We’re SO proud to announce our new partnership with Hansen’s Cakes, LA’s most delectable designer cake company! Finally, gorgeous gluten-free party cakes, even wedding cakes! (For their latest creations, visit the Hansen’s blog. Wow! These guys are both hip AND delicious!)

Even better, they’re not raising our prices a drop - 8″ round gluten-free cakes still start at $50 - which means you’re getting a far better decorated cake (far better-tasting too, with their frosting) for a far, far better value.

Hansen’s has the twin distinction of being RCC-kosher certified (yes!) AND open Saturdays (double-yes!!); and they can make casein-free frosting using no dairy other than clarified butter (ghee, generally allowed on a gf/cf diet, but check with your doctor.) Finally, they have (oh, joy!) not one, not two, but THREE locations to serve you better!

Read on to learn how Hansen’s is keeping your cakes safe from gluten-contamination, and why I’ve always had my heart set on baking for them….

Step one, obviously, is that Hansen’s has your gluten-free cakes and cupcakes baked in a dedicated gf-facility. [That would be where The Sensitive Baker comes in. ] The cakes are vacuum-sealed and taken to Hansen’s decorating studio. OK, you can call it a bakery, but the place is huge, many times our little space, and the cakes enter the system AFTER the baking takes place. They may be held with other (glutenous) cakes in a refrigerator while still sealed, but they are only unpacked in a designated gluten-free area.

Hansen’s has confirmed that every ingredient in their frostings (and other edible decorations) are all gluten-free, and they are extremely careful to keep all their utensils and equipment spotless.

If you share a kitchen with a wheat-eater, that person could not possibly be more meticulous and careful about cross-contamination than the staff at Hansen’s. We’ve toured the facilities there a couple of times, they’ve visited us, and I have complete confidence in them.

And that makes my heart glad. Want to know why? I’m glad you asked.

Flashback two years and two months ago. June 2006. I’m finishing up my job as a teacher’s aide at my children’s school. I haven’t renewed my contract because I’m determined to open a gluten-free bakery, but I’ve barely outlined a business plan, much less gotten the funding. I’m not even much of a baker, never worked in a bakery, but I always wanted to start a business and the idea that there was no gluten-free bakery in Southern California was too good an opportunity to pass up. Sounds mercenary, I admit. But my family needed a bakery!

Anyway, there I was, kinda just launching myself into the wind there. (That teaching gig didn’t pay much but it meant 50% off my kids’ private school tuition. In the end, it I learned that it paid more than entrepreneur-ship, at least in the start-up phase.)

That June, my first & very best customer, Hilary W–, was celebrating her celiac daughter Allie’s birthday, and needed a Pocahontas cake. I have like, zero cake decorating experience but she didn’t have anyone else at the time, so I said I’d come over and see if I could help. Well, the night before the party was Saturday, in June, so by the time it was dark & I got over there she had done almost the whole thing & I kept her company as she finished up; and I got a glimpse into the life of the mother of a celiac child.

Hilary had ordered special cake pans from the Wilton cake decorating company that were shaped like Pocahontas. They came with instructions that were somewhat reminiscent of paint-by-numbers instructions, only you had to imagine the outlines. And mix the “paint.” Which she had done. And filled it all in. All that Saturday.

Not one to do things in half-measures, Hilary had purchased two kits to decorate two cakes. (It was going to be a big party and whichever cake turned out better she would use for the candles & the photos.) I got to hang out and “assist” as the second one was completed.

I will always remember her in her kitchen, after ten o’clock on Saturday night, putting the finishing touches on this birthday cake, and for the very first time I heard her utter a complaint about her daughter’s disease. She said, enviously, “All the other mothers just call Hansen’s.”

I thought, “Oh My God! This is outrageous! YOU should be able to just call Hansen’s!!” It should be the Divine Right of every Mother in Creation to Just Call Hansen’s!!!”

And at that moment, I felt a shift, like I felt The Universe align. I am convinced that was the moment The Sensitive Baker was conceived. (Two months later I had the good fortune to meet a generous celiac who was as appalled as I was that there was no gluten-free bakery in Los Angeles, and the rest was history.)

But it all started at that moment. Just Call Hansen’s. Now, you can.

2 Responses to “Hansen’s Cakes introduces a Gluten-Free line!!!”

1. Nancy Clifford Says:
   August 29th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

   Sandee,

   I’ll be happy to call Hansen’s. Whatever works best for you sounds good to me. Just assure me that they can duplicate your cakes…exactly. My family is in it for the taste (decorations are just an added bonus) and your offerings are the best ever!!!

   Good luck and lots of success with this new association.

   Nancy Clifford

2. Sandee Says:
   August 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

   Hi, Nancy! Your support means so much to me, to all of us! I hope you weren’t insulted by the “first & very best customer” thing. I meant AT THE TIME. Now, of course, we have many “very best customers.”

   Anyway, they do better than duplicate our cakes. We give them our cakes. Well, they purchase them. Which also makes my heart glad.

   But please don’t think “what’s best for the bakery is best for you!” That’s all backwards - we’re suposed to make it easier for YOU, but I know this will - ie, sometimes be hard to call in an order to us, but they have people dedicated to telephone customer service. The first time I walked in there and saw three women at their own desks taking phone orders, I almost cried.

   (Yes, I think it will be good for us too. Thank You, Universe!) (And you too, Nancy!)

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