Episode 05 | Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen

Enjoy food, enjoy travel and enjoy life. Your listening to Travel Gluten Free by Elikqitie.
Interview with Kate. Call from Kate's gluten-free Kitchen. So my next guest that I'm having on this episode, we actually met at the my gluten-free expo and that was on March 3rd. She is such an adorable, amazing woman. I love her. She came up and she had her little pink apron on that said Kate's on it. I just want her to come to my kitchen and be in my kitchen because she's just so amazing and she's a good cook and she has a great personality. We just instantly hit it off. So she came over and did an interview with me live at the expo, which was really fun and I just wanted to give you a little bit of background about Kate. She has been gluten-free for 11 years and she loves to really educate people about being gluten-free.
You can tell that she loves to share her information about navigating the gluten-free lifestyle. And this year decided to share her love of gluten-free baking and start her own business

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 selling her gluten-free baked goods, which I will tell you, if I could pass them through the microphone and let you have a taste I would because they are amazing. She doesn't have a website yet but you definitely need to check her out. Kate's gluten-free Kitchen on Facebook and for her being gluten-free is a family affair because her family also has a business making gluten-free products as well. I would like to introduce my guest and my interview with Kate call of Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen.

Hello fans and this is a Elikqitie with Travel Gluten Free and I'm so excited to be here today at the gluten-free World Expo here at UCCU in Orem, Utah. I'm here today with two of my friends, Patricia and Tawnie who were helping me with telling everybody about the Travel Gluten Free podcast. So we are live at the show today but we are not broadcasting live so when you hear this, this will actually be six weeks after the show. The show was really awesome. I love being a part of this expo and I met some really great people at the expo including my guest today. Her name is Kate Call, she's actually in the booth directly behind me. She's super awesome lady. She has been baking and eating gluten-free for 11 years and she's a health educator by profession and loves helping people learn to navigate the gluten-free lifestyle.
This year she decided to combine her love of baking and educating and decided to open her own Kitchen, which is called Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen being gluten-free is a family affair for her and her family. She has also her mom and dad here, her mom, Julie and her Dad Glen. They also have a gluten-free company that's called GF Preppers and I hope to have them on my show sometime soon. They're really great people. And so she has Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen and she said eating gluten-free and making gluten-free breads and glue for your pepper is, is really a part of her life. So without further to do, I like to introduce my guests, Kate call. Hello Kate and welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. I'm super excited that you came over today. So thank you for making time out to come to on the show.
So I was over at your booth and I was trying some of your items and I only have people in the show that I've tried their product and I really love the products that you guys have over there today. So tell me something about why you started baking gluten-free, tell me first, let's just start with versus why you started making gluten-free. Okay. So actually, um, when I was about 2021 my mom got diagnosed with celiac disease and, and about how long ago was that? That was in 2001 so it was a long time ago. I didn't actually start eating gluten-free for a number of years until a number of years after that. Even though I was pretty sure I had celiac disease, the test didn't come up positive for some reason. My family has a history of getting false negatives, which is very interesting.
My mom kept saying, well still eat wheat if it's not coming up positive, eat wheat. So I ate wheat for a number of years and then I just got progressively sick more and more sick over the years.
What types of symptoms were you getting with that? I get migraines. I have horrible anxiety when I eat gluten, like uncontrollable anxiety. So I live in Utah Valley in Utah and drive. Thinking about driving from Provo to Salt Lake freaked me out. I would force myself to do it, but I would have seen a lot of anxiety. I worried like what if I die? I mean crazy and I knew it felt crazy but that was, it went away when I went gluten-free.
But when I went gluten-free, those went away. And my sister had started her own gluten-free business and she'd started cooking cause her girls were gluten-free and when my mom got diagnosed she came to visit and my sister was like, she's eating corn chips and rice cakes. I have to learn how to cook gluten-free or she will never come visit me.
And so what is your sister's name? Kate. Her name is Betsy Thomas. She started a business like 14 years ago with her friend and they just started cooking classes is how it started out. And people ask them to do recipes for them and asked if they would do mixes, things like that. So I learned to cook from her. I started cooking because my family was eating gluten-free. I just started cooking and I love to cook. Before I was gluten-free, I would make homemade bread and cakes and pies. I love making pies and I wanted to make sure that I could eat right because you go through that withdrawal: you mourn for food and it's so hard when you first get diagnosed. And I would eat my sister's food and it was so good. And then I started cooking and I would experiment with things and I'd find recipes and I want to change it to this and see how it works.
