🍰 She started baking gluten-free cakes in Boulder. Now they’re sold nationwide.

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A Boulder mom started baking gluten-free treats for her daughter. Twenty years later, her sweet breads are served in coffee shops across the nation. In this week’s Nibbles, I visited Outrageous Baking and got slurp-happy over Sunday ramen at Sachi Sushi. Plus: Longmont Restaurant Week, restaurant openings and closings, and a recipe for a Colorado cucumber and cantaloupe salad.

— John Lehndorff

You can be part of the studio audience for the Kitchen Table Talk show at KGNU’s Community Media & Cultural Center, broadcast live on the first Thursday of every month. To hang out with hosts John Lehndorff and chef Dan Asher for an hour with foodie guests and tastings, email nibbles@bouldereportinglab.org.

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If you are looking for diet-friendly baked goods, Boulder County is a veritable garden of gluten-free delights. Gluten-free and vegan breads, treats, cakes and pizzas are readily available at bakeries, supermarkets and on restaurant menus.  

Flash back just 20 years and gluten-free eating was a new oddity in Boulder and nationally. “There were almost no gluten-free baked goods available. No bread, no buns and no pizza crust. None of that stuff. Restaurants didn’t have it on their menus,” says Pamela Fletcher, the owner of Outrageous Baking. The Boulder company produces eight flavors of gluten-free and vegan coffee cakes available at coffee shops locally and nationally. 

Fletcher was a mom on a serious mission. 

“I wasn’t gluten-free, but my daughter, Grace, had eczema and I was nursing. That was a big switch for me because I loved to bake and having to give that up was frustrating. I looked for a flour blend that could create some of the things that I liked to eat but you couldn’t just pick it up at the store. It took me a year to figure out the formula. It started without gluten but eventually we took out the dairy as well. It took a long time to get it to taste right,” she says. 

An estimated 1 in 133 Americans, or about 1% of the population, has celiac disease. Others are gluten-sensitive or choose to eat gluten-free for other reasons. 

“I started baking in our 880-square-foot house in an affordable housing program at Iris and Folsom because I needed to work. A neighbor found out she was celiac and got a loaf and loved it. She said I should sell it to coffee shops,” Fletcher says. 

“I wrapped up a cake, put my daughter in the car, and we went to the Brewing Market in Boulder. I said: ‘I have this cake. Would you just try it?’ And the manager just happened to be celiac. A few days later she ordered another cake. Then I brought it to another coffee shop. And so, one by one by one by one by one we grew, until I couldn’t do anymore at home.”  

Twenty years later, Outrageous Baking occupies a 3,000-square-foot, certified gluten-free space in Longmont, where a small staff makes, bakes and wraps around 1,500 eight-slice loaves a week. The cakes are sold at farmers markets, local grocery stores and coffee shops, as well as directly to consumers online. The eight flavors include cinnamon coffee cake, chocolate zucchini, lemon poppyseed, pumpkin, cherry chocolate, cranberry, vanilla and pumpkin chocolate chip. All are gluten- and dairy-free, with vegan options as well.

Chances are, if you have enjoyed nibbling a slice of bread with your cortado at a local cafe, it was baked by Outrageous Baking. The slices are served at The Laughing Goat, Ozo Coffee, Paul’s Coffee, Beleza Coffee, Junkyard Social, Gabee Coffee and other shops in about 30 states. 

Unlike most local natural foods entrepreneurs, Fletcher says she has no plans for expansion. 

“I’ve never taken any loans, so it’s been slow growth. My goal wasn’t just to grow and sell. It was to be a mom to my daughter as a single mother, have a life and not totally stress my employees out,” she says.

Her daughter, Grace Long, is now 23 and healthy. The duo produced the “Gluten Free for Everyone Cookbook,” which includes 60 simple recipes. The book is available online along with a bag of Outrageous Baking Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour Mix.

As a bona fide bakery lover, I’ve been willing to taste almost any pie, loaf or pizza crust placed before me. That includes the gluten-free goodies that started appearing in Boulder around the turn of the millennium. I can’t tell you how many cakey breads, crumbly cakes and rubbery pizza crusts I have sampled over the years. They were gluten-, dairy- and egg-free and certainly well-intentioned, but many really didn’t taste good at all.

