It's getting close to Valentine's day. I was thinking about stuffed strawberries this year. What do you charge? Do you use scratch or tub style cheesecake?

Anyone?

Anyone?

I think I was absent on 'stuffed strawberry' day.

Where I used to work they would fill the strawberry cavity with alcohol and chocolate dip them for a good time for all.

So what's a stuffed strawberry?
And better still, what's the shelf life of a stuffed strawberry?

A stuffed strawberry is either injected with or cut open and stuffed with cream cheese, brownie, lemon cream etc. Then it is dipped in chocolate. I read that they last as long as regular dipped strawberries. Toppings can be added like nuts, sprinkles etc to decorate the chocolate and add another layer of flavor.

Charge a lot for those, man. I mean the shelf life has got to be hours though, not even a day I'm sure once you cut into them they weep in short order. Those folks at work would inject the strawberries. Crazies.

Ever been to Shari's berries??

www.berries.com

I love her stuff! I think she's awesome. What a great business she's got.

I think toppings onto the dipped strawberries makes more sense to me if I was going to sell them.

But that's just how I would consider doing it.

This may have been mentioned previously... but

I believe the process of "stuffing strawberries" has been copyrighted. The "Emenger Berry" lady (seen on Food Network) had her business in the town I live in... but then disappeared. I recently viewed her site, and there was a notice about having a patent on the process of stuffing strawberries. You can find this info on Freshpatents.com and it clearly states it is HER invention.

If this information has changed (selling business, etc.) I applogize. I just thought this should be mentioned.
I'd hate to hear of someone being sued over Strawberries, of all things.

yea i saw that post on emenger's berries... can someone actually say they invented that? i mean its hardly a new thing, it might not be common but i bet the process of stuffing strawberries has been around longer then her business. thats like saying you invented poached pears or something.

I was thinking the same thing until I read that the patent people agreed with her... apparently NO ONE in the world EVER stuffed a strawberry before (kind of hard to believe).

But I'm not going to be selling any... just in case.

Oh my--she can patent the way she does it I guess, or the equipment she uses to do it, but she cannot prevent someone else from stuffing a strawberry or a turkey or an eclair. But Shari doesn't have any stuffed ones on her website that I noticed.

Or it's to prevent the big boys (like Shari) from taking her idea. For example has Wilton ever done a whimsy or a tilt-a whirl type cake? I don't keep up with them so I don't know. But Polly Schoonmaker has all the rights tied up on either the term whimisical or whimsy cakes. And she's done a great job of marketing and making a nice business venture out of her wonderful design.

So her legal rights have prevented Wilton from 'going all out' with her idea anyway. They have nice deep pockets and she would surely play hardball and rightfully so in my opinion.

But she would not come after me for making one. She could but she'd get squat. I mean she'd get my house what's that gonna get her? The opportunity to fix the roof & plumbing kwim.

I'm gonna respect her rights and not call it the name she has --I think she has 'whimsy' so I'd call mine maybe whimsical or crooked. But I'm not gonna market them to Neiman Marcus or whoever it is that sells hers either.

I mean that's how it looks to me from what I know of stuff like that.

So what I mean is as a business to business thing she can keep her idea protected but I can stuff any strawberry I want and sell it in my little neck of the woods as an aside to my cakes. If I invest $500,000 into a strawberry stuffin venture to compete with her, she might get me.

There was a tread here a while back about the that. I saw it when I googled stuffed strawberries.

I went to shari's berries, wow those were great. I wanted to try the stuffed berries for Valentines day. I made a few this week and they went over pretty well. I had no idea what to charge for stuffed ones though.

she wasn't trying to patent the idea of stuffing a strawberry. That's been around for a long time, my mom made them in the 60's even. She was just trying to patent her way of stuffing them buy adding the crust of the cheesecake and such into the strawberry. I believe she is out of business now though.

ok, I just checked her phantom website and now I'm really confused... it says at the bottom of her owner profile page:
http://www.emingerberries.com/profile

"she holds a published patent for the process of stuffing strawberries"...

I'm not trying to be difficult, because I'd love to try selling these too, but what's the deal? I realize she probably sold this business, but she may still hold the patent. Can we legally sell these?
I'd really like to know please... Does anyone know?

Godiva and many other places sell stuffed strawberries. Dkelley is right I believe.
She had made the statement before that "I'm no where near the first person to stuff a strawberry, I'm just the first person probably to do it my special way". I'm pretty sure that it's just for her process. I remember though the one was about her strawberries not just being filled with cheesecake (since that's been done for a long time also) but for hers being filled with cheesecake including the cheesecake crust (which most people don't do.)

That's good to know... I was a bit concerned because I popped over to her shop once to congratulate her for being on Food Network and bringing attention to our town. I thought she explained she was the first person to stuff them, but I could have misunderstood what she meant.

What I'd like to know is: Where the Heck did she get strawberries THAT size here in Maine??? Some were the size of my fist!!!
I've never seen strawberries that big around here...

Strawberries on steriods

Every year I see a few HUGE strawberries like that but they are few and far between.

I sell stuffed strawberries for $4 each/$40 doz.

Mine are not stuffed with cheesecake though, just a sweetened mascarpone cheese. I have no idea what her process for stuffing berries is, nor do I care. If someone can patent something like this, I might as well patent putting a hamburger patty on a bun.