Sarah Palmer

Carole, my understanding is that a health dept cannot regulate a cottage food operation. It is possible, I suppose, that a city hall could prevent your business, even though the health dept cannot.

If they say no, I’d recommend making sure that they’re aware of the cottage food law — many govt depts are not. Also, it might help to communicate…[Read more]

Yes, you can advertise any way you want, but you can’t sell online.

If you’re adding them after baking, then I’m not sure those would be allowed. You should ask your health dept.

Ganache is often not allowed, so you should contact your health dept to check.

Can ganache be used on cakes?

Actually, the law does specify that a local health dept can’t regulate you, so they are not allowed to conduct an inspection without a customer complaint. They also shouldn’t be able to prevent you from advertising on Facebook, though the law does prohibit you from selling online.

There is some strange wording in the law about exempt areas in the…[Read more]

The law only allows baked goods, jams, jellies, and dried herbs, so by definition, everything outside of those categories is not allowed. A fully-baked chocolate cake would be allowed. It’s not a matter of whether or not a chocolate bar is safe… it’s just that the law was written in a very conservative way. They probably wrote it in that way…[Read more]

Yeah, it is frustrating, but you really can’t move forward without talking to them. You might need to stop by in-person.