Connoisseurs of challah are in for a delight when they buy from Anne Iarchy’s bakery in north London.
But it’s not just the quality that distinguishes Little Home Baker, as every loaf is entirely gluten-free.
The Finchley-based micro-bakery and baking school provides community workshops as well as serving up its award-winning challah rolls – with options of sesame and poppyseeds – along with sourdough bread, cookies, cakes and even focaccia, all entirely gluten-free. Customers order online from the menu on Instagram.
Getting challah perfectly right took painstaking experimentation and research. She selected the most successful aspects of existing gluten-free recipes and then applied her own baking expertise.
Anne, 54, says: “To make a gluten-free challah, you have to have a mixture of starches and grains to have a bit of body and still be light, then water, yeast, psyllium husk,” she says. “It’s quite similar, although there’s only one rise.”
The eventual results would pass a blind taste test as indistinguishable from that found at ordinary bakers.
“I eventually got something that people said they hadn’t tasted in many years,” Anne says.
More than just a business, the bakery is a very personal mission for Anne, who was a nutritional therapist for years until she was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2023 after she became unwell.
“I had to change my whole lifestyle,” she says. “I knew what gluten intolerance was, but it’s only when you deal with it on a daily basis that you realise how it affects you. It’s not limiting, per se, because it opened my eyes to things I didn’t know existed before, like gluten-free restaurants.
“But socially, it’s harder. You go to friends’ houses and you’re not sure you can eat, or you have to ask in advance or bring your own food. Some restaurants have no clue about gluten-free at all, and then you risk getting ill. It was probably slightly easier as a nutritional therapist… but it meant I had to change all my baking. So, I started experimenting.”
She found the available gluten-free baking options were frustratingly limited and replete with unhealthy additives.“I grew up on good bakes,” says Anne, a regular JC Food contributor. “I don’t see why I need to eat second-rate challah because I have an illness.”
Until her diagnosis, she would regularly eat her mother’s home-made biscuits, received a baker’s fresh bread twice weekly, and loved to experiment with sourdough flavours.
“For me, eating good stuff is important,” she says.
Today, Anne bakes bread that “people would not realise is gluten-free unless told.” Although the bakery is not supervised kosher, the bakes are vegetarian.
“If you want to make gluten-free bread, you need a mix of starches and grains, some psyllium husk, oils…” she lists. “Whatever there is in the supermarket, it is mass-processed and, nutritionally, really bad. I’m grateful for the choice there is, but if you want to stay healthy and gain health after your diagnosis, it doesn’t make sense to me to have ultra-processed food, especially when you have a gut issue.”
As well as selling her baking products, Anne takes great pride in providing education at her workshops. “I love teaching, I teach cooking classes, and I’ve taught kids over school holidays on healthy eating… and there’s near to nothing when it comes to gluten-free workshops. It’s difficult finding a space for them. You need a clean oven to avoid cross-contamination, for instance.”
She not only wanted to make a safe space for people with coeliac disease, but to “give them the tools to eat good stuff at home. I’ve really enjoyed knowing that people go home knowing how to do things they didn’t know before,” she says.
She is enjoying her growing success, including winning the Free From culinary competition bronze award in the speciality section for her challah rolls. She hopes to draw in more and more customers. “Sometimes there’s only a couple of people in the family who are gluten-free, so they might come every other week, but there’s some regulars now.”
According to Coeliac UK, coeliac disease – an autoimmune condition that causes severe gluten intolerance – affects 1 in 100 people in the UK, while nearly 500,000 people go undiagnosed.
“I get messaged by people who find me online,” says Anne. “The workshops are slowly but surely growing. I have a challah workshop before Rosh Hashanah and I already have two places booked. One of them lives in France.”
@little_home_baker
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