Making gingerbread men for Christmas is a tradition that goes back a long way for the Hinton family.
“My mother used to make up the dough,” Brian Hinton recalled, “and we used to roll it out.”
It was also a childhood ritual for Brian’s son, Daren.
“It was just a lot of fun.” Daren said. “It was time together.”
And now they two are working on a recipe they didn’t grow up with.
“Rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch,” Brian said.
It’s all part of baking up a batch of gluten-free gingerbread men, adding the treat for the first time as part of their annual gluten-free food drive for the holiday season.
The Hintons run Calgary Lakeview Bakery, where customer Diane Mills knows what a difference having gluten-free options can make.
“Being celiac, I know it’s harder for people to eat and to afford the food,” Mills said, “because it’s so much more expensive.”
The Calgary Interfaith Food Bank’s Cindy Drummond says five per cent of the organization’s clients can’t eat anything with gluten in it.
“This is such an important initiative for us,” Drummond said. “And especially this time of year, as we get closer to Christmas, our numbers go up which means also our number of gluten-free hampers go up.”
Brian Hinton hopes adding the gingerbread men to the hampers will help bring joy to Calgary kids.
“We can supply that gingerbread happiness at Christmas for celiac children that would otherwise miss out,” Hinton said.
The gluten-free food drive continues through until Dec. 17 at Lakeview Bakery’s main location and also at its gluten-free store.
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