Low FODMAP Options at Pink Baking Co.
Gluten Free and Vegan Goods
Pink Baking Co. is a bakery located in Wilmington, NC. They offer many baked goods in a variety of flavors with the option to make them gluten free, vegan, or both! Many bakeries only offer a limited, gluten free menu. Some bakeries have vegan options, but they're more difficult to find. Pink Baking Co. has both and allow you to modify their cakes and cupcakes to be both gluten free and vegan.
Pink Baking Co. boosts a large menu of cake flavors that can also be made into cupcakes or mini cupcakes.
Things to Note When Buying Speciality Goods
When buying made-to-order baked goods from a local bakery, it's important to note a few things beforehand that will make your transaction go much smoother.
1. Order Ahead of Time
Most of the time, you can walk into any bakery off the street and grab pre-made baked goods like cookies, cupcakes, and other pastries. However, because gluten free and vegan goods aren't as popular, bakeries typically don't pre-make those for the day.
Make sure to call and place your speciality order ahead of time. The Pink Baking Co. actually needed a few days to make my order, but it was totally worth the wait!
2. The Price
Specialty baked goods tend to be more expensive. If you've ever bought anything labeled gluten free, vegan, or Low FODMAP you know these items are typically priced much higher than their counterparts. Typically, the ingredients are more expensive, the items are in lower demand, and the process to make the items is more time-consuming.
For instance, if something is certified gluten free, that means it has to be made in a 100% gluten-free environment to avoid cross-contamination. Besides that, it's just more effort to make a speciality item. Think about it... a bakery is usually making items in bulk, so when they have to deviate from that to create a made-to-order item, it's more time-consuming plus the price of the speciality ingredients. And, honestly, people are willing to pay a higher price to get something to suit their specific diet.
3. Limitations at Pink Baking Co.
When you place your order, you have the option to mix and match flavors at the Pink Baking Co. For instance, if you order a dozen cupcakes, you have the option to get half as one flavor and the other half as another flavor. However, you have to choose the same base cake flavor, meaning all chocolate, all vanilla, all lemon, etc. This is because it's not really worth it to spend the time making two different base flavors and two different icings to end up making a dozen cupcakes. So, to make this more profitable and efficient, the bakery will make the same cake for the base of the cupcake, but will whip up a couple of different icings in return!
Other Baked Goods at Pink Baking Co.
It's not just cupcakes and cakes that Pink Baking Co. offers for those on a Low FODMAP Diet. You can also get breakfast breads!
According to their website, the Pink Baking Co. has vegan and gluten free breakfast breads in the following flavors: banana, zucchini, carrot, apple, and cinnamon. So, be careful here. We all know that even if something is gluten free or vegan, that doesn't mean it's Low FODMAP. Which means that not all of these breakfast breads will be appropriate on the Low FODMAP Diet.
For instance, bananas become higher in FODMAPs as they ripen and baked goods usually call for ripened bananas, so this breakfast bread may not be suitable for you. Zucchini is safe in servings of 1/3 cup, so be careful to portion control when eating this type of breakfast bread if fructans bother you. Apple is probably out of the question, as the safe portion of apples is typically quite low (we're talking teaspoons). However, carrot and cinnamon should be fine as there are no FODMAPs in either of these! Also, you will want to ask about any other ingredients that are used in these breads, as there could be some other sneaky FODMAPs that you might be unaware of.
Always Test For Yourself
Remember that everyone is different and their tolerances to different FODMAPs will also be different. So, be sure to always test a small amount of anything new to see how you react. Then, you can increase your portion sizes as needed. But also remember that the Low FODMAP Diet is not a gluten free or vegan diet... it's more of a gluten and dairy reduced diet. So, if you wanted to try Pink Baking Co.'s mini cupcakes as is (not gluten free or vegan), then they might be small enough in size that the dairy and gluten won't bother you.
Happy Eating!
