Lina Wallentinson is the exuberant dietitian and food writer who became so interested in baking and the chemistry behind the interplay between sourdough and gluten-free flours that she enrolled in a bakery education program at Eldrimner, Sweden’s resource center for artisan food. Before long, the training she received aroused a burning interest in the subject, and it did not take long before Lina felt compelled to try opening her own artisan bakery, brimming with gluten-free products. And so Malvas glutenfria hantverksbageri [Malva’s Gluten-Free Artisan Bakery] was born.
Malvas glutenfria hantverksbageri is a bakery like any other, really. What sets the bakery apart is that all its baked goods are gluten-free and lactose-free. This means that anyone who chooses to avoid gluten for one reason or another, suffers from celiac disease, or for that matter is lactose intolerant, can enjoy the bakery’s entire product range.
- “At my bakery, you should be able to choose whatever you want and still be able to feel safe,” says Lina. She continues:
- “But it’s a bit trickier to make things for people who don’t tolerate milk protein; all the breads work well, but I have to use lactose-free butter for the buns and cakes.”
Lina has chosen to bake with as locally produced ingredients as possible. Still, that’s not always easy when it comes to gluten-free ingredients. Her baked goods are based on oats, buckwheat and potato flour, raw materials that all come from the Nordic countries.
- “But of course the most important thing is that it tastes good,” says Lina happily.
The little bakery can only be described as a roaring success. When we meet Lina, she has been open for just seven weeks and is already selling out everything she bakes on a daily basis. And she bakes a lot! Lina has set up her job so that she has different baking days for different products. Overnight, she cold-rises the dough in Sveba Dahlen’s F200 cabinet and bakes it in her oven, a S-Series model SR240 from Sveba Dahlen, during the bakery’s opening hours. This means that the bread is always fresh and fills the aroma with delicious aromas.
Lina’s products include a gluten-free version of Danish rye bread, which she calls Dansken, syrup loaf, three varieties of light sourdough bread, and seven different kinds of bread rolls. She also bakes buns, Lucia buns and cakes. She draws inspiration from the internships she conducted during her education, but she also has many ideas of her own. In addition, customers are a real source of inspiration and she sees a major demand for gluten-free baked goods.
The installation of the machines from Sveba Dahlen went well, even though that day was one of the hottest of the entire summer. They lifted out the window in order to carry in the oven, and after that it was basically plug-and-play for Lina, who started baking as soon as the electricity was switched on - and so far, she has no plans to stop.
- “This is so much fun! I just want to continue with this and do it as well and efficiently as possible, and to provide my customers with freshly baked gluten-free bread, just like any other bakery!
Photo: @ylvasbakverkstad