faq's

Why gluten free?
Do you bake in a dedicated gluten-free facility?
What do you use instead of wheat flour in your baked goods?
Many companies claim to make the best-tasting products. How do we know Mariposa's taste as great as you claim they do?
What do you mean by artisan-crafted?
What is the shelf life of your products?
Do your products contain preservatives or additives?
What are the nutritional values of your baked goods?
What can I make with biscotti crumbs?
Where can I find Mariposa products?

Why gluten-free?

Co-founder, Patti, discovered her gluten allergy several years ago and started baking in earnest when she was pregnant and desired incredible-tasting, freshly-baked, gluten-free baked goods and couldn't find them on grocery shelves. For months, her husband, Jason, would happily arrive home to a house filled with the aromas of freshly baked gluten-free cookies, brownies, muffins and tea breads.

Finding that many of their friends and neighbors suffered from this same allergy, Jason convinced her that this would be a wonderful business to start since