COVER STORY
of its kind in the college and university space. The bakery started out with a few simple products like cookies or brown- ies and now, ten years later, the product lineup has evolved into almost 20 items. And while the concept is specifically fo - cused on gluten-free baked goods, they have also expanded it to meet the needs of other dietary restrictions as well by producing vegan and nut-free products. Robert Landolphi, assistant director of culinary development at UConn Din- ing, said that over the years, the concept has proven itself to be a success. The team plans to continue to work on the concept, especially as Landolphi noted that he doesn’t believe the number of students with an allergy or intolerance to gluten will not be decreasing anytime soon. “If I go back 24 years ago, we had a half dozen students [with food allergies] on campus, maybe. And now it’s 1,200 registered and we probably actually sit down and meet with 300 or 400 a school year,” he said. “There’s so many more people running into dietary needs and allergy issues right now than we’ve ever seen before.” Hipple has noticed this at the Univer- sity of Maryland as well, and oftentimes students and even parents are proactive in gathering information about their uni- versity’s allergy-friendly offerings. “Every year there are more and more students telling us in advance of the start of the school year that they have an al- lergy, and they’d like to conference with us about it,” he said. “We also note that parents in particular are very concerned about the ability of their students to eat safely on campus.” THE ‘SCIENCE’ OF ALLERGY- FRIENDLY BAKING One of Simmons’ goals is to make it as easy as possible for foodservice opera- tions to offer allergen-free desserts. And with The Pink Bakery’s mixes, Simmons is taking the complexity out of aller- gen-free baking, with most of the prod- ucts simply requiring the baker to add water and oil.
After all, baking allergen-free products can be a difficult task, but The Pink Bak - ery’s mixes don’t require chefs to become experts. “We’re helping the chef. He or she doesn’t have to try to do this on their own,” said Simmons. “Like we’ve already done it, we’ve done 5+years of research and development. It’s tried and tested, it works.” Simmons said she believes the reason allergen-free desserts are so scarce in the foodservice space is because of the difficulty in executing quality products, noting that baking is “unforgiving.” “When it came to trying to create mixes, It’s so difficult. Like it’s really that hard to make because baking is not like cooking,” she said. “It takes so much time and effort to put into and focus to just put into baked goods.” For the gluten-free bakery at UConn, being the first concept of its kind on a college campus presented some unique challenges. Specifically, Landolphi said that sourcing was difficult at first, but now there are more gluten-free ingredients available in the marketplace. When it comes to actually creating the products, the process of trial and error was helpful along the way. And now, UConn’s baking staff has it down to a science. “It’s definitely more of a science and you always hear people say, well, baking in general is a science, gluten-free baking is much different in that what you’ll find is gluten-free flours tend to absorb more moisture, more liquid,” said Landolphi. This means it is important to make sure batters lean more on the wet side, to avoid unpleasant textures. “This way, no one feels like they’re eating a dry, cardboard, gluten-free product,” said Landolphi.
YUZU LUXE MERINGUE COOKIES Star-shaped meringues make a dazzling addition to the cookie plate. Chef Douglas brightens the flavor with citrusy yuzu for a refreshing take on meringue cookies. Meringue is naturally gluten-free, so this is a great swap for any cookie platter, and an added bonus: super-cute star shapes. Get the recipe .
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