With so many home bakes I think we should get a break - Page 2

Risquebusiness- Wow! I don't think I could have dealt with it as long as you did. My husband started out as a dishwasher and worked his way through the ranks. I believe you when you talk about chef Ramsey because I also work in a hotel and I have heard the chefs yell at the cooks. I asked my husband one night if he was a chef Ramsey and he said no, he said he would never treat anyone in a way he wouldn't want to be treated. I have kicked him out of my kitchen before trying to tell me what to do. My comment to him was excuse me, I am not your employee so get out of my kitchen.
I value your opinions on everything and I always refer back to questions that you have answered abd your cakes are awesome. I know when I read the comments talking about their animals walking around it horrifies me. I would love to come visit your shop one day.
My daughter said if she likes it she would love to be my partner when she grows up. My son would like to be the delivery driver. WOW I love my kids!
Faye

I didn't get as far as to checking into that, but I would venture to say that it would be considered advertising.

You have to be careful, though, because I've heard that some people have gotten reported to the Health Department for handing out cards "advertising" their cake decorating business but without a proper license.

Wow, what a sensitive thread.

I am always afraid to post things because it seems the license bakers are always ready to pounce on you for not having one.

It would be nice if you could sell a few items just to see if you would enjoy doing this on a regular basis. Not just the free cakes you give to friend and family, do you want to deal with real customers.

Here in MI you have to have a seperate entrance, nothing you use in your home kitchen can be used where you bake for customers. Before I go to all that expense it would be nice to see if I really want to do this.

What happen to people using common sense. If I choose to buy muffins from a neighbor and I think they are clean enough to bake for me it should be my choice. If the baker is dirty then I should know not to buy from her.

I have worked in the food industry and I know if a resturant doesn't look clean then I shouldn't eat there. I have sat down only to leave because the resurant didn't look clean, or the staff look like they didn't practice good hygene. Nothing will turn me away like a dirty bathroom.

Taxes, yes. My husband just told me last night I should charge tax and report it on my 1040. Now if I do that are they going to investigate to see if I have a license.

I really have a problem with the government telling me where and what I can eat. McDonalds had the best french frys until the government pressured them to change them. If I am an adult and they are bad for me shouldn't that be up to me if I want to eat them or not?

If I want to eat something that was made in your kitchen that should be my choice. If I'm worried about where my food is cooked then I will go into a bakery where I expect it to come from a well kept kitchen because they are inspected.

Isn't it funny we can feed our family without having three sinks.

Having worked in the food industry, you probably have more insight then most, but just recently an Olive Garden restaurant in Indpls was shut down because over 100 people went to the hospital for food poisoning due to the norovirus ..... according the paper, this is caused by FECAL MATTER!! People not washing their hands!!!!! We ate at this restaurant all the time, and I can tell you that it appeared to be a very VERY clean establishment.

It's usually not the dirt you DO see .... it's the stuff you DON'T see that is the problem.

I believe that all mechanics started in their backyard, all contractors started in their garage and all cake decorators started in their kitchen. Unfortunately, we picked the industry that is one of the most expensive to get started in (specific equipment, floor plans, special flooring and wall covering requirements, etc.). Yes, this is a sensitive topic for many reasons.

I agree with you Tracy, but...on this point..I can give the home baker a little slack..

There is a BIG diff from promoting yourself..( which if you're not lic..you should NOT do..) and giving someone that ASKS...a card with your name and number...

But, then again...If people want to find you..they will no matter if you live on the moon! lol

But...you are right also in the fact that you can never make 100% of the people 100% happy..

You JUST have to do the best you can with what you have..and YES, YES, YES...The rules of sanitation SHOULD and MUST be followed at ALL time, be it baking from home or a shop!

Jannette, no body is pouncing..lol You should read some of the other threads!!

This one..so far has remained civil!! but things can change! lol

Please, never be afraid to post..it's only an opinion and we all have one!

So, if yours is not the popular one for the day, so what? as long as you're not being mean to anyone!

I for one, love a good debate..( can't you tell!??) and welcome opinions and a good, lively discussion any time (factually based that is!) than some sugary sweet person telling me what they think I want to hear.

been around the block to many times to waste my time with that..

Not only did I write the book and get the T-Shirt...I got conned out of the movie rights on that one..

I for one am a big girl and can handle your questions and concerns!! so...feel free..oh..and if you are afraid to post..just PM me! ( I'm a little bit nicer there..)

I can see both sides to this. I am just starting out and I really enjoy making cakes and I would love to have it as a business. But here in Washington the laws are very strict and you need to have a seperate kitchen. So for now I will be satisfied making cakes for my friends and family. Then hopefully in the future I will be able to get my own shop. I also do have two cats in the house but I make sure and wipe all the counters down and sweep and mop the floor before I start baking. I always make sure the cake is put in a safe place where the cats can't get to it but believe me I am always concerned that hair might get on it.
The one thing that I am surprised about is that even the licensed bakeries don't get inspected as often as you would think. I worked for a store bakery when I was in college and I was surprised about all the sugar and frosting buildup on the dougnut case. I took one whole day and cleaned everything from top to bottom. Even the cake decorating area was filthy. It didn't look like it had been cleaned in months. After I cleaned everything at least the rest of the employees started wiping everything down. But it made me wonder if I hadn't done that how long would it have been before they finally did clean everything off. There are clean and unclean people in both licensed and unlicensed bakeries. So I feel you need to use your own best judgement when buying food from someone. Everyone is different but for me I will feel safer once I do have a license. I don't want to get myself in a predicament and get caught doing something I shouldn't. Well sorry this is so long but I just wanted to put in my two cents.

