Dont have to work in a bakery or pro kitchen to be irritated by the fact that no 3rd gen baker in a shop inherited by her grandma (no mention of her mom being a baker ever so not sure why someone said 3rd..the great gramma connection doesnt come out til the end) would be paying rent 65 years later. Nor would you have to be to cringe at every bit of that bakery kitchen. Cute little jars of sprinkles and chocolate wafers and decorating tips placed strategically on the counter like some Pier 1 Imports or Williams Sonoma store display. Not only that a couple of rack and rolls filled with baking trays that are upside down and all empty. In fact they dont even look like theyve ever been used. Not only that, shes talked about deep cleaning her mixers but all I see is them mixing cake batter by hand in small bowls you might use to bake a cake at home for a family of 3. And that was the big grocery store order. She shouldnt have even kept afloat 5 years. I really wish even Hallmark would give credit to viewers more and be more authentic in creating a plausible scene or scenario.

Beyond cringe worthy that the owner of this bakery after 5 years has no idea that the books are as grim as they are. Epic fail all around.

The only genuine person is the little pre school aged girl. None of the others have a natural bone in their body. Every scene and conversation seems fake and forced and no chemistry. Even for a Hallmark movie.

This is a pretty much by the book save the ______ story. This one is about a bakery owner whose building has been sold out from under her. Her main focus has been to honor her grandmother's, from whom she inherited the bakery, legacy not to actually grow the business and make a profit. Thus she is averse to change and shies away from any innovation or move forward because it would take the business further from how she remembers it from her childhood with her Grandmother. And of course, she can't envision the business without the building. I really have a problem with running a business like it's some idealized lifestyle choice rather than a functional contributor to the economy. It's all too common in Hallmark-land. Grow or Die.

Anyway, inspired by a new rich client, whose wedding she is going to provide the cake for, she finally gets a fire lit under her and decides to finally do everything she can to make enough money to buy the building from her landlord herself. Also, she falls in love with her clients brother and his little girl, who, yes, is truly adorable. She actually is successful in making enough money to make an offer on the building. But not before the inevitable flour fight with her new man and the wipe the flour off the nose kiss.

The big existential crisis occurs when her bid is turned down and she finds out that the real estate company who is buying the building is the employer of the new boyfriend. Of course he is innocent of any nefarious behavior, but she won't give him a chance. She mopes, sulks, and backslides to her unambitious self and gives up despite the efforts of her kooky assistance and her energetic business manager. Desperate, they finally call in the big guns (her mother) who tells her her grandmother would not approve of her trying to preserve the bakery like it was some kind of monument to her. She tells her that when Granny took over the bakery from her mother, she moved the bakery into a new building and changed and innovated to save the business. The lightbulb finally switches on for our heroine. It's a revelation!

The finish is a strong one which moved the needle from strictly lackluster to not too bad. She demonstrates that she has really changed by letting go of her controlling "only I can do it right" attitude. She lets her assistant decorate the cake (which turned out really hideous in my opinion) for the wedding, buys a new and even better building, makes her two loyal employees partners, makes up with her boyfriend and is his date to the wedding. The director took advantage of the talent and appeal of the five-year-old cutie pie by cutting her in at the last minute to be the flower girl. Watch that scene closely.

This movie closely follows the tried and tested recipe, with very little originality mixed in, but it is all-age friendly from the cute kid thru to the 1940s backstory. The super-sized opening credits were over-done by about three minutes and it took a few more to get into the story, so hang in there. Some goofs cause distraction, like eating the cake in front of the intact cake (unless they made yet more, which is possible knowing the customer). The sadness of missing loved ones stops the film from being too sweet so I could have a second helping.