Does anyone sell cakes that are baked with liquor or beer in them? You wouldn't need a liquor license to do this would you?

i don't personally bake cakes with alcohol, but i'm pretty sure you don't need a liquor license as you are not a reseller of alcohol. its an ingredient, most of which breaks down with the heat. but you can call your local HD or Dep Ag to be sure.

Are you a licensed bakery? If you are then you really are supposed to have a license and buy your liquor from distributors not a retail place (grocery or liquor stores). However if you are only making a few cake here and there I don't think the LLC (liquor and licensing control) will come banging down your door and throw the cuffs on you lol. And even if they do, then you can at least offer them a drink before they send you off to the clink.

We have a monastery not far from here that sells fruitcakes soaked in liquor and they sell them all over the world. They do not have to have a liquor license. I cannot see anyone having to be licensed to sell liquor in order to use it in their cakes. I am, by no means, an expert on the liquor laws. I owned a bar for 13 years and laws changed frequently. I would call liquor control and ask them hypothetically. JMO

Diane

P. S. By the way, there are no dumb questions on CC. We are all here to learn from each other!!

Diane

What a funny question, not as in "I laugh at you" but I mean, wow, I had never even thought of it that way.

Back in February there was a great thread on alcohol in cakes, and JanH had some of her marvelous links showing to what extent alcohol bakes out of cooked foods (the answer being: a lot, but less than you think). Of course the data died in the crash but maybe she will see this and post her links again...

Meanwhile here are a couple of links I found about the subject:
from about.com: http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blalcohol12.htm
from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_with_alcohol

Even if your baking time results in as much as 35% of the alcohol being retained, you still have to take a look at how much alcohol was used in the recipe and also # servings per recipe...it usually amounts to a pretty nominal amount of alcohol retained in the dessert.

Of course the alcohol in a simple syrup or icing retains its potency much better .