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FOOD TIP - Gluten-free and specialty cakes help keep everyone happy

Source: FOODday, December 18, 2001.

Cake designates a celebration, whether it's for a birthday or the finishing touch at a holiday meal. Often, those on special diets — and e specially those who are allergic to gluten — have to forgo cake. Cakes are made with cake or all-purpose wheat flour, not something allowed on a gluten-free diet.

Photo: DALE SWANSON/THE OREGONIAN

Gluten is found in grains, including wheat, barley, rye and oats. Gluten-free foods are important to people who have celiac disease, a genetic disorder in which the body cannot tolerate gliadin, the protein component of the gluten. The gliadin damages the small intestine so that all nutrients, not just those from the offending food, are not absorbed. Even tiny amounts are harmful, including those in products derived from grains, such as flavorings made with alcohol.

Cake baker Marilyn DeVault likes challenges. So when requests for a gluten-free cake came to her bakery, Piece of Cake in Sellwood, she was determined to create one. DeVault, who has been in the bakery business for 21 years, says, "As a former special education teacher, I dealt with individual needs of students. Now, as a baker I am working for individuals with special food needs."

Instead of wheat, DeVault uses a mixture of potato, tapioca, garbanzo and fava bean flours. The cake is chocolate with buttercream frosting or either white or chocolate vegan frosting. Vegan frostings use soy products. The cost of a 9-inch single-layer cake is $29.95; a double-layer one is $44.95.

Other specialty cakes

One of DeVault's biggest challenges was to make a sugar-free cake. The sugar-free chocolate cake is sweetened with apple juice. She also makes a v ariety of vegan cakes, including wheat-free ones. She uses soy margarine with no whey and soy milk.

Vegan choices include: Vegan and Vegan Wheat-Free Double Fudge Cake, Chantilly, Black Forest, German, Chocolate Coconut, Carrot, Irish Oatmeal and Walnut Praline Torte. You can buy her vegan cakes at her bakery, Food Front Cooperative Grocery, Nature's Northwest and New Seasons Markets.

The single-layer, 7-inch bakes cost $16.95; 9-inch double-layer cakes cost $41.95.

Other vegan cakes

Joseph's Dessert Co. also makes vegan cakes, such as Poppys with raspberry filling; Mexispelt, a chocolate spelt cake filled and iced with coffee cinnamon icing; Son of Mexispelt, a chocolate cake with vanilla icing; Carrot; and Apple Spice Spelt.

Find these at Nature's, special-order them at Zupan's, Strohecker's, Wizer's in Lake Grove and Lake Oswego, and World Cup Coffee in Northwest Portland.

The 9-inch, 2-layer cakes cost $30 to $40; 7-inch, 2-layer cakes $20 to $25.