Starbucks Offering Gluten-Free Goodies!

A few weeks ago, I read a blog post on Starbucks' site about test marketing a gluten-free pastry.  They were looking for ideas on the kind of pastry, how they should package/display it, and what things they should watch out for, especially in terms of cross-contamination.  I was thrilled -- I miss the days of having a pastry with my tea, despite all the extra calories!  The word was they were going to test-market the product this summer, but not necessarily in all stores.  I decided not to get my hopes up -- gluten-free pastries to-go from a mainstream coffee shop seemed just too good to be true!

On my walk into work in the mornings, I occasionally like to stop in at the Starbucks in The Gallery on Calvert & Pratt (downtown Baltimore for those of you outside the city!).  I love their tall, soy, iced chais, especially as the weather warms up!  My coworkers were all having donuts at a floor meeting this morning, so I decided to treat myself instead of feeling left out.  When I walked up to the counter, my eye caught the little sign advertising Gluten-Free Valencia Orange cakes -- individually wrapped to avoid cross-contamination from the other pastries!  I started to get excited, and was thrilled when I found out that not ONLY are they gluten-free, but they're also dairy-free (and soy and tapioca-free for those of you with other allergies)!  And these cakes are delicious - moist, perfectly sweet, and oh-so-gluten-free-yummy.  It was worth the $1.95 I paid, and I'll definitely be buying them again in the future!

For more info on these delectable new goodies, check out Starbucks' Newsroom page dedicated to them.  There's also a celiac.com discussion thread going about them here.

-Lynnae