Kokova Magazine

The Cake Crusader was founded by Liz Allan who discovered back in 2001 that she was wheat intolerant and found it very difficult to transition from a life with wheat to one without.

At that time the only places where you could purchase “intolerance friendly” products were health food shops where the products were very expensive.

Over the years the supermarkets have begun to sell more 'Free From' products but nothing has ever tasted as home-made as the wheat and gluten free cakes Liz now sells at The Cake Crusader.

All the cakes are gluten and wheat free and most can be made dairy free as well. They also make egg free and sugar free cakes in order to cover as many food intolerance groups as possible.

Liz uses 4 different types of flour brown and white rice flour, potato and tapioca flour and all our flour is soya free.

All work is in a gluten and wheat free environment in order to ensure that there is no chance of cross contamination and they only make intolerance friendly cakes. In fact, a number of customers don’t have food intolerance and choose to buy the cakes because they taste just as good, if not better than regular cakes.

Liz was a business improvement consultant until the birth of her son James back in 2005. Just before his first birthday she decided that she wanted to make his birthday cake but hadn’t baked for years.
She realised that in order to make his cake she’d have to go back to basics and learn how to bake a gluten free/ wheat free cake or else she wouldn’t even be able to check its taste as she went along!

After a number of rather bad experiences she hit the jackpot and has been an avid baking fan ever since.

Liz decided that she wanted to start her own business which could work round her son’s school hours so started The Cake Crusader back in 2009.

Initially it was going to be just selling everyday cakes so she developed a number of recipes using her special flour mix. The main aim was to offer home made, excellent tasting cakes to intolerance sufferers who hadn’t had the opportunity of having that luxury back in their lives!

Liz knows what it is like to have to check ingredients on every label in the supermarket and ask at every restaurant and café whether they have wheat/gluten free products and a lot of times the reply was “no”.

Her ethos is that although you need to have a balanced diet, for a long time food intolerance sufferers didn’t even have the option of eating a lot of baked goods as they always included wheat/gluten etc in!

Liz wants to give that option back to her customers by offering them her yummy cakes.

Following the development of her cake recipes a friend asked Liz to make a Fairy Toadstool party cake for her daughter and from this point Liz really caught the cake decorating bug!

She made party cakes for a number of her friends and family and then decided to start making bespoke party cakes for her customers using the cake recipes she had developed as the cake base.

During 2010 she further honed her skills and attained a Masters Certificate in Sugarpaste, Sugar Flowers and Royal Icing on completion of the PME Professional Diplomas which are recognised worldwide.

This year The Cake Crusader was short-listed and commended for their Lemon Drizzle Cake at the “Free From Food Awards” in the cakes and cake mixes category.

The Cake Crusader will be exhibiting at The Allergy and Gluten Free Show 6th – 8th May 2011. www.allergyshow.co.uk