And because food is such a part of everything, we do every social thing, every family thing I wanted to be able to eat stuff and not feel deprived. I wanted to help other people, which is why I started baking for people a long time before I started my business because I want them to know that you can eat good gluten-free food can taste like what you remember. Gluten-free food doesn't have to taste like cardboard and that's so important, especially when you're out with other people, and you're trying to enjoy them. Really important that it tastes really good that it has, that has the same high quality and texture and flavor and it doesn't give you the weird after tastes or it doesn't taste metallic. There's just so many different things that happen.
So one of my catch lines is "Taste of Home." and that's why I named Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen; because if you think about your home, where do people congregate? They congregate in the kitchen. It's where conversations are had, were tears are shed. Where laughter happens or exciting announcements happen. Like that's the heart of the home I feel like people hang out in the Kitchen and you want good food and have that feeling of home. That's what I want people to feel like when they eat my stuff that it's, oh this is how I remember it tasting. This tastes like home. I could not agree with you more about the kitchen. I feel the same way.
On your Facebook page, which is really great if you guys have not seen it, it's Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen. If you go on her Facebook page, she has posted on there and she tried out a new recipe and it says brownie peanut butter sandwich cookies and German chocolate sandwich cookies. So tell us about this recipe cause you have two pictures side by side.
I was trying to find a peanut butter frosting recipe online. So I was like googling peanut butter frosting recipes and this recipe for these brownie sandwich cookies popped up and I thought, I bet I could make that gluten-free. I'm going to modify that and see how it turns out and so I just grabbed the ingredients and just tried it out to see if it would work and they turned out beautifully. They look really delicious. And then I really love German chocolate so, and I had some of the coconut pecan frosting so I put that in there as well and they were so good. So is the one on the left gluten-free? Are they both gluten-free? The one on the left, the gluten? No, they're the exact same. The one on the right, which is the German chocolate; the dough sat longer and so it looks different and also I took the picture inside instead of outside. I think because it sat, it ended up being looking not as smooth as the other one, but they're both gluten-free right from the same batch, they just cooked differently.
I want to just like reach in my computer screen and grab one out, eat one right now. It's funny, as my sister, I made them and I said, I called her and asked her if she wanted me, wanted me to come up. She has eight kids and she was having a rough day and she's like, I would actually know like please don't like, I just need to, and I was like, okay, that's fine. And then I was going to go somewhere, so I took them with me as samples, to give to people, and I had them in my car and I stopped to grab dinner and my sister commented on my Facebook post, she saw it and she was like, okay, I was joking. Can you bring some to me? Whatever you don't need bring to me now! I saw the Facebook post and called her and I said, hey, I'm right near your house. I'll bring them up. She was like, thank you and so I took her some and they were cut up in quarters and she took one bite and she was like, okay, never mind - I want the whole plate and she's like, I'm not sharing. Forget the kid's mom needs a break.
So another thing I'm going to ask you about too is, um, you've been gluten-free for a while and I know it's celiacs is just recently within the past couple of years, really like they've been shedding a light on celiacs disease. When did you realize that you're a company that people, the gluten-free wasn't really a fad and more people were really being concerned with their health, with celiacs and coming to you and say, Hey, I want to buy your baked goods because I have gluten intolerance and I can't eat those things anymore.
So that's a good question because it's never been a fad for me. Right. So you never seen it as a fad and I've never seen it. I mean, I noticed the fad happening and you know, sometimes you get frustrated with that. There had been good and negative things that have come from the fad portion, right? You have a way more products, which is great and you have way more demands, way more demand, but then you have people who say it's gluten-free but not for people with celiac disease. And I'm like, why aren't you making a gluten-free then? Right. Or like another thing you see is like people who aren't in gluten-free and they're like, oh, you're just being gluten-free because it's a fad. And it's like, no, I'm being gluten-free because I have serious health issues that I'm in bed for days if I eat it. And so even though celiac disease is an allergy, whenever I eat out, I say no, I have an allergy.
People don't get celiacs but they get allergy, they know if your allergy, you can't eat it at all. I've actually started telling people that; they ask, Oh, do you have an allergy? And I'm like, yes, I do. Yeah, because then they take it seriously. They do for sure.
Another question I wanted to ask you is do you have any like formal training or you just learn it at home? So I've never taken, I took a cooking class in college but not culinary school. I started cooking when I was like eight years old. We would make pancakes and cookies. My mom let us cause there's seven kids in my family. She would let us just cook.