There is a reason that it is hard to get licensed and it is to protect the public. I cringe when I hear that someone is sick and still made a cake to give a customer--spread of illness right there. People spread viruses not only by not washing hands which is gross but by being ill and preparing food by simply breathing on it (droplets). Some people don't know what clean is--I refuse to eat food from potlucks for that reason. My neighbor complained about that "dirt that is by the cabinets on the floor, you know about 1/2 from the baseboard that you can't reach with a mop." If you can't get it with a mop then get down there with a sponge! I clean my kitchen top to bottom and scrub everything alot of people just whip a washcloth around and call it good. It is hard for the state to have to inspect the restaurants that are there, being short staffed it would be impossible to inspect all of the homes too. If deficiencies are found then it means a return trip to re-inspect. Also you have to carry extra insurance on your home policy to cover liability for your business--a regular policy does not cover your home business.

I am an at home baker (just for friends and family) but I completely understand the side of the legal bakeries. How many times on this website alone have you heard people talk about the cat or dog walking on the cake - THEN asking for advice whether to serve the cake or not. GROSS!!!! Why is this even a question? This factor alone I think is reason enough for regulations and permits and licenses. I know how anal I am about cleaning and making sure the cakes I do are not contaminated or anything like that. And they're just for friends or family. I would be a nervous wreck it I actually "sold" a cake to someone. Honestly, it's the people that do it illegally that cause all the hardships for people trying to get legal. It only takes one person getting sick (from the least little thing) to make a stir.

Ok I have just one thing to say here. People are bringing up the pet hair thing... Ok I was visiting a PROFESSIONALS website viewing their pictures of cakes, they have a shop, they are licensed and all that, one picture had a piece of HUMAN hair on it plain as day! I know stuff happens and you can't always be sure you're not getting anything on it but a long dark hair laying ontop of a white iced cake... discusting! And for her to post it on the web even worse! I would never buy from her just because of that one incident. Whose to say there isn't something worse in the cake that she didn't notice?

Now as far as being licensed here in Maryland... I looked into it I called the Health Department before I started all this and they told me it was fine to sell out of my home and bake out of my home as long as I didn't advertise. No license needed in my county. But if I wanted to take out an advertisement in the newspaper, telephone book, or message board in a store etc. I would have to rent a space and have it inspected every 4 months or more. And even though it wasn't my space I would be responsable for it being up to code. Now she told me herself it isn't fair to do that but it's what they do. So I decided I can get by on "word of mouth" for now and if it doesn't pay off then I'll think about renting the space at the fire house or the church down the road. Both of which are within walking distance from the house we are moving into but it would still be a bit of a hassell. I like the fact that the Health Department gave me the OK to do this from my home, and to make a profit off of it.

The way I see it is, do we get to ask questions of those at a bake sale of how clean their kitchen is? or if it was baked in a legal shop? no we don't. And they don't have to be licensed either, they can make arrangements with WalMart or whomever and set up a table and sell till their hearts content without anyone complaining. So why is it home bakers get bitched at constantly for doing what our mothers and grandmothers did when we were young? I can remember having a bake sale in I think 3rd or 4th grade, mom made a bunch of stuff for me and my sister to take into school, there was never a worry then about germs or anything like that. And honestly I think the fact the FDA and the government have put so many restrictions on stuff is why everyone is so sickly now a days. If you think about it our mothers and grandmothers didn't have GermX or anything like it, but yet we carry it in our purses and in our cars and it's in almost every room of our house because god knows someones going to sneeze and we're going to die from it. We didn't have these scares years ago (I'm only 28 and didn't live like my daughter does) and we weren't sickly either. I think the fact that we are spending our lives worried about common germs is how not to get them is why we are so sickly. Our bodies are made to kill off these everyday germs and when you live your life without them and make it a point to kill them off before they get into your system it's making our bodies attack itself or anything else that they feel is harmfull because it's not getting the real harmfull stuff to attack. I'm not saying it's ok to sneeze into someones food but to take the steps most of us are taking, our parents and grandparents didn't wash the entire kitchen down with bleach before baking goods for a bake sale.... a simple wipe down of the counters was all it took and we didn't die from some horrid thing we caught at Little Susies house down the road because her momma don't wash her kitchen down in bleach everytime someone walks thru it and breathes in it.....

Don't get me wrong I have OCD and everything has to be clean and gets cleaned in between things so my kitchen is probably the cleanest room in the house and you could probably eat off my floors but I'd kill you if you did lol. But the fact that our kids are constantly sick should say something for the way we all live our lives about germs. We had mad cow and salmanilla (sp) back then but it wasn't the big of a deal because if we caught something our bodies were able to kill it off and fight it without killing us.... now we are putting so much into ourselves and sealing ourselves off from the world so we don't catch something that could possibly help us in the end... I was never sick when I was a child but my daughter is always sick.... she wears a coat even when it's not cold outside, she washes her hands with anti bacterial soap 10 times a day, she uses germX or something similar inbetween.... just because she's gotten used to it from school.... when we were younger we could run outside barefoot, we could share snacks and drinks and play in the dirt and mud and not die from it... so what's different now? The scare the government has put into everyone.

Home bakers are no worse then those who are doing it in a shop. You can come to our house to sit down and eat a meal with us for a get together or christmas dinner cooked in the same kitchen as that cake but you won't buy a cake from us..... I don't get it.... Anyway my 2 cents like it or don't I don't care it's my opinion and it's how I feel about everything.

I'm still kickin and so are my parents because they didn't over protect us from germs and the like but my kids and nephews and their school mates are always sick because they are protected so much from germs that it's in turn making them sick.... I say get over it and enjoy baking weather you did it from home or shop.

Becky

Talking about hairs...Ummm, I was actually talking to my husband about this kind of stuff, you know when you are cooking to make sure none of your head hairs falls into the food... Well, I tie my hair up to help with this, but that got me thinking:

Have you noticed in all of these TV shows, either it be cooking shows or baking/cake decorating shows that NONE is wearing a hair net, that I've noticed.

I saw this special show on cakes and they showed the people in the background mixing and baking cakes and I didn't see any hair nets. On some shows I see them and some I don't.

On the other side of cooks, you have Rachel Ray with all that hair bouncing around all over her food; you have Giada Delorentis also bouncing all over her food, same as Paul Dean, (well at least she has short hair ) etc.

I mean I know that you want to look glamorours for your TV show but... Oh, well, I don't know. What you all think?

Here is IN you have to have a seperate kitchen with all that entails and I'm not sure but I heard that it could not be connected to your home. BUT . . .I live in Amish country and you would not believe the little bake sales along a major U.S. road in my area! Am I to believe for a minute that all these little regular weekly bake sales catering to flea market traffic are coming from a legal kitchen?? I sincerely doubt it! This will be a debate until the end of time but it is certainly one that is frustrating for everyone that loves cake decorating, legal or not!

While I think some of the regulations are for health reasons, I think some of the regulations are ridiculous. WHY is it necessary to have a separate kitchen from home use? WHY is it necessary for a cake baker to have a grease trap? THESE things I think are just red tape for red tapes sake, and/or it's a way for the food industry to squelch the home bakers. They lobbied the law makers to put these extra regulations in place making it nearly impossible to get the requrements met from home...

Not only do I think they make it tough on purpose for home bakers, but also to discourage NEW store front businesses from popping up too... make it really hard to do, andyou limit the competition, see?

What I do think is that EVERYONE who is going to be cooking/baking from home should have to take a food safety course - online or in a real class. That's the best way to make sure people adhere to health and safety rules...

As a side, I have a funny/kind of sad story about pets and food businesses. When we were moving last time cross country (Iowa to Virginia) I was driving the car with the cat with me. It was summer and REALLY hot, so I couldn't leave him in the car when I stopped somewhere. I stopped at a rode side place and they wouldn't let me bring the cat inside, not even near the entrance is it's against code to have animals in the property. I was really stuck in a hard place!! There was no drive thrus and it was a LONG drive!!! I ended up sitting outside with my meal on a tray with the cat in his carrier beside me!!!

melissa

As the health inspector told a friend of mine who runs a restaurant, human hair may be gross, but no one will get sick from it. (It's still gross!)




Actually........, when Indiana passed the Food Safety Certificate requirement a few years ago, this affected everyone, even church pitch ins, community bakes sales ..... everyone. Our paper did a story with a slant on how gramma can't make her chicken and dumplings or her boisenberry pie for the church pitch in anymore unless she takes the food certification program and becomes certified in how to properly handle food. I believe they were going to exempt events like this but I didn't follow the story. Any other Hoosiers remember how that turned out?

I always find this topic facinating, and I really only do cakes primarily for friends and family for cost plus maybe $5 (and sometimes I dont even cover the cost)....LOL but a few people have seen/eaten cakes I have done for family (ie baby showers etc) and asked me to reproduce it, its hard for me to say no because its not something they can go out and get at a store, but at the same time I dont LOVE decorating cakes, I would NEVER open a business because I hate the time & mess it makes to make one of the darn things......I only started messing around with this so I could make my niece's and my son's b-day cakes....that is as far as my ambition takes me! I just want to concentrate on being a stay-at-home mom, getting my "chores" done and raising a decent kiddo...

I can certainly appreciate both sides (and I totally understand the trouble it takes to get licensed)....and I am grateful that I am in a postition where I dont have to try and take on extra "jobs" for money (not that I am well off by any means, but I understand my choice to stay home means no new cars, no big fancy home, no shopping sprees etc).


I am a mess........I just keep on rambling! Have a great day everyone!