Sans Gluten artisan bakery started at home

JOHNSTON — Diagnosed with celiac disease nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Leah Adams’ journey to delicious and healthful eating started in her kitchen.

The autoimmune disease means she cannot tolerate gluten, the protein in wheat, rye, barley and some oats.

In 2016, she opened Sans Gluten Artisan Bakery, dedicated to gluten-free goods.

Her a-ha moment was at her daughter Vanessa’s first birthday party.

“No one would eat the cake,” she recalled of that moment back in 2007. It was gluten-free from a bakery and it wasn’t good. Gluten-free flours can be gritty or really dry.

That’s when Adams started making her own cakes and cookies and flour mixes.

“One day, I was ready to play with things,” she explained.

Using chemistry, she studied flours and grains including heavy sorghum flours, brown rice and buckwheat. They all taste different. Any on their own, create a brick. Too much of things like corn starch or tapioca may bind the ingredients but they dry things out.

“By using a mix though, you get elasticity from starches. Sorghum gives it weight and holds moisture,” she explained.

Adams considered things she wanted to enjoy such as doughnuts and cupcakes, eclairs and cinnamon rolls. And cakes like carrot and cheesecakes. She also does custom wedding cakes.

She took regular recipes and made her sweets using her proprietary gluten free mix.

“I just wanted to eat what everyone else eats,” she said.

She began sharing her sweets with members of her daughter’s swim team and with a physical therapist office she worked with.

“I was so happy that those who didn’t have celiac disease like my food,” Adams said.

That is the short story of how she came to open Sans Gluten. It’s in the same plaza at 39 Greenville Ave. as Glaze’n Daze Donuts (see story C1).

Her husband Tom Rice manages the shop which is staffed with bakers including Johnson and Wales University interns.

Adams is not alone in wanting to enjoy sweets like anybody else. She just found a way to do it, as her second job.

A graduate of Brown University Medical School, Adams just closed her internal medicine practice in East Providence in April after 24 years. She now works for an insurance company which gives her more flexibility and better hours.

You’ll find her at Sans Gluten on Saturday where she is proud to offer something totally different than people expect. That includes filled, fried doughnuts, brioche-style on Saturday. They always sell out and customers come from around New England to get them, said Rice.

“Everything tastes like it came from grandma’s kitchen,” Adams said.

Everything is made from scratch with no artificial ingredients or dyes. In addition to the flour blend, they make fillings for doughnuts, the base for the éclairs and icings that are fruit based.

“People have allergies to other chemicals that can be in baked goods,” she observed. They work to keep all allergens out of the food. They offer vegan items as well.

“We are having more demand for vegan products but it comes in bursts,” she said.

If she or her staff don’t like something, it doesn’t go on sale.

Adams’ mother’s family was from Rhode Island but her dad was in the military so they moved around a lot. She started a medical school program studying for two years at Dartmouth before finishing at Brown. She hasn’t left Rhode Island since.

In addition to Vanessa, who is now 14, she and Rice have a 9-year-old, Courtney. Adams is an athlete who runs and bikes and believes when it comes to your health, “You have to be your own best advocate.”

The best story about Sans Gluten comes from Rice. A woman came in to buy a special birthday cake for her gluten-free husband. She returned a few weeks later to report how disappointed her husband was. He only got one slice of the best cake he ever had. All the guests at his party skipped the regular birthday cake and gravitated to his chocolate gluten-free one. They finished it before he could have more than his first slice.