So, I did not approach tasting Outrageous Baking’s coffee cakes without considerable prejudice. Would they simply be pretty good for gluten-free?

Based on a heavily researched sampling of several varieties, Outrageous Baking breads are easy to love. I know this because before I was halfway through a slice of lemon poppyseed bread, I forgot to notice whether it tasted gluten-free or vegan. I simply enjoyed the moist, sweet treat with its tender crumb and bright citrus flavor.

Serious ramen slurping on a Sunday afternoon at Sachi Sushi

A deep need to slurp noodles finally directed me one Sunday to one of Boulder County’s quintessential hidden gems. Osaka-born chef Tsukasa Hibino stands smiling behind the counter of Sachi Sushi in a back corner of the Niwot Market next to the deli. Don’t let the no-frills, uber-casual atmosphere distract from the memorable Japanese fare quietly served here since 2005. For 15 of those years, insiders have made pilgrimages here for the eatery’s Sunday-only bowls of real ramen and cold ramen salad.

I meditated on a big bowl of Chef Tsukasa’s spicy miso ramen. The rich, cloudy, long-simmered bone broth was filled with a tangle of perfectly chewy noodles. It was crowned with pickled veggies, bits of pork, crispy seaweed, half a hard-boiled egg, a slice of fish cake, green onions and sesame seeds. It was good to the last satisfying slurp.

Arrive early on Sundays if you want ramen. It’s like those barbecue joints: Ramen is available only until it runs out. Fans are in line as soon as Chef Tsukasa’s counter opens. 

Discover Longmont’s global flavors during Restaurant Week

Longmont Restaurant Week, Oct. 2-11, features meals at dozens of local eateries, including 24 Carrot Bistro, Biscuit Mike’s, Bucatino Trattoria Romana, Georgia Boys BBQ, Kuper Wine Bar, Spice Fusion, Pelo’s Deli, Red Cedar Bistro and Rosario’s Peruvian Restaurant.

Openings

Lewis Sweet Shop is open at 1621 Coalton Road in Superior, offering ice cream and shakes.

Closings

The Sprouts Farmers Market store that opened in 2009 at 2950 Baseline Road has closed. The building, which once housed a music venue called Boulder’s Coast, will be demolished along with its next-door neighbor, the former Dark Horse bar. The Dark Horse is expected to reopen in Louisville.

Starbucks has announced the closing of 250 stores this week. The eight stores shuttering in Colorado include the Starbucks at 565 W. South Boulder Road in Lafayette. 

Coming Attraction

A new pub, Triple One Public House, is set to open at 111 S. Public Road in Lafayette.

Fall farm stands and a taste of Romania and Georgia

It may be sweater and pumpkin spice season, but Boulder County’s remarkable roster of roadside farm stands is still stocked with loads of fresh produce. Besides pumpkins, the Munson Farms stand offers its 2026 Pumpkin Blossom Honey, collected from the nearby fields. Head out on a fall afternoon, stock up, and support local farmers using Boulder Reporting Lab’s exclusive farm stand guide. 

The Romanian Festival on Oct. 3 in Lakewood features Romanian food and desserts plus music and dance. Fried green tomatoes are not on the menu at the Tbilisoba Festival of Georgian Food on Oct. 4 in Centennial, which offers the foods, wines, art and culture of the nation in Eastern Europe on the edge of Western Asia. 

Take advantage now of juicy local melons

While Colorado peaches and apples have been in short supply, local farmers are still harvesting a bumper crop of sweet cantaloupes, honeydews and other melon varieties. The Boulder County Farmers Markets share a recipe that turns them into a bright-tasting salad.

“Baking is not a small act at all; it’s an act of love, it’s an act of charity, it’s an act of kindness and compassion. I hold that in my heart every time that I bake — that something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie might mean the world to someone.” — Karen Ash

Check out recent editions of Nibbles:

🍪 A former Frasca cook is teaching kids how to make dinner

🥂 Michelin Guide adds Casa Juani to Boulder’s all-star restaurant roster

🥕 Lafayette’s food scene has a new Sunday ritual

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