So she'd give us a recipe and let us try it and sometimes accidently put salt instead of sugar. Sometimes I put tablespoons instead of teaspoons. It was that learning process. But she let us do it and then I would be like, oh this is gross. And she's like, what did you do? When you make a mistake, that's the best way to learn. Exactly. So she was really great about letting us cook and work with a stove and do stuff even at a young age. She would stand there and help us, but she would let us do it. Monitor. And not like helicopter. Exactly. Nice. You let you guys like have the room to experiment and try it out on your own and be kids. Yeah. Oh that's great.
What are some of your, what are some of your like items that you have that you sell and you don't have a storefront correct? What are some of those items that you sell at Kate's Gluten Free Kitchen?
I sell a honey oat bread, which is really good. I like it. I do a bunch of different cookies, so I've soft batch cookies and I do chocolate chip coconut Pecan, chocolate chip chocolate soft batch with mint chocolate soft batch with peanut butter, chocolate soft batch with chocolate chip, white chocolate chip and milk chocolate chips. I like to modify, so I take things and I wonder if it will be good this way.? My sugar cookies: I do the traditional sugar, vanilla sugar cookies, I do lemon sugar cookies, I can do chocolate sugar cookies, I can do almond sugar cookies with different frostings and then we have a carrot cake recipe and caramel apple cake and oatmeal cake and Italian cream cake.
I do a lemon cake too and chocolate cake. So I don't know about any of my listeners but I'm literally drooling. I'm trying not to drool on my microphone cause all of these are sounding so amazingly good. And so if I want to get any or all of your amazingly good sounding, bakery products, how do I pick them up, Kate?
So I'm located in Provo, Utah and it's out of my home. I have a full time job and then I do the bakery outside of work just part time. Mostly right now cause I'm starting off slow, it would be through orders. They could contact me online through Facebook and then I have a gmail account that they can contact me on as well and I'm going to be posting Google forms and stuff.
Because it's just me and my home Kitchen, I'll say, this weekend I'm making these cookies, let me know, or this weekend I'm going to be doing honey oat bread, let me know. And then people can come and pick it up from my home.
So say like I have celiacs and I'm having a wedding or a big event. Can I order a large number ahead of time of like say I want your sugar cookies for my wedding. And do you do custom order? Like if I want green cookies, because I have green dresses. Oh yeah, definitely, I can do that. I'm not super skilled in detail artwork yet. That's not a skill I have, but I'm planning on actually taking some classes to learn how to because I want to keep learning and growing. But like basic sugar cookies with sprinkles or changing the color, that's fine. That's not a big deal.
And the reason I ask is actually because my older daughter, her best friend just got married six months ago and almost their entire family is celiac. It was really nice going to eat at that wedding because everything was pretty much gluten-free. And so that's really nice to have like at a big event for people who are gluten-free is even if you're not gluten-free to offer that for guests that are gluten-free. Exactly because it makes them feel more included for sure and one thing I love about it, just today we had someone who came by to try the cookies and her son grabbed it and ate it and he was like, this is the best sugar cookie I've ever had. And, and she's like, he's not gluten-free. Yeah. So I'm like, that's awesome. That's the best complement. And so they're good enough. I have coworkers who purchased them for me that aren't gluten-free and they asked me to make cookies for them because they're just really good.
Yeah and that's the best part. You want to eat good food, so you have a specific menu and you have your menu offerings are on your Facebook page. Not yet because I just started this year, so I've just, I'm slowly going, but they should be up, I'm hoping to get everything up and like what I currently have up by the end of next week. So by the time you listen to this, it should be on my Facebook page. Okay, great. So you do specialty orders and you're gonna have your offerings up on your Facebook page. And so if somebody wants to just email you with an order, what is your email they can email you at?
It's Kate's k a t e s g f Kitchen@gmail.com. And I will put just for people listening, um, I will put all this information in the show notes, so if you would like to order from Kate and order one of her amazingly mouthwatering good, delicious gluten-free items, I will put all these links in the show notes so you can just click on those and order from Kate, so it'd be really easy. You obviously have some customers that are not gluten-free because your product's really good. What percent of your customers do you think about approximately? I know you're a new business, but do you think it's like 50 50 do you think it's like 70% are gluten-free?
I would say probably 80% are gluten-free right now. Most of them are, yeah. Other than Facebook. Is there another way for them to find you? Instagram as well. And then I don't have a website currently just because I'm doing it all on my own. It was a grassroots thing. Yes. But I'm hoping to get that up. I have my domain name, domain name, I just have not actually created the website. And so what is your domain name so we can check it out? Kate's GF, Kitchen.com.
