Non-dairy cake and icing help - Page 3

Thank you, Sadsmile! That was "take 2" of that bow, the first one crashed and crumbled.... practice practice.

I just posted pics of a Rosh Hashana cake that I finished last night, in case anyone wants to see. I made the "honey" out of carmelized sugar. All the fruits and flowers are gum paste.

Now I have to go do the "real" cooking...

Shana tova!

Thank you so much, Malishka!!

wow...some really neat ingredients there! Thanks for sharing!!

You'd definitely have to be closed for the sabbath. Also the week of Passover (plus if you are Jewish, there are some other technicalities involved with Passover, since you're not actually supposed to own anything that isn't kosher for passover. There are ways around this, usually a symbolic selling of your stuff for the week to a non-jew. You can ask the Rabbi about it).

There is no reason to be closed the entire week of Sukkoth, it is just the first two and last two days which you couldn't be open, as they have the same restrictions as the sabbath, in terms of conducting monetary transactions, operating electrical machines, etc.... Hannukah does not have these prohibitions, so you could definitely be open then.

There are several brands of kosher fondant, including Wilton (which tastes gross, IMO), Satin Ice, and Baekels.

Some great substitutes for milk are soy milk and rice milk. There is also non-dairy creamer (like Rich's), but it tends to have a lot of artificial ingredients, and doesn't taste so great. I almost always use soy milk to keep my baked goods non-dairy. Most kosher bakeries have the vast majority of their products pareve (hebrew term for non-dairy), so there are certainly ways to bake well without dairy.

There are different types of kosher certifications which are accepted by different people, at various levels of observance. If you want to make sure you're covering all your bases and making your business accessible to the largest number of kashruth observers, then your best bet is to consult a national organization like the Orthodox Union (www.ou.org) or the Star K (http://www.star-k.org/). They should both be able to guide you as to how to get started, what expense are involved (it will incur a cost to be certified), and answer other questions.

There are also many regional, local kosher certifying organizations and individual rabbis, but I would research which ones in your area are most widely accepted by kosher observant people, so that you'll get the most 'bang for your buck.'

One last suggestion: If there are other kosher establishments in your area (restaurants, delis, take out, etc...) I would see if their owners might be willing to talk to you and tell you what their experience has been dealing with the local kosher certifying agencies. There are a lot of intricacies involved, many of which can be an inconvenience. But you should gather your info and then decide if it's worth your while to pursue.

Hope that helps, best of luck!!

Saberger, you're welcome! You're 100% right about Pesach... my grandmother used to say that on Passover, god freed the Jews from Egypt and enslaved the women!

As for Glatt, it's totally not relevant to anything but meat. It's become this ubiquitous term that people use for anything they think is "super" kosher, but technically it just means that the meat labeled "Glatt Kosher" comes from an animal that had no imperfections in its lungs, whatsoever. See here: http://kosherfood.about.com/od/kosherbasics/f/glatt.htm So a bakery could never be glatt kosher, even if it wanted to be! Unless of course, you're making beefcake - but that's a whole other thread all together... lol!

A great place to find pareve recipes is kosher cookbooks. My favorite chocolate cake recipe is from The Kosher Palette book by Susie Fishbein - it's called "Ultimate Chocolate Cake." I use soy milk in it instead of milk. But go to a judaica store or some other store with a good selection of kosher cookbooks, and you'll probably find some really good ones.

I don't really own a formal cake biz - yet. I work full time as a partner in an IT company, and the cake stuff is my moonlighting, creative outlet. It recently has begun to get some traction though, so I'm encouraged and thinking about the possibilities. I did look into getting kosher certification, because a friend asked me to do a wedding cake for her sister. But because I'm working in a home kitchen, the local kashrut overseers wouldn't give me certification, so I couldn't bring the cake to the kosher catering facility. It was a real bummer, but I ended up making it anyway for their Sheva Brachot party (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheva_Brachot) at a private home, and the bride and groom were very happy. I posted a pic of it in my photos (the tall, black and white one). My most recent accomplishment is the violin cake, I also posted some pics of it.

So we'll see where it goes, for now I'm still working the "day job" to pay the bills and put three kids through school, and doing this for fun and creative fulfillment. But maybe one day cake will be my full time gig, a baker can dream, right?

I took a look at your photos - your work is lovely!!! Do you have a full time cake business? Btw, I'm also in NJ.

Hope all the info is useful for you!!