| More than just desserts Baking Kuchen together yields hearty memories By Jomay Steen Rapid City Journal staff Wednesday November 5, 2008 For a Rapid City father and son, making their weekly batch of Kuchen is a lesson in slow. Joel and Josh Schwader have found efficient ways to create the official South Dakota dessert, but they always know it takes time to build the best texture. The slower it takes, the better it taste, Joel Schwader said of the dessert. The elder Schwader began making the German dessert in June to help offset the cost of gas. The Freeman transplant wasn't sure what sort of reception his baked goods would receive, but he took more than 18 months of experimentation, 15 Kuchens and a lot of optimism to the Black Hills Farmers Market on Omaha Street. It was an immediate hit, selling out by 11:30. In 16 weeks, we're over the 600 mark in our Kuchens, he said. Josh Schwader, 26 stepped in to help his father with the kuchen dough, converting the ingredients for double or triple batches. Working in the food service industry, he knows his way around the kitchen. A lot of it is learning on the job and from my dad, he said. The younger Schwader has a goal to eventually attend a culinary arts school and earn a degree. For now, he helps convert ingredient measurements and finishes the custard preparation, filling the kuchen shell and adding the fruit and cinnamon toppings. Dad rolls out the shell, he said. Their regular flavors include raspberry, apple, peach, sugar, triple berry, blueberry, and strawberry, but Josh has suggested some new flavors, including pineapple. Josh has been inspired by his father, just has Joel was inspired by his father, Frank Schwader. I was always intrigued by my father's baking, Joel Schwader said. A barber by trade, the amateur baker would take caramel rolls down to his business or to the city office to share with friends and customers. Watching his dad measure and mix the dough for his caramel rolls - then kneading it before letting it rest - hooked the young son. I was always fascinated by how he did this,'' Joel said. At 13, Joel's father helped him make his first batch of Chocolate chip cookies. While other boys were riding bicycles or playing ball, Frank and Joel were at work in the kitchen baking a lifetime of memories. Joel recommends that people find their own recipe and make it their own. Although he won't share his own unique recipe, he does allow that whole cream taste best. Using real Vanilla is terrific - even and extract will do - but stay away from imitation Vanilla, he said. He sets his dough in the refrigerator overnight to ensure a slow rise, which creates a delicious and tender crust. And finally, he makes his custard in a double-boiler the old fashion way, using the best ingredients and devoting his full attention and time to the effort. I have over 300 recipes from my grandma. No one can use them because no one can understand them, he said of his grandmother's cryptic instructions. Yet he has created Kuchens that his mother shares with her coffee and card clubs. There's a lot of trial and error here, but when it comes out write well, it is all worth it, he said. Man's foray into kuchen sales lands him in hot water with the health department By Jomay Steen, Rapid City Journal staff | Friday, March 13, 2009 A Rapid City man with a gift for making German pastry did not set out to establish an unregulated trade in South Dakota’s official dessert. A food service worker, Joel Schwader only wanted to parlay his passion for kuchen into a side business to boost his budget. Last summer, Schwader began baking the German custard-filled sweet-dough crusted pastry and breads to sell at the Black Hills Farmers Market. The pastries were an instant hit, and soon he and his son were baking and selling scores of kuchens to the Saturday crowd. “Any time you have food for sale or service, you’re required to obtain a food service license,” Hepper said. Yet Schwader was not the first person to begin selling baked foods to the public without a license, according to Hepper. “It happens more often than not,” he said. Hepper concedes that the state and the hundreds of community farmers market associations throughout the state could better educate and enforce these regulations and standards. But he says when the state becomes aware of an unlicensed food service booth, it takes immediate action. Currently, it is on a case-by-case basis, he said. “When we find out, we address it at the time,” Hepper said. “It is almost impossible to get to every facility.” Each state handles inspection of foods sold at farmers markets a little differently, Hepper said. Currently the state Office of Health Protection is beginning the process of adopting the 2007 FDA Food Code, updating sections that were originally adapted to code in 1995. This would update food service licensing. “They come out with a new version every two years. ... It’s tweaked here and there,” Hepper said. Access to rules and regulations are provided to the public through educational brochures, online at its official Web site and at conferences and workshops sponsored through the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service. These standards are in place to control food borne diseases such as staphylococcus aureas, clostridium perfringens and salmonella. These poisonous diseases can be caused by lax food handling, food contamination, inadequate hot and cold storage and staging, preparing food too far ahead of service and sanitary issues of poor hygiene and infected personnel, Hepper said. These areas of concern aren’t limited to farmers markets, but include carnivals, fairs, carnivals, circuses or similar transient or seasonal concessions. What may protect the public from a outbreak of salmonella may be the educational course work attached to a food service license. Getting a food service license isn’t that difficult. There are five basic steps for certification: First, the vendors contact the Office of Health Protection for a Food Licensing Packet, which contains a health and safety manual, food service code, license application, questionnaire, standard guidelines, sample kitchen layout and fact sheets for food safety. Second, as long as vendors aren’t building new kitchens, they only had to submit and notarize their license and registration applications. They also attend a food service class and take a test to become a food service manager. The Office of Health Protection will send written notification regarding approval or changes required to the vendor. Once it is determined all areas of the plan are in compliances with the administrative rules, the state will approve the facility plan. Next, during construction process or prior to the booth opening, the department will conduct an on site inspection to determine compliance with administrative rules. The final step is issuing a food service license. When applications, kitchen plans and fees are turned in, the state sets a date to inspect the kitchen before giving the manager its approved certificate, Hepper said. “Our priority is to educate them,” Hepper said. Hepper said bakers who hope to sell products that require multi step processes before baking must have a food service license. Depending upon the establishments and length of time products are sold, fees range from $25 to $180. Licensees must meet facility requirements. The facilities have to be separate from living quarters and their domestic kitchen. “Joel was cooking out of his home kitchen,” Hepper said. Approved facilities must have a commercial dishwasher and three-compartment sink to sanitize cooking equipment and utensils. All cooking equipment must be under a hooded system that is vented to the outdoors with removable grease filters. The hood system must also be equipped with a fire suppression system. A hand sink must be conveniently located within the food preparation area, he said. The walls, ceiling and floors must be constructed of a smooth, nonabsorbent cleanable surface while lighting should be shielded or protected with shatter-proof bulbs. Food supplies must come from an approved source inspected by the USDA. Schwader witnessed other food market operations that make him wonder if the products come from a state-inspected kitchen. After the state shut down his home operation, he’s questioned how educated the people are in marketing their foods. “The public needs to know. I don’t think they should only target people who get a little publicity,” he said. Although Schwader wishes the state had made the information about its licensing requirements more accessible before he started his cottage industry, he’s not complaining. “In the long run, it’s been a blessing in disguise,” Schwader said. The letter from Pierre prompted Schwader to find kitchen space at a Rapid City bakery and work with the state to make sure he was meeting the standards. Only two of the 9-inch pie-shaped desserts could be baked at a time in his home. In his commercial kitchen, Schwader’s able to bake five kuchens in one session. There’s ample work space and plenty of room for storage for the finished cakes. He recently completed a $2,800 order for 438 kuchen for the Rushmore Soccer Club, an order he would never have tackled at his home. “I never could have done this in my home kitchen,” Schwader said. In the ideal world when area cooks envisioned themselves firing up an oven to sell baked bread, kuchen or cakes at the Omaha Street open-air market, they would first contact the state. Market organizers would play a critical part in that first contact, too, he said. “The Farmers Market Association would inform the seller they wouldn’t be allowed to sell food unless they had a license,” Hepper said. Leonard Novak, Black Hills Farmers Market manager, said that while their market had never been hassled by the state, Novak believed it was because the farmers market has rules intended to keep its customers safe. “We do have rules for vendors,” Novak said. In order to sell at the farmers market, vendors must either make or grow their products that they sell to the public, he said. “As far as complying with the state, vendors are responsible for their own sales tax, liability insurance and compliances with city, federal and state rules,” he said. Carlton Peterson, a farmers market vendor, agreed saying current rules and membership are available at a Web site. Not only that, but vendors sign an application that is returned to the manager. “They basically provide a venue for vendors to come and leave the vendors responsible in licensing their products,” Peterson said. Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com copy and paste this link and press play video above the picture...........http://www.blackhillsfox.com/NewsSearch.aspx?Keyword=kuchen+man |
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