 and 27% in Wave 9. In the UK Consumer Insights Tracker, 34% to 41% reported cooking or preparing food from scratch to save money across the tracking period from August 2023 to March 2025.
The baking-specific UK category measures point in two directions. In-home baking occasions were 10% lower in 2024 than in 2023, according to Kantar’s 52 weeks ending 1 September 2024. Yet UK flour volume sales rose 0.6% in 2024 versus the previous year, even as flour-containing occasions fell 11%, according to the 52 weeks ending 29 December 2024. AHDB, “Cereals market outlook”
An occasion count and an ingredient-sales measure are not interchangeable. The figures suggest that the number of baking or flour-containing occasions can fall while the volume of flour sold rises, but they do not identify the precise household behavior behind that difference.
Time, repetition, and baking occasions
The 1955 USDA survey also captured baking outside the exact survey week. Among U.S. households that did not bake any studied item during the week, about 50% had baked something during the preceding month. Three-fourths had baked something during the preceding 12 months. A quiet survey week therefore did not necessarily mean a household never baked.
Repeated preparation was common for several products. Nearly 75% of homemakers who made cornbread or biscuits made them more than once during the survey week. Half of those who made pie crust made it two or more times, and half of those who made griddlecakes or waffles did the same.
Holiday cookies show a similarly varied pattern in a much newer, product-specific survey. In King Arthur Baking’s 2025 holiday-cookie survey, only 5% of respondents made just one type of cookie each year. Thirty-five percent made two or three types, while 59% made four or more. Seven percent made more than 10 different styles each year. King Arthur Baking, “The rules of holiday cookies, according to over 6,000 bakers”
The reasons for making cookies extended beyond personal eating. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed holiday-cookie bakers made cookies for family, 66% made them for themselves, and 50% gave them as holiday gifts. When asked which part they liked best, 44% chose the act of baking, compared with 17% who chose eating and 2% who chose decorating.
Those holiday-cookie results apply to the survey’s respondents and occasion, not to all home baking. They nevertheless illustrate why a count of baking households alone can miss the habit’s variety: frequency, number of recipes, sharing, and enjoyment can all be measured separately.