I bake my cakes from home, amd there are quite a few bakers who do this, but I do things a little differently than most.
I am licensed and inspected. My business is legal. I have food handler's training and a permit, and I follow correct procedures when preparing and serving my cakes. This is very important to me. Think about fondant in larticulat, which is a very popular product in wedding cakes right now. Fondant has to be kneaded to plyability and then rolled out before lifting and draping over the cake, where it is then smoothed down. As per health code rules, I keep my hair tied back, wear foodservice gloves, and roll using a food grade silicone mat and roller, which get santized between uses. Fondant does not get cooked or heated, so if a baker uses their ungloved hands and kneads/ rolls theri fondant on a pourous countertop surface that may not be disinfected, anything on there will get into the fondant, and onto the cake. Put it this way: if you went to a restaurant and the chef came out, picked up your chicken with his bare hands, and squished it around a bit, then rolled it back and forth over the counter, would you still eat it?
I make my own homemade everything. I don't like chemicals and preservatives in my own food, and I don't want my clients to eat them either! Commercial sugar pastes and fondant contain chemical preservatives, and even "homemade" marshmallow fondant is made with store-bought marshmallows, which contain chemicals as well. Cake mixes contain proplene glycol (among other things), a softening agent also used (for obvious reasons) in laxatives. Ew. I don't even use bleached flour in my cakes. 100% real, natural flavors and ingredients. I also strive to get local ingredients as much as possible. I use local eggs, local flour, local fruits... baking this way is both more delicious and better for our bodies and the environment. My recipes also use less sugar than is found in commercially prepared cakes or mix cakes. Extra sugar helps keep those commercial cakes shelf stable for a freakishly long time, and also covers up chemical flavors and lack of actual real flavor. With less sugar, the complex flavors of the real vanilla beans, fresh homemade fruit reductions, premium chocolates and real butter can shine through in my cakes.
I make beautiful sugar paste flowers. Real flowers are beautiful, of course, but not many are actually food safe. The flowers may be poisonous themselves, and they also may have pesticides on them, dirt, bugs, or chemical sprays used by florists to keep them looking fresh longer. None of these things should ever touch cake. My sugar paste flowers are both beautiful and food safe, and can also be kept as a memento of your occasion. Sugar paste has no flavor other than "sweet," so although you can eat it, it's not really yummy. I also make modeling chocolate flowers, which are yummy to eat, although it cannot be used to make as delicate and lifelike of flowers as sugar paste can.
I take great care and pride in the crafting of my cakes. It is a passion of mine to make them promarily the most delicious cake you will ever eat, and also beautiful to look at.
Well, that's my soapbox, thanks for listening!
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