Maui Specialty Bakery Products

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Gloria's Biography

My mother always said, "necessity is the mother of invention." How true that statement has been in my life! I started my career as a pastry chef after leaving a government position. My life had taken several turns since graduating from Michigan State University with a Marketing degree in Food Systems Economics, but baking has been a love of mine for as long as I could remember.

After receiving my culinary degree at Pasadena's California School of Culinary Arts Le Cordon Bleu program, I worked at the Four Season's Hotel at Beverly Hills, the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas and the Norwegian Cruise Lines in Hawaii. I felt my career as a pastry chef was firmly in hand especially after taking a few classes in chocolate centerpieces with Ewald Notter in Orlando and an additional pastry classes at Le Cordon Bleu School in London.

But as fate would have it, I discovered I had health issues aggravated by eating products that contained gluten. Not the type of thing a pastry chef likes to hear. I looked everywhere for breads and pastries that I could eat. However, nothing had the great taste to which I was accustomed. I discovered that there was a huge population with food sensitivities out there, just like me. I was surprised to find out that my sister and two of my cousins had similar sensitivities!

We all wanted to eat foods that had the taste and flavors of the ones we had enjoyed over the years, but nothing seemed to come close to the foods we craved. This "illness" changed my life! I started experimenting with creating foods that were gluten free and had the good flavors that I was craving. At the same time, I began working on developing products which were also Vegan. As I developed these products, they formed the basis of my company. I have launched my new line of specialty bakery products as -- Maui Specialty Bakery Products!