She and her husband, Richard, initially started their business with a well-tested chocolate chip cookie recipe sold to local natural food stores. They've expanded to cakes, bread and other baked goods since then, distributing to Whole Foods, Wegmans, and more natural food stores. Now, they're launching a new venture in their own neighborhood: cupcakes.
Why cupcakes?
"It's an individual little party, it's exciting," said DeSouza. "It's a special little thing for you."
Though Richard D'Souza says at first glance, a gluten-free cupcake shop may seem like it's catering to an incredibly small market, he says the goal is inclusion, not exclusion. As shop manager and family friend Matt Bustard said, Sweet Sin is a "gourmet bakery" first, a gluten-free bakery second.
"We're gluten-free if you need us, but we are a bakery," he said.
But what if you want to make cupcakes on your own?
It's doable, as long as you keep one main ingredient in mind: flour.
In regular recipes, gluten is what gives dough its stretchiness, its elasticity. When converting to gluten-free, you have to compensate for that, as well as the flavors and textures that many gluten-free flours have.
Because of that, many experienced bakers recommend starting with a ready-made, all-purpose flour blend or relying on a tested flour-blend recipe from a trusted cookbook.
Shepard, 38, who published "Nearly Normal Cooking For Gluten-Free Eating," a collection of her recipes - including her flour blend - in 2006, says that one mix is key to making gluten-free baking simple again. Her flour blend recipe was so loved, she said, that she started to sell her mix to consumers and bakeries.
D'Souza agrees. She and her husband spent a lot of time testing flour blends before launching their bakery, she says, but for the home baker, she recommends buying a pre-made mix, such as Bob's Red Mill gluten-free all-purpose flour.
Armed with the right flour mix and xanthan or guar gum, which helps with elasticity, the world can be your gluten-free oyster.
After her daughter was diagnosed, Ratner says, she had a series of hits and misses, particularly with birthday cakes. Eventually, she struck it rich with a cookie cake, which became a hit among the neighborhood kids.
Gluten-free baking "forced me to become a little bit more relaxed," she said. "I sort of learned to cook a little bit more like how my grandmother cooked."
