I first spotted Wildcraft Bakery at the Coeliac Fair in Pudsey last year and since then have seen them start to pop up on Facebook and Twitter more and more. I still hadn’t managed to get to the bakery yet though, despite living in Leeds where the bakery is (Unit 13, Penraevon Industrial Estate). The bakery is totally gluten free and the majority of items are also dairy free and they are going from strength to strength, despite Mina just recently giving birth to twins (huge congratulations Mina).
I met Mina (founder and development baker) and Sam (business manager) at the Free From Food Awards 2018 in April and vowed that I would pay them a visit. I was so lucky to be stood next to them when Wildcraft Bakery won a gold award for their buckwheat sourdough loaf. It was lovely to see their surprised and happy reactions and to congratulate them in person – it made an already brilliant night even better.
Earlier this year, I finally got my act together and went down the road to the bakery (it is actually less than 4 miles from my house so I did feel pretty guilty for how long it had taken me). I have got coeliac disease and lactose intolerance so Wildcraft Bakery is an absolute haven for me. I took my two mini-coeliacs with me who were very excited and I also roped in the Mason family as Rory (our marketing director) has multiple food allergies and they told us that they were happy to cater for him too.
We arrived at midday on a Saturday and to our dismay, most of the products had already gone. This is when I had a flashback from the Free From Food Awards and Sam saying that you needed to either order what you wanted prior to coming or come down to the bakery at their opening time (09:00 on a Saturday). What can I say? There was free wine at the awards.
Sam told us that they open the doors on a Saturday morning to a big queue outside and literally sell out of nearly everything. They keep increasing the amount they make, but still don’t seem to have enough. At least they don’t have any waste! This meant that we missed out on donuts, cakes, bread and lots more and could only see the crumbs that remained.
Don’t you worry though, we still managed to take as many goodies as we could carry home with us.
Lemon and poppy seed buns
The kids couldn’t even wait to get these buns home and demolished them in the car.
Luckily, one of them was kind enough to give me a little bit first. They had beautiful, sweet lemony icing. The cake itself was really fluffy and had a lemon curd centre. The poppy seeds were a lovely touch too. Yum!
Gingerbread snakes
The kids spotted the ginger snakes first out of anything because they are in a snake shape (see the photo above) which is ideal for kids. Especially coeliac kids that often have to have plain alternatives to their friends or go without. After checking with me that they could eat them (ie that they were gluten free) they grabbed one each. Again, I was allowed a very little bite and they were really crunchy, very gingery and again delicious.
Whoopie pies
You can’t go to Wildcraft Bakery without taking some of their legendry whoopie pies home. I bought a lemon and raspberry one, a rhubarb and custard one and a sticky toffee pudding one. The flavours in the whoopie pies come out so strongly and they really taste amazing. They are a really soft biscuit texture and I don’t think I have tried anything quite like them before. I thought the lemon one tasted like lemon sherbert sweets and the other ones just exactly as the flavours described. Beautiful. My children loved them too.
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Be warned, they are extremely sweet and I reckon a quarter of one at a time is quite enough for me. My children disagreed with me, however, and polished of a whole one each… shortly after they had eaten the bun and the snake too. Eek! Don’t worry, they lived on fruit and vegetables for the rest of the week, honest. They loved them.
Scones
Scones are one of the things I miss the most. I used to bake pretty decent ones before I was diagnosed, but still haven’t mastered gluten and dairy free ones or found any that are anywhere near as good as I remember them. So I just HAD to buy some.
They only had frozen ones available so I took four home to eat, defrosted them and warmed them up in the oven. Now, obviously proper butter would have made them better, but with a nice splodge of Vitalite and strawberry jam – they definitely hit the spot and were really good.
As you can see from the photo, my daughter didn’t want to follow conventional methods of buttering (or should I say Vitaliting)…
Samosas
All of us bought samosas and everyone thought they were absolutely amazing. I totally agree – they are the only samosas I have had since I was diagnosed and they taste everything and more of what I remember from samosas. I could head down there right now and buy a box. Delish!
Sourdough
Well, I couldn’t visit this bakery without sampling the gold award product, could I!? Again, I haven’t found a sourdough that tastes the same as I remember, and this certainly didn’t disappoint. I think this is the closest I have found and would quite happily eat this as my staple bread for the rest of my life and I don’t think you can get better praise than that.
I am really looking forward to seeing Mina and Sam at the Free From Show Winter in Liverpool at the weekend. If you’re heading there, they will be on stand E19 and you must pay them a visit. I will definitely be taking some goodies back for my girls (and of course me).
I will also be heading down to the bakery again as soon as I can – but this time either early or after pre-ordering. I’ve learnt my lesson. It was just so lovely for my daughters to be able to pick up anything that they wanted in the shop – it makes a change from them having to be careful with everything they eat and was such a lovely treat for all of us. Thank you Wildcraft Bakery.