Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Villalobos.
Hi Elizabeth, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My journey to Gruene Bake Haus started with my own health. I discovered that I needed to follow a gluten-free diet, but if I’m being truthful, I didn’t take it all that seriously at first. That changed when I had children and realized, as I began introducing foods to them, that they were sensitive to gluten too.
Suddenly, gluten-free wasn’t just about what I could or couldn’t eat. I thought about all the food memories I loved growing up—baking birthday cakes, making Christmas cookies—and it made me sad to think my children might miss out on those experiences. And at the time, there weren’t many gluten-free options around us. The ones I could find usually weren’t very good.
One day, I made a special trip to buy baked goods from someone rumored to be one of “the best” gluten-free bakers in the area. I was so disappointed. I remember thinking, “If this is supposed to be the best, I have to be able to do better. I have a nutrition and food science background, for cryin’ out loud!”
So I approached gluten-free baking like a science experiment. I researched. I kept a lab book documenting my methods and results. I failed—a lot. I learned a lot. And eventually, I got pretty dang good at it.
Then people in my community started asking if they could buy what I was baking. I still had small children at home, but I decided to take the leap and see what happened.
My first week, I was overwhelmed with orders.
And that was the beginning of Gruene Bake Haus.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not! Gluten-free baking is so different from baking with gluten. Every gluten-free flour has its own characteristics, behaviors, and flavors. Even if a recipe works beautifully for someone else, it can fail miserably if you don’t use the exact blend of flours they used—and all the premade flour blends behave differently from each other, too. There are so many moving pieces!
On top of that, I was learning all of this with babies and small children underfoot. More than once, I’d be in the middle of baking when the baby wanted to nurse, so I’d sit on a stool next to the oven and ask my husband to put things in and take things out for me so they didn’t burn. Or I’d discover tiny fingerprints in the ganache-frosted cake we were supposed to eat for Christmas the next day (“That’s Jesus’ birthday cake, not yours!”).
And when you’ve managed to find the time to bake something with babies and toddlers around, only to have it completely fail? That can be pretty discouraging. But every failure taught me something, and eventually all those experiments—and all those failed bakes—started turning into recipes I was really proud of.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Gruene Bake Haus is a gluten-free, artificial dye-free microbakery in historic Gruene, Texas. My philosophy is pretty simple: I refuse to sacrifice quality just to make something gluten-free.
That’s why my sourdough has lots of holes in it! An open crumb is one of the things I love about great artisan bread, and I refused to make gluten-free sourdough until I thought I could get those beautiful holes in mine, too.
I also love taking familiar favorites and putting my own spin on them. CinnaKnotten are my twist on a traditional cinnamon roll—literally. Instead of rolling them into the usual spiral, I twist the dough so you get ribbons of cinnamon throughout, then stuff them with a luscious brown butter cream cheese filling.
And it’s why, as I’m answering this question, the ninth failed batch of gluten-free Hawaiian rolls is sitting on the counter next to me. I just won’t let a good idea go until I can figure out how to make it the way I think it should be.
That’s probably what I’m most proud of about Gruene Bake Haus. “Gluten-free” doesn’t get to be an excuse for something being almost as good. I want to make things that you’d choose because they’re delicious—and they just happen to be gluten-free.
Any big plans?
I nerd out over food science, so sometimes I have to reel myself in because I have more ideas for things I want to test than I have hours in the day!
For now, my goal is pretty simple: keep making some of the best gluten-free baked goods around and serving my community well. We also somewhat unexpectedly became a homeschooling family this year, so that has been a new adventure! I want to be intentional about how Gruene Bake Haus grows and make sure it continues to fit the family and the life that inspired it in the first place.
My baking journey began because I wanted my children to be able to share in the food memories and traditions I grew up with. I think that will always guide where Gruene Bake Haus goes next.
Food is so much more than the sum of its macros and micronutrients. It’s how we connect. It’s how we celebrate, show love, welcome people, and sometimes even make peace. When someone has a dietary restriction, they can so easily end up on the outside of those experiences.
If Gruene Bake Haus can help a few more people have a seat at the table—and give them something really delicious to eat while they’re there—I think we’re doing something worthwhile.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gruenebakehaus.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gruenebakehaus