How do you go about choosing what you're going to offer for the week? Hey, I think this is going to be really great or I really wanted to make this, how do you go about choosing what you offer? Um, yeah, that's a good question so far. I think if it's, sometimes they'll get an order from someone, then I'll be like, oh hey, I'm making these for someone. If anyone else wants more I'll be making them. Okay. Um, sometimes if I try a new recipe and I really love it, then I'll just post and say, Hey, I tried this recipe. It's really great. If anyone's interested, let me know. It's around holidays then that you know, I can do stuff for holidays and different things. So to do gift baskets as well. Actually, I was planning on doing it for Valentine's Day, but it was just so close to me first opening that I wasn't prepared enough for it. But doing one where we're selling the gluten-free flour with Xanthan gum and maybe a cookbook and things like that. Like I was thinking about like starter kits, right? Like a gift basket starter kit that would have cookies in it as well and a spatula and things like that. And then for Valentine's Day I was thinking of doing like fudge and my extended family has a cider company, a gluten-free alcohol free apple cider company and it's fabulous. So I was thinking about putting those cider bottles in there as well for Valentine's Day, having fudge and like cookies and the cider and goblets and stuff like that. So those are some of the things I'm thinking about.
And also I've thought about doing cooking classes for people because I am a health educator. Like what I love is I love helping people, like empowering them to be able to cook themselves. Like, I love cooking for other people as well, but my real passion is helping them so that they can learn how to cook it and right. It's like teaching people to fish. It's like if they can do it on their own and that's, that's a really powerful, powerful feeling and you can do it on your own and you don't feel like you're just stuck in this really limited space.
And so how do you decide, like when you thought about the gift baskets, how do you decide on what your next step, do you get a lot of customer feedback? Do you, like how do you decide what's coming next? So currently it's hard because I'm so new and I'm starting to just get my name out there. So customers have, if customers have suggestions or would like me to try a recipe, like I would be happy to do that. Cause I love trying new things and modifying it. I mean, just like I looked up that recipe for peanut butter frosting, found the cookie recipe. It was like, I'm going to try that. So if somebody wants to make a suggestion, should they just go on your Facebook page? Totally. They can go onto my Facebook page, they can email me.
If they have a recipe they'd like me to try and you can modify it from like if they have a favorite recipe with wheat flour and they just found out they're gluten-free so they can email you or put it on Facebook and say, hey, here's the link to this recipe. I really love it. Would you try this gluten-free? Yeah, totally. I would love to do that. I think that's great because I think my favorite thing has, one of the biggest roadblocks with being gluten-free is like you have these, like everybody has the things they love. One of mine I have not found yet is baklava. And I just found out that Schar makes like a filo pastry that's gluten-free. So that would be my request. If you can make a gluten-free baklava I would totally drive down to Provo and pick it up from you.
Nice. I think my sister has done that. Actually I should ask her. So, and it's funny because my sister does it too, so we kind of worked together and she was my inspiration. She cooks, she has eight kids. She cooks a lot, but she found she was doing stroopwaffle so you know, the from the Netherlands, those waffles that they're very thin and carmel inside. Oh yes. And she had had some that were gluten and she was like, I bet I could make these gluten-free. And then the next year I didn't do anything. And then the next year we went this place where she thought they would be and they weren't there and she was like, I really want these stroop waffles. So she went home, found recipes and modified it and they're amazing. Oh, that sounds so good though.
So like our family loves doing that, you know, and so if pretty much any recipe pastry itself is kind of harder, but even then like it's fun to try new things and work on it. So if there's like for the listeners are out there the for are people that are like new to being gluten-free, what would you suggest as far as like what's your one, one suggestion for them when they're baking gluten-free?
I would definitely say don't try to bake your regular bread recipe just by switching out gluten-free flour. It doesn't work, so you have to use a gluten-free bread recipe instead. That's the one thing that's the hardest. But if you're making cookies, if you're making even cake, lots of times you can pretty much substitute stuff out. It might be a little harder, but cookies definitely you can just substitute out the wheat flour, put in gluten-free flour and then you have to add Xanthan gum.
Something that's interesting about cookies though, if you're worried about - sometimes you cook them and they just kind of obliterate and they're like flat thing and it's not really a cookie to avoid that. If they have eggs in it, you beat the eggs. The more you beat the eggs, the protein gets stronger and then it makes them more cake like or holds their shape better. So you just beat the snot out of those eggs to make a more cake-like, more softer cookies. Okay. Yeah. Cause I actually may last a couple, a few podcasts ago I talked about if you want to make a good clue if your cookies, if you don't want them to be cake, like you take out the x, right? Yes. But if you want them cake like so if you want them softer then mix the eggs really well.
And even if even if you don't want, even in crunchy ones, you still want to mix the eggs cause it's about replacement for the wheat, you know, so you mix it, and then not as much though. And then one of the things I noticed because we live in Utah and it's super dry climate here, is that I have these sometimes add a little bit of water or I back up. Like if it says a cup of regular wheat flour, I'll use like three quarters cups of gluten-free flour because it's more dry. Do you find that as well?
Um, you know, I've been baking gluten-free for so long, I can't even remember. That's fine. I've been baking most of the time here in Utah. So I just, the recipes I used work created here in Utah and so more for high altitude, dry crowns, but they also work in Washington. My parents are at sea level and they use the recipes as well and they're fine.
So what do you find is the most challenging thing about providing in your business? Providing gluten-free baked goods for people? Like what do you think is your most challenging? I think getting my name out there, letting people know because there's, there's so many good products, but there's also so many not so good products and so people are hesitant to buy something they haven't tried because they're like, I don't want to spend all this money and have it be gross. Right, exactly. And so trying to convince people, you know, I know that sounds funny, but it really is like, no, they're good I promise. Yeah. No and Kate's are really good cause I've just tried some of her samples of her cooking over there and trust me I will not eat something bad. I'm such a foodie unless it's really good and you guys can trust me if it's not good, you can call it, call me and complain like on my website.
And so what are your future plans with your business? You're obviously going to still be baking and so what else? And you were thinking about doing baskets and what else are you thinking about doing future? I have this dream of having a storefront and doing like a cafe, so do the bakery and the cafe and then also have in the back have a place where I could do cooking classes. So I have four or five commercial Kitchen set up where I could teach people how to cook gluten-free where they're actually cooking at the same time and then also have it available for other gluten-free companies that are completely gluten-free, so they're wouldn't be cross contamination. That's, that's like my ultimate goal, that's my dream. It's not certified gluten-free, but it's those standards. It's not certified. There's no wheat in your house.
So I have roommates and they have wheat but they don't use any of my stuff. So my stuff is all separate. My flour and everything is separate. And then I clean everything down and my mixers completely gluten-free. No one has put like they know I write gluten-free all over everything. I'm like, do not touch this. So we have two toasters and my roommates have their own stuff that they use and the state came and looked. So I'm a certified cottage. I have a cottage license through this Utah State.
And have you ever considered going to restaurants and saying, Hey, I have these gluten-free desserts for you to offer. I have restaurants. I'm not sure if I can, well I can as long as they sell it, as long as they don't modify it. I've talked to a couple of bakeries actually. I'm trying to find here, back waiting to hear back from them. Um, because people have gone to them and asked if they had gluten-free and they said, well, I can't make gluten-free. Look at my place. So I'm waiting. But there's a couple of places around Provo that I've thought about going to and asking them if they want to, to carry my cookies and stuff.
People would have to come to my home to pick it up. So if you're a business that's out there and you're looking for some gluten-free desserts, definitely hit up Kate. And if it's a business, I would, if it's a business around Provo Orem area, I could deliver to them. You could deliver to Provo or Orem, but if it's somebody from like northern salt lake or something, they could come down and get your product. And for individuals I have them come to my home and pick it up. But for businesses, if it's a bigger order I can deliver. Great.
And so Kate, what is your ask of the audience? So what, what would you like to ask the audience? Like, would you like them to follow you on Facebook? Would you like them to see you on Instagram?
I would love them to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. Um, and, and if you don't know anybody who's, I mean, I'm assuming you're gluten-free if you're listening to this, but if you know anybody in Utah County who is, and if they want to learn how to cook gluten-free, you can have him contact me. They, I'm willing to do a bunch of different stuff. Like I said, cause I'm an educator. But yeah, follow me on Facebook. If you have questions, hit me up there. You can email me. Especially if you have recipe suggestions, let me know. I'd be happy to try stuff out.
So Kate, it has been so much fun interviewing you today here at the Mike gluten-free World Expo, so thank you for spending some time over here at my booth today. You're welcome. It's been great to talk to you.
I appreciate that. And if you like to see Kate tell us again, how people can contact you. They can contact me through Facebook and if they look up Kate's gluten-free Kitchen LLC, it should come up. And then also on Instagram, which is Kate's GF Kitchen and on Facebook it's Kate's GF Kitchen as well. And then you can contact me through email. So we're going to wrap it up here at the gluten-free expo. And this is the my gluten-free World Expo here in Orem, Utah. And I'm here with Kate call and this is with Kate's gluten-free Kitchen.