Business owner Alexis Sone doesn’t let a dessert go out of the kitchen if it doesn’t have a very specific quality that is her goal.
“If it doesn’t taste gluten filled, like the real thing, ” she said, it doesn’t go.
Why would a gluten-filled tasting dessert be an accomplishment?
Because Sone’s wildly popular dessert and ice cream shop/bakery in Southington is 100 percent gluten and nut free.
There’s no chance for cross contamination so customers with allergies or gluten intolerance can uniquely order anything like kids in a candy shop, rather than be limited to a few options.
“A lot of this gluten-free stuff out there is meh,” said David Holt, who usually visits the bakery twice a week with his family, one of whom can’t tolerate gluten. “Everything I’ve tried has been great. It’s the best bakery I’ve come across in my life anywhere.”
Sone opened A La Mode Desserts and Ice cream at 159 Liberty St. about a year ago. Inside the small building there’s a bench and some outdoor seating. Mostly it’s grab and go.
Sone, 32, sells cookies, brownies, pop tarts, cakes, cupcakes, tea cakes, carrot cakes, Tres Leches, truffles, and Thursdays through Sundays slices of cake that fly out the door.
Her premium ice cream is handcrafted by one of the most popular ice cream creators in the state – Big Dipper in Prospect and filled with chunks of allergy safe cookies and cream, brownies, oreos and more. They have 12-14 staple flavors and seasonal choices as well.
It’s treat customers say, because they usually have limited choices in that category.
Customer Amanda Brennan said 15 years after her diagnosis she can finally get cookie monster ice cream.
“Her bakery has been life changing,” Brennan said. “I can go to a bakery and choose anything I want. It’s so great to enjoy a treat with my family.”
Brennan said her husband didn’t like gluten-free baked products until trying Sone’s products, telling her, “you can’t even tell it’s gluten free.”
Sone said she’s Italian so she’s been cooking and baking from the time she could, “hold a whisk.”
She also graduated from Johnson & Wales University with a specialty in baking and pastry. That knowledge is what helped her tweak her recipes so they aren’t dry with an off taste like some gluten-free items, she said.
“That’s something I took very seriously,” she said of the recipes. “This is the way I show love and I get to share it with a lot of people. That’s very special.”
Sone has had plenty of allergy challenges herself. At age 4 she developed an allergy to all nuts and growing up her throat could close if someone opened a package of Trail Mix. She had to sit at a special nut-free table at school, and when she traveled on an airplane, nuts couldn’t be served. It was difficult to find hard ice cream she could eat without a reaction.
“It was very isolating,” she said.
Later as an adult she developed an allergy to wheat from working with it so much in baking. It’s wheat, not gluten to which she is allergic. Breathing wheat in was making her sick.
“The thing I appreciate most about it is I created the place I always needed,” by opening the bakery,” she said. “So it’s resonating, rewarding to provide for people like me to have a space. ”
The ice cream component to the business was important to her because growing up, “Getting a safe scoop if ice cream was no easy feat, “she said. “There a need for it. ”
She even makes gluten-free cones.
The most common question they get at the bakery is, “What’s gluten-free?” she said.
She’s delighted to answer: “everything,” Sone said.
She also loves when customers tell her, “I fed it to my whole family and they didn’t believe it was gluten-free.”
Sone said there are more and more gluten-free specialty places popping up, but she doesn’t consider it competition, but rather good that there are choices.
“We all do different things,” she said. “People should be able to go to many places. And to be one of those places is special.”
Customer Erica Tehan, who grew up in Southington with Sone said, said, “She changed the whole town view of gluten-free.
Tehan, who is gluten-free, said a lot of places have a thing or two without gluten, but to be able to choose from “everything” is a real treat.
“She has things gluten free people haven’t been able to get for a long time,” Tehan said, noting pop tart type pastry.
Sone made Tehan’s wedding cake.
“You wouldn’t have been known it was gluten free,” the recent bride said. “Now my family (even those who ingest gluten) buy all the desserts from her.”