Meet Your Neighbour: Gluten Free Me

Take a little walk just off the main street at 191 Hurontario Street in Collingwood Downtown and you’ll discover a wonderful little gem of a boutique bakery offering up scrumptious gluten free baked goods that are made from scratch.  As soon as you open the door, you’re immediately enveloped with the delicious aroma of freshly baked goodies and once you taste them, you’ll be coming back for more.

With over 35 years of experience, baker Jane Stainsby brings a lot of expertise to the bench while her husband and ‘baker in training’ Michael Bathgate mans the front counter.  “We take a lot of pride in baking everything from scratch, we mix our own gluten free flour, we squeeze lemons to get fresh lemon juice for our lemon squares rather than using lemon juice from a bottle, we peel our own apples for our pies and we stew our own dates for our squares.  Because of space limitations in the shop we just don’t have enough space to bake our own bread so we bring in a line of artisanal bread from Ste. Anne’s Bakery.  We’re very proud to offer our customers their breads because their products are just such excellent quality and taste delicious” explains Michael.

Jane had a traditional bakery in Brooklyn, Ontario and after she retired, kept getting requests from friends to bake special cakes for people that had dietary intolerances so the apron strings never really got untied. Jane and Michael have been coming to the area for over 30 years and found themselves constantly being drawn to Collingwood on the weekends so they made the permanent move here three and a half years ago and then shortly thereafter a retail environment opportunity came up and they opened the doors to Gluten Free Me.

Gluten Free Me is a full production bakery that also offers a vegan line of baked goods, which Jane is working hard on expanding, and you can pick up dinner while you’re there from the line of frozen entrees they bring in. Can’t quite decide what to choose?  Their apple pies, quiches, scones, butter tarts and cheese cakes are among the best sellers.

Tasty Tip:  You can order custom cakes including vegan options from Gluten Free Me.  Forty-eight hours notice is appreciated.

You can find Gluten Free Me at 191 Hurontario St., Unit 3 in Collingwood Downtown or on the web at www.GlutenFreeMe.Today. Follow them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/glutenfreemebakery/ or Instagram www.instagram.com/glutenfreemebakery/