For those of us that are not so steady with a serrated knife, this is about to be your go-to bakery request. Many larger stores, like the Whole Foods, will bake their own bread. Not only is this amazing in itself, but those large sourdough loaves need to be cut, quickly and evenly. Enter the bread slicing machine. Pick a loaf and ask your friendly bakery counter staff if they could run it through the slicer and get perfectly even cuts. Making croutons? They can run the loaf through the machine twice on opposing sides to give you block cuts.

They can also make cuts by hand if the request is simple enough. Have a brioche loaf cut into five thick slices or the multigrain batard in half. They’ll even cut bagels from the self-serve case for you (that includes the 6-pack bagels, too), if you show them a receipt.

The pastry case is a dazzling array of pies, tarts, and cakes. It is the jewelry box of some store bakeries. Often the desserts with cooked fruit or fresh fruit are the highest-turnover items, but they’re also the quickest to fade. If you notice the few berries decorating the top of a strawberry shortcake are wrinkly or dry, you can politely ask for them to get replaced with new berries. Often, this is a quick task that does not require the expertise of a cake decorator, and the staff member helping you will replace the fruit within a few minutes.

What you cannot ask for is that all of the berries within the cake or the two pounds of fruit covering the fresh fruit tart be replaced. If you hate the look of all the fruit bearing pastries then this is a sign from the universe that it’s a good day to consider something chocolate.

Do you dabble in baking? I get you: Sometimes you bring a fresh strawberry pie for a potluck picnic in the park, or sometimes you’re the friend that gets asked to make a small wedding cake. Not only is it flattering, but you are so ready to try gum paste flowers for the first time. The trouble is, how do you properly support and transport these precious, delicate items when you don’t really do it all the time? Cake supply stores are not always local, and ordering one usually means you’ll need room to store the other 149 cake boxes you were required to buy.

For one-off cake supply needs, ask your supermarket’s bakery. They might be able to give you a 9-inch cardboard cake circle, a proper pie box, or even a couple disposable plastic piping bags for making frosting flowers. I’ve gotten single cake boards and boxes for free, and sometimes the bakery will even have a SKU code so you can pay for it at the register (usually for 50 cents or a dollar). Word to the wise: Do not ask for any frosting piping tips, as these are not single-use tools and are usually personal to cake decorators.

If you want to build your own dessert but don’t want to bake the cake and make the frosting, you can get a hand from your local grocery store bakery. Some supermarket bakeries will sell you any of the separate components they use for making their in-house desserts. Many stores don’t bake everything at their location. They have larger commissaries where the cake layers, fillings, and frostings are made from scratch. These items are wrapped and shipped to them frozen or refrigerated, arriving at the store ready to use. Which makes it easy for the bakery to get a cake layer or tart shell from the freezer and sell it to you. You get the flavor of home-made but none of the dirty dishes, and for a way better price and product than you’d get from Duncan Hines. Buy cake layers, a quart of icing, undecorated cupcakes, or a few tempered-chocolate decorations to bring home, and get to making that wedding cake.

Most grocery store bakeries that decorate cakes for special orders have more than one frosting. When I worked at Whole Foods, there was a fluffy, delicate Swiss meringue buttercream; a chocolate ganache; a vegan frosting, and something we called “kids” icing. All of these were made in-house but with vastly different ingredients, preparations, and consistencies. If you’re looking to bring a quart of frosting home to use on your cake, be specific, and ask for the “good” stuff, not the cheap stuff. If you want the delicate and fluffy Swiss meringue buttercream, request it by name or point to the one you like in the bakery’s display case.

The bakery is in charge of all, or most of, the cakes sold in the store. That goes for prepackaged, single-layer cakes; pound cakes; cheesecakes; and so on. If you go to the cake case and ask for one of their regular cakes to have “Happy 2-month Anniversary, Will You Marry Me?” written on it, they will gladly get it done (and maybe offer some dating advice).

But you can also bring pretty much anything else you purchased in the store over to the bakery and have them write on it as a free service to your purchase. As long as you pay for it and present them with a receipt, you can have a 4-inch chocolate chip cookie written on, or have a foot-long hoagie that says, “Go Giants!” Just understand that it’ll probably be written in frosting, icing, or chocolate, and those flavors might not pair well with the Italian salami.

Flowers and balloons are great, but if you need a more personal touch, not every grocery store bakery is equipped to stencil on an image of Elsa. You can usually bring in a sugar-printed image from a specialty store and let the pros take care of the rest without suffering any extra decorating charges. Likewise for plastic toys, specialty sugar decorations, or edible flowers that you purchased elsewhere.

If you want a particular pattern to be applied to the cake, you can bring in a stencil or tool and request the decorator use it to achieve the specific result you’re envisioning for your special order.

So, your bakery only bakes off their cinnamon raisin bagel bites on Saturdays but you can’t make it there until Sunday, and they’re always sold out. Dry your eyes: Even if they have an in-house schedule for what-sells-when, you can special order those bagel bites for a day that works for your calendar. Place an order at the counter and you can have a half dozen of their super popular Friday-cookies on Thursday, before the rush hits.

Menus are there for a reason: they compile the bestsellers; they’re marketed toward certain, universal needs; and they make life easier for both the caterer and the catered-to. However, if everything about the “Bougie Breakfast Platter” works for you, but you’d really like to have a dozen of the packaged black & white cookies added to the mix, just ask.

Depending on the store and department manager, you might even be able to request an entirely off-the-menu platter of your own design. The order might be at-cost per item, or at a discount if enough pieces are ordered. Who knows, if word gets around about your “Movie Night Platter” consisting of their butterfinger cookies and peanut butter M&M brownies, it might become part of the permanent menu.

You like what you like, and you like it fresh out of the oven, dammit. This may seem simple, but it’s one of the many things the bakery staff will be forthcoming about—answering questions about when things were baked, or when the next batch will be ready. If you think the last giant chocolate chip cookie is looking suspiciously like leftovers from yesterday’s bake, don’t be shy—ask about the ETA of the next batch, as there could be some baking at that very moment. If you get your local grocery store bakery staff to remember you (hopefully as the Nice Cookie Guy and not the Crazy Cookie Guy) they might even be willing to check the fridge for cookie dough and bake you off a couple freshies to pick up on your way to the register. Them’s life goals right there.

What’s better than pulling freshly baked croissants out of your own home oven? Croissants that you didn’t have to laminate, cut, and shape yourself! As I mentioned earlier, most grocery store bakeries make certain things in-house and the rest is made, or partially made, at an off-site commissary location. These items are usually frozen before shipping, for easy packing and to ensure the product doesn’t get damaged in transit. It arrives in an ideal state to either stay frozen or get baked. So things like cookie dough are pre-portioned and ready to bake, croissants are ready to thaw and proof, pies are filled and covered with dough, all assembled raw, but ready to bake for the first time.

Some bakeries will let you purchase these items in their raw, frozen state to take home and bake off on your own. The cost will likely reflect that of the baked and finished item, so don’t expect to save money, but this might be ideal if you’d like to get your Thanksgiving shopping done three days early and still have a fresh-baked pie with your family meal. For the best semi-at-home baking experience, remember to ask the bakery counter staff for any tips on thawing and baking, and get them in writing (or take notes yourself).