WA Cottage Food Law

I got my CFO permit approved recently from WA state. I don't know how much the rules vary between counties, but I can tell you what I know from my county (Thurston). Pureed strawberry is not ok to put directly on your baked goods, such as between layers of a cake. However, you can put fruit in your batter. My banana and carrot cake recipes, which I put fresh bananas and carrots in, were approved because the bananas and carrots will be cooked. As long as there is a cook step, fresh fruit and veges are fine. I don't think it's okay for your frosting though, as there is no cook step, but I can't say that with 100% certainty. I would ask your regional manager to be sure. The Dept. of Ag. should tell you who yours is - it might even be in your packet. Mine was very helpful with all my questions and very prompt in returning my messages.

Hope this helps and good luck!

The people of CC have been so helpful to me that I'm more than happy to help someone else out for a change 

I didn't want to risk annoying my regional manager either, even though he was quite nice. I compiled as many questions as I could before each call to him vs. calling after each question that came up. 

I have some frostings that are flavored with fruit oils or extracts. I do have a mango buttercream that contains mango puree that was approved. For that one, I believe their rule for being shelf stable is that it needs to either have a cook step or be a certain % sugar (60%?). The same goes for cream cheese frosting. It just needs to have enough sugar in it. When you're calculating it, you have to remember to subtract the cornstarch from the weight of the powdered sugar. I can't remember the exact numbers right now, but it might be in your application packet. You can also put that on your list of questions to ask your regional manager the next time you talk to him 

Experimenting - Did you get cream cheese frosting approved? 

You're welcome ShannonDavie 

DanaG21: I did not submit cream cheese frosting for approval. I did ask about it though and they would've approved it as long as the recipe had a high enough sugar content.

Other items that they may not approve according to their rules of being shelf stable, you can send it out to a lab to be tested to show that it will be shelf stable. 

Another piece of advice: The law is still pretty new here in WA and not everyone is on the same page. The lady reviewing my application made at least 2 mistakes during her first round of review. I challenged both. The first was not approving my ganache. The second was that I submitted a list of possible items that might be added to any order, including gel pastes and gum paste. She said that I needed to submit every possible combination there might be instead of just listing them on a separate page. I did this for adding nuts and/or chocolate chips to my cake recipes, but to submit every possible permutation of the other options I might add to decorate a cake with would require me to submit over 2000 recipes. I asked my regional manager about this before my initial submission, and he told me that I could just submit these extra ingredients on a separate piece of paper. I called him to clarify and he cleared it up for me. I guess the advice here is to get a second opinion if you feel something just doesn't make sense  

The inspectors vary also in how they conduct their inspections. Don't let someone tell you that it's easy peasy and all he'll do is make sure you don't lick your fingers. Some might be that way, but others (like mine) might be a lot more thorough. 

I've been working on my ingredient labels and recipes...this is such a daunting task.  I've been working on it for a couple of months now...there's just so many varibles with cakes.  I've been renting a commercial kitchen and getting licensed was soooo easy although it's a more expensive way to go.   I just wish it wasn't so complicated!

Thanks to all of you for this info. I also live in th St of WA and I've been putting off filling up an application since I do cakes as a hobby and I'm not sure if I'm going to stop liking the cake-hobby if I start doing it as a business. Does anyone have any input?

Hi Rosie2,  

If you can get through all of the paper work for the cottage law this would be the least expensive way to go and figure out if you want to pursue this on a more serious level.  The cost for a health permit (in King County) is about $600.00 for renting  commercial kitchen and then there's the cost of the kitchen.  I also have liability insurance which I will keep regardless of which way I go.   I participated in a bridal show at a local venue recently and they asked for proof of insurance.   Insurance is $500.00 for the year.