Carrot cake is the best seller at Karen Joslin’s gluten-free bakery on Ronan’s Main Street, and it looks luscious – moist, two layers of tender cake, and creamy white icing. She also makes bread, pies, muffins, cinnamon rolls and cookies.

She opened Mama’s Bakery seven months ago, and she put up eye-catching lights on her storefront last week.

“I always did want to try a gluten-free bakery,” Joslin said, with a laugh.

But how she got her bakery was not a laughing matter. Joslin had gotten ill and finally was diagnosed 13 years ago with Celiac Disease, a chronic digestive and immune disorder that damages the small intestine.

The disease is triggered by eating foods containing gluten, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Karen and her husband, Ron, owned and operated the Ronan Cafe in downtown Ronan for 18 years. At the time of her diagnosis, Karen was the baker, turning out loaves of bread, cinnamon rolls, pies and dinner rolls daily.

They closed the Ronan Cafe for a couple of years and eventually sold it. However, they kept the part of the building which housed the cafe’s bakery and was used for banquets and overflow tables. She now operates her bakery in that space.

“I want a biscuit to be buttery”

Since Joslin is a baker and good-tasting gluten-free products are tough to find, she began gluten-free baking using a brand of flour called Namaste, which she could get wholesale from Costco. Then Costco’s policy changed, and she could only purchase the flour in 1,000-pound pallets, which was too much flour for her one-woman bakery.

That forced her to come up with her own bread mix, which she likes better. Taste is important.

“I want a biscuit to be buttery and not taste like a pea or a piece of rice or something. I want it to taste like a biscuit,” she explained.

She laughed as she remembered her first tries with gluten-free flour after her diagnosis. She tells people, “I made cardboard, dust and bricks.”

“It’s difficult when you are used to normal baking,” she said. “I could tell by the feel of that dough. Now it’s getting there; I can tell if it’s too dry or too wet.”

Thanksgiving week was a busy time for the bakery. She had special orders, and she also baked more than usual and sold nearly everything in her shop.

“People were really happy with the pies,” she said.

She has taken her gluten-free pies to family functions and other events, and no one can tell the crust is gluten-free.

Asked what she likes to bake the most, she said, “I like my experiments.”

An example was a batch of blueberry white-chocolate scones on the cooling rack. She said scone dough should not be too sweet so she thought she could make a few additions to her biscuit dough, and was waiting to see how the scones tasted. (They tasted great.)

“I try it when I make it, in three days to see how it’s holding, out of the fridge, and out of the freezer. I’m getting to the end of my experimenting,” she said. All that tasting and checking gives her lots of data on all the products.

For cinnamon rolls, “the first day they are the best; tomorrow they are not happy,” Joslin said.

She also offers sandwiches for lunch and a weekly salad special. She just finished building a coffee bar so soon she’ll offer coffee.

A multi-talented woman, Joslin has repurposed scraps of wood from her dad’s barns in the bakery. Together they built a shelf system for displaying gift items, such as bread kits, complete with a gluten-free mix, a pan, a cutting board and a bread knife. She has many items to choose from.

Folks can come in, buy some bread, either fresh or frozen, or a pizza from the cooler, slices of carrot cake, cookies, or cinnamon rolls, and do a little Christmas shopping.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The bakery is located at 107 Main Street S.W.

    Gluten-free carrot cake baked fresh by Karen Joslin is one of the many gluten-free options available at Joslin's bakery in Ronan. (Berl Tiskus/Leader)