To some, finding out that the nation’s best cake is kosher would be like discovering that Miss America is Jewish — and she likes you.
That being said, the nation’s top-rated cake is indeed kosher, and local to boot. After a string of second-place finishes that would have frustrated even Susan Lucci, San Rafael’s Galaxy Desserts took home top honors this year from the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade for its Chocolate Marquise Mousse Cake.
And perhaps coincidentally, this was the first year that Galaxy entered a kosher dessert in the contest, which preceded the Fancy Food Show in New York earlier this summer.
Going kosher has had an immediate effect, according to Galaxy’s president and CEO, Paul Levitan.
“My parents are much happier,” he joked.
And, perhaps not so coincidentally, another plus is that business is up 40 percent. Several large-scale distributors who’d told Levitan they would pick up Galaxy desserts if the company went kosher have followed through. The 5-year-old company will do more than $5 million in business this year, up from $3.5 million a year ago.
In the face of a rotten economy, Levitan noted that the high-end dessert business is “counter-cyclical.”
“If things are not going so well and you can’t afford that fancy vacation, you can still get a chocolate mousse cake that looks like it was made in France,” he said.
And, if the economy rebounds, then “people have reason to celebrate. We’re there for people in good times and bad.”
The mousse cakes, cheesecakes and tarts are now available to a lot more people in good times and bad. In the year since Kosher Supervision of America began overseeing Galaxy’s North Bay kitchen, a number of kosher caterers, restaurants, clubs and even East Coast grocery chains have picked up Galaxy products.
Galaxy desserts are now available in 42 states as well as catalogues, and a number of Bay Area stores, hotels and restaurants. A list is available on www.galaxydesserts.com — along with recipes.
Going kosher wasn’t a particularly easy process, but the aforementioned numbers demonstrate it was a more than worthwhile endeavor.
Over a four- to five-month period last year, the company kashered equipment and altered recipes. Perhaps most notably, Galaxy was forced to drop its Chocolate Grand Marnier Cheesecake, as the French liqueur is not kosher. It now sells a not quite as intriguing chocolate orange cheesecake.
“They really went out of their way,” said Rabbi Ben-Tzion Welton, the RSA’s local overseer.
“They had to buy an enormous number of new sheet pans, 3,000 of them. We couldn’t confirm if they were kosher. Fortuitously, they got a deal on 3,000 new sheet pans.”
Galaxy was born in 1998 when business school graduate Levitan merged his baking company with French chef Jean-Yves Charon’s. Levitan and Charon brought in Danny Rubenstein, who holds the position known as “chief orbiter” of the Galaxy.
The business is now strong enough that, counter-intuitively, Levitan breathed a sigh of relief when one of his products didn’t make “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last year. He’d gone through that one before, and is still reeling from the lack of sleep.
“One of our desserts was on ‘Oprah’ last November, which was crazy. You’ve heard what Oprah does when she recommends a book. It becomes a best seller in an hour,” he said.
“She picked our croissants as one of her favorite things, and we didn’t sleep from Thanksgiving to the end of December. That was a lot of croissants, and we make them all by hand.”
With a year of kosher cooking under its belt, Galaxy is now hoping to produce a few parve products, but so far it has only been able to manage kosher dairy. Nevertheless, the response from the Jewish community has been gratifying, according to Levitan.
“When we got the award in New York, we exhibited at the Fancy Food Show there and it was the first time we were able to exhibit there with a sign that said we’re kosher-certified. We met a lot of people who normally wouldn’t have stopped,” he said.
“People are thrilled.”