I ask this question because I live in a state that does not allow home based kitchens. However, I see lots of restaraunts and bakeries that proudly sprout "homemade" somewhere on their signage.

So my question is; What constitutes homemade? Obviously to me it would mean made at home. I am asking because there are somethngs I want to do but don't want to get myself in trouble by using the word. With liability and all.

Thanks for your help

Whew!!! Thank you. That really helped me to understand the term.

That's like the term "freshly baked". Well of course it is who is going to bake a stale anything. "Homemade" is a marketing term that could mean many things.


Mike

Another take on "freshly baked." The grocery store bakery I worked in had "fresh baked" goods, but they were made somewhere else and frozen, shipped to my store, and then sat in our freezer for goodness knows how long before they were "freshly baked."

A venue owner I know says that she can say that her cookies, which are made from pre-bought frozen cookie dough, are "homebaked," but not that they're "homemade." Another baker here who uses mixes had to stop using the term "homemade" in his advertising because it implied that he was baking from scratch.

I think that people assume that when you say "homemade" it's something that you made from scratch, so it can be misleading.

Yes, I agree. Thank you all!

Well, I thought this was going to lead to something else, but to answer the original question of "can you define homemade?" when I was growing up, anything that mom made was homemade. When she spread that canned icing over the Duncan Hines cake she had baked, that made it a "homemade" cake. When she opened the cans of tomato sauce, cans of kidney beans, and mixed it with the fried hamburger, that was "homemade" chili.

I didn't think "homemade" as a marketing term. In all honesty, I have always wondered how something could be or taste like home made unless they are making it at home. Many of the ingrediants in quantity change when you buy them in bulk and the home cook does not necessarily have access to the same ingrediants that commercial kitchens do.

I cannot serve my family something and expect them to believe that I made it fresh from my home oven as opposed to the bakery.

Just as an FYI - the gov't definition of "wholesome" in the food industry ONLY means that it's fit for human consumption, nothing more, nothing less.

Just as an FYI - the gov't definition of "wholesome" in the food industry ONLY means that it's fit for human consumption, nothing more, nothing less.

I always assume "homemade" to mean "prepared on site" (nothing to do with a "home"). BUT - different words mean different things to different people. A restaurant/bakery I briefly tried to use as a licensed kitchen for my cake business referred to themselves as a "scratch bakery" - with Duncan Hines cake mixes and icing from a SYSCO tub.

Sysco icing isn't from scratch, obviously...I don't know if there's a legal advertising law or anything, but I do think that when you say something is homemade it implies that it's made from scratch, not a mix.

Notice that when a fast food chain says they have fresh biscuits, they say that they're fresh-baked, or that they have "homemade taste." That tells me that they're trying to imply that they're actually making the biscuits from scratch, but that they're really just opening a box of frozen biscuits and heating them up. There must be some limitation to what they can say without being accused of false advertising.

Maybe there isn't any law and maybe there is, I don't know, but I think that most people would expect a from-scratch whatever when they're told it's homemade.

In my mind, "homemade" is from scratch. We consider ourselves "homemade" bakers, even though we work out of a commercial kitchen and desire to open our own retail location. The reason being is that our cakes are made from scratch, our buttercream recipe is made with real butter and other fresh ingredients, and we make our own decorations, whether it be buttercream, fondant, gumpaste, jem paste, or chocolate. To us, if you pull buttercream from a plastic bucket, it isn't "homemade".

Ok sweet guys, this is off the subject, but what is jem paste?

Jill E. Maythem (hence, jem) is an South African instructor I took a course with while at ICES in Orlando this past summer. She created a paste, JEM Paste, to use with her molds. It's made with egg whites, confectioner's sugar, and tylose. It hardens even quicker than gumpaste. It can be colored just like fondant and gumpaste, too!

My head is spinning with SO many ideas right now. I'm getting delirious!

Sounds wonderful! Would you mind sharing the recipe? You could pm me if you like.

Like indydebi, I thought it would lead to something else in the definition, but I guess its also a matter of interpretation as to "Homemade"

But! regardless of what words are used or how good something taste coming from a food establishment, nothing compares to the taste of "homemade"

I have some ideas why but that's another topic, hehe

These are my personal definitions:

Homemade - anything that comes out of my kitchen whether it starts from scratch or uses mixes/starters.

Not homemade - anything I buy that is ready for consumption.

Hence a cupcake from a Duncan Hines cake mix is "homemade" while a Hostess cupcake (or anything out of the grocery store bakery) is not.

For me, "homemade" implies a product that is freshly made using quality ingredients, not something that has been injected with loads of preservatives so that it can survive for weeks on a store shelf. I occasionally use mixes, but generally only for a portion of the finished product.

Bravo!! Nicely put, its the difference with something bought at an establishment. A bakery cannot have homemade, because then it implies that maybe it was made in someones personal kitchen. And another thing, commercial grade products are different than those of the grocery stores for personal use.

Thankyou pookie