McDuffy spent about a year perfecting her recipe, which is based on the butter cookies served in Chicago’s public schools.
If Latisha McDuffy has her way, the state laws governing home bakeries will soon be clarified, enabling the Fitchburg resident to confidently produce and market her Mo’ Betta Butter Cookies throughout the Madison area.
“I’ve been baking cookies at least since 2008 as part of my daycare activities with the kids,” McDuffy says. “We gave them away to friends and family, and some people said I should be selling them.”
McDuffy’s cookies are special, she says, because they are patterned after the cafeteria butter cookies she ate while a student in Chicago’s public schools. The Chicago school treats have developed quite a following — a Google search shows multiple versions of the recipe on many fan websites, even a YouTube video. McDuffy spent about a year testing different recipes until she came up with this one, with the distinctive taste and texture she remembers from her childhood.
“I make mine with simple and natural ingredients that include butter, sugar, flour, vanilla flavoring and love,” she says. The real secret, McDuffy says, is in the butter — disclosing neither the brand nor the type.
Positive response from everyone who’s tried the cookies has helped her set her sights on the product’s commercial possibilities.
But first McDuffy, 37, who suffers from a rare kidney disease, needs a kidney transplant. If and when this comes to pass, it will be the third transplant she’s had in her relatively short life.
“The first one lasted 11 years, but the second one lasted only one year,” says McDuffy. “It wasn’t a very good match.”
McDuffy is now on dialysis and has had to close her in-home daycare center. She still bakes three days a week, hoping for some clarity from the law so that she can safely expand her business. “Right now the cookies give me hope that I can do more than just be on dialysis,” she says.
The requirements for selling home baked goods in Wisconsin are somewhat in flux. Up until last year, only Wisconsin and New Jersey prohibited selling homemade baked goods — here, bakers needed a state license and had to bake in a commercial kitchen; that proposition is too expensive for McDuffy.
But last May, Lafayette County Judge Duane Jorgenson struck down Wisconsin’s law as unconstitutional. As of October, it became legal to sell homemade baked goods — no license or commercial kitchen needed.
Still, the Wisconsin Legislature is trying to regulate home baking under what is known as the “Cookie Bill.”
In June the state Senate passed legislation that would allow home bakers to sell up to $25,000 worth of homemade goods per year before being subject to licensing — a cap in line with neighboring states’ laws. Currently the Assembly is working on its own version of the bill, with a $10,000 cap. Home baking activists argue that this cap is too low.
A hearing on the Assembly bill took place on Valentine’s Day, but no vote is scheduled. State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has steadfastly opposed home baking legislation, citing issues with inequity between amateur and commercial baking enterprises and the laws that govern them. (Vos has even introduced a bill to get rid of all state licensing for all bakeries.)
McDuffy hopes the politicians can work it out so she can move forward with her business. More information on her cookies — she makes both plain and chocolate-dipped butter cookies — can be found at facebook.com/mobettabuttercookies. She can also be contacted at 608-209-2956 or via email at chantay69@gmail.com.
