20 Fun and Easy Ways to Make Money From Your Kitchen

Do you love spending time in your kitchen? Are you creative? If you do and you are, you will want to explore the many ways you can make extra money working at home in your kitchen. Each of these 20 ideas can lead to even more ideas. You just need to know what your strengths are and how much time you have to devote to a small home business.

I used to bake and sell homemade breads during the winter months. My best selling times were after a heavy snowfall, when the stores were out of fresh bread. This was a huge money maker for me and I advertised with a flyer hung up at the local grocery store. Many of my recipes, over 400, are online.

There are many people who love the taste of homemade soups, but do not know how or do not have the time to make homemade soups from scratch. This is why church soup sales do so well. If your soups are raved about, you can capitalize on people's love for homemade soups and prepare them in your kitchen to sell locally and in small specialty shops.

Personalized, specialty birthday cakes are a good sell. If you are good at decorating cakes and making fun shapes from sheet cake, definitely look into starting this business. You can also specialize in wedding cakes.

The catering business is alive and well. Provide food for family gatherings and small events. You will need to know how to cook many different types of meals in large batches and provide your potential clients with a list of the foods, quantity, and cost.

A fun small business you can do in your spare time. Sell homemade doggie biscuits online and at local pet stores and specialty stores.

Cupcakes are all the rage. The brighter, prettier the cupcakes, the better. Many people are starting up small cupcake bakeries in towns and cities. You can start from your home kitchen and work your way up to owning your own small bakery.

Melting chocolates and pouring into moulds is a fun, part-time business that has the potential to grow into a full time business. Many small stores will carry and sell locally made chocolates. You can also sell them from your home, through word of mouth and local advertising.

There are many soap makers that sell online, but are their any local soap makers selling from the specialty shops in your area? If not, then you have a great opportunity to make some extra money making and selling homemade soaps.

Make homemade skin lotions and balms in your kitchen. Sell them online and locally. You can also give small seminars from your home about natural beauty products as well as providing facial masks made with all natural ingredients.

For chocolate lovers, there is nothing better than homemade, gourmet chocolate desserts. If you have a knack for melting down blocks of chocolate and turning it into something to die for, look into getting set up as your town's chocolate fix.

You have not had a doughnut until you've had a fresh, deep fried doughnut that is still warm to the touch. People living in Pennsylvania can also provide locals with freshly deep fried fastnachts.

I remember how hard it was to find a good pretzel when my family and I traveled out West. Being from Pennsylvania, we were spoiled with true German pretzels. If you love playing with dough, learn and test out different Pennsylvania Dutch or German pretzel recipes until you find one that you know will knock the town's socks off.

Opposite from pretzels, the best bagels are out west, especially in the Seattle area. Bake and sell homemade bagels for the breakfast crowd. You can sell them from home, local stores, and at office buildings, with permission from the owners.

Lollipops will never go out of style, but the ones sold in the grocery stores leave a lot to be desired. Make uniquely shaped and flavored lollipops to sell. Aim for themes: holidays, birthdays, and even weddings.

A new trend is gourmet popsicles. Make popsicles from homemade fruit blends and purees. You can sell these from your home freezer for parties or have your local stores carry them for you. If you have the extra money, buy a used ice-cream truck and sell these popsicles at local events.

Grow your own herbs outdoors and bring them in to dry and blend. Create unique tea blends for your local market. Create specialty blends for the seasons and holidays.

Is there something you are exceptionally good at making? Quiche, chowders, soufflé? Are you an expert with a type of cuisine or are you great with all the basics of cooking? Finally, are you good with people? There are so many people that want to learn how to cook and bake, but have no one to show them how and they are not able to learn from books. Provide cooking and baking classes from your home, teaching one to three students at a time.

While candle making can be quite messy, many candle makers make candles in their kitchen. To break into the candle making business, you will need to come up with a unique line of candles. They will have to be more than just colored, scented pillars. Find a unique niche, such as Halloween candles or spell candles, and make it work.

Do you know how difficult it is to find genuine horehound candies? And when cold and flu season hits, even the mass produced brands are sold out. Making horehound cough drops will require you to grown your own stock of horehound in your garden, but come autumn, you will be glad you prepared for the onslaught of sick people looking for these cough drops.

For my youngest daughter, I made many types of freshly pureed fruits and veggies for her. Like the baby food pouches you find in stores, I mixed up my own delicious and healthy concoctions. If you are involved with a lot of mothers of young toddlers, ask around and see if there is a local interest in freshly made baby foods. For my daughter, I would make large batches of pureed fruits and veggies and then freeze the puree in ice cube trays. Each night, I would get out the amount of cubes I would need for the next day and I would let them thaw in small plastic containers in the refrigerator.