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It's all good, and good for you, too.
Builder becomes baker, entrepreneur.
Michael Madriaga is a builder by trade. He was an amateur chef by choice. Within the last several months, he became an entrepreneurial specialty pastry chef by necessity. Of course, he also needed more than a pinch of imagination.
"My girlfriend has fibromyalgia, with 21 food intolerances, and I wanted to make something good for her to eat," said Madriaga. Gluten free foods are a tough criterion, but provide some surprising benefits. For those with celiac disease, a digestive disorder, they are essential.
"The surprising thing is that they look good and taste delicious, too," said customer Richard Eckert. Eckert, of Miramar Beach, visited the Pie in the Sky stand looking for help with a healthy diet.
How this is accomplished without traditional ingredients such as sugar and wheat flour is by the substitution of turbinado sugar, rice flour and other alternative raw ingredients. Madriaga says they're not hard to obtain, either.
"With gluten-free, I just feel better, have more energy and I'm losing weight," said Eckert.
The muffins, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and other well-known pastries Madriaga creates for Pie in the Sky contain no gluten, wheat, dairy, casein, soy, peanuts nor eggs. These are the seven major food allergens. The fact sheet provided by Pie in the Sky identifies 15 different conditions that "may benefit considerably from a gluten-free diet."
"We do not cross-contaminate," said Madriaga. "We're in the process of putting together a commercial kitchen in Gulf Place, and we don't use the same utensils or containers for foods containing known allergens."
According to Madriaga, his pastries will retain freshness and flavor for a month or more, since they contain very few of the traditional ingredients that would cause spoilage. This is a fortunate side effect for a business that hopes to develop a national market by shipping the products, frozen, to retailers across the country.
Presently supplying Barefoot Barbeque, For the Health of It and other retail outlets, Madriaga is also ready, willing and able to do wedding cakes, chocolate dipped strawberries, tarts and fresh fruit pies.
"We are testing the market, experimenting. I try everything on the kids," said Madriaga. "Our next project is breads and pasta."
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