Though a food business necessity, a commercial kitchen can be hard to find. Only after a long search did 'Jams by Kim' founder Kim Osterhoudt spot one that suited her. Photo by Brendan McInerney

Your cakes taste great, your bread loaves rise with aplomb, and your spicy salsas leave friends begging for more.

Isn’t it time you turned your culinary talents into a business? If so, consider these three tips:

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Friends couldn't get enough of Ronnie Kirschner's homemade granola. So she and friend JoNeal Archer turned it into a business. Photo by Brendan McInerney

The best way to start a business is to scratch your own itch:  Think of a problem you have, devise a solution, and sell that solution to like-minded people. It’s this kind of thinking that led East Brunswick residents Ronnie Kirschner and JoNeal Archer to start Go Granola.

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Owners of registered businesses can buy insurance, open a bank account, and enjoy peace of mind that often eludes those who work under the table. Photo by Tinau Bao.

A few weeks ago, Frank bought a coffee cart.

He pushes his cart up and down the streets of New Brunswick, serving steaming cups of joe to professionals downtown and students on College Avenue.

People buy Frank’s coffee, but he couldn’t tell you how many. He keeps his costs low, but he’s not sure of his profit. He’s never registered his coffee cart venture as a business, so it has no designated bank account. For the same reason, it lacks insurance.

You can see where this is going: one day, a customer spills coffee on himself. The customer sues Frank for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because Frank’s personal finances are intertwined with those of his business, the lawyers come after Frank himself. Because he lacks insurance, he’s going to feel some — shall we say — pain and suffering.

How will Frank get out of this mess?

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Clayton Insulation Founder Noel Castellanos has received microloans from the Intersect Fund to start and grow his business

Microfinance is perceived primarily as a way for low-income individuals to get capital they can invest in small businesses. But as a National Science Foundation-sponsored report showed last week, many borrowers in the developing world are using their loan dollars for non-business uses as well as entrepreneurial ventures.

“We need to know more about how people actually use their loans, and we should not be judgmental if the answer is not always for investment in enterprise, said Dean Karlan, the Yale economist who co-wrote the report, in a statement released Friday.

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