Gluten-Free Cake Now at Starbucks
Wednesday May 6, 2009
Yesterday Starbucks started selling its gluten-free Valencia Orange Cake. Of course, as your dedicated reporter I was compelled to rush to the nearest Starbucks and have one with a cup of coffee. The cake is sweet and delicious. Be sure to take napkins because it's a little sticky. My husband had a sandwich while I had the cake. We started out with me promising to leave him a piece of cake to taste... but in the end, I ate the whole thing.
On the Starbucks Ideas in Action blog, you can read more about the Orange Valencia Cake and how it's made, in a message from the product manager at Starbucks who headed up the gluten free cake effort. (A note to those who are allergic to tree nuts: the cake is made with almonds.)
Comments
I just heard about the cakes that Starbucks is carrying and will plan to get one the next time I am out at Starbucks. Thank you for doing things to help the celiac community. This is wonderful. Eclairs would be a great addition to this cake!
That’s amazing! Now if it were only egg free too…
I just tried it sooooooooo delicious!!! and worth the $1.95.
When is it coming to Canada?
Hubby says it’s very good. Today, in my local Starbucks, the g-f cake was sitting in the regular baked goods cabinet unwrapped on a plate.
Although it sat by itself on the plate, I wonder if the Starbucks folks know that they also need to use separate tongs to retrieve it?
Fiona
The cakes are supposed to be kept in the wrapper and unwrapped only by the customer. I’ve written to Starbucks to ask whether there’s a way for us to tell them which locations need a reminder from headquarters about this.
I can’t believe Starbucks is not offering this GF cake in Canada. We had to make our own! And it is delicious:
http://theceliachusband.blogspot.com/2009/05/gluten-free-valencia-orange-cake-not.html
These are DELICIOUS!!!
Starbucks discontinued them because they were a “treat” and apparently celiacs aren’t allowed to have treats-we all have to watch our figures and live on nuts and twigs. They replaced them with Kind bars. I like to eat real food, with fat and calories, and I enjoy treats. I don’t go to Starbucks to buy the same boring snack I get by the case from Amazon.com, which is cheaper. That was a snotty, demeaning little Tweet, Starbucks-celiacs doin’t deserve the same sort of delicious food as your other customers, we should be happy with a “healthy” choice. After all, we’re just a bunch of orthorexic freaks, right? Not normal people with a real disease who eat cake…
I don’t think the cakes are being discontinued just because they’re a “treat.” I’ve heard there were shelf-life problems, and the cakes were getting moldy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Starbucks came out with some other cake-like product.
And it would’ve been great if Starbucks had clearly stated that they were discontinuing the product because of quality issues, lack of sales, economic considerations etc. instead of the snide little tweet they put out making celiacs sound like a bunch of eating disordered orthorexics. I don’t mind that they discontinued the cake, it was not that good, I mind HOW they went about announcing it. Starbucks is the one who said they were being discontinued for being a “treat” and insisted that we wanted the “healthy” option. This clearly seperates celiacs from their normal customers, who come for the sugar and fat filled lemon pound cake. I do not want to be stuffed in the “health nut” box-I’m the same sort of consumer as everyone else, I just don’t eat gluten.
I just found out about the cake being discontinued and I was willing to excuse it because I thought, hmmmm, maybe it just wasn’t selling? Then again, how could they know that after only 2 months. And now I hear the real reason and I am beyond pissed off. Because excuse me, aren’t ALL the baked goods they sell “treats”. I’ll be going to DD from now on. At least they don’t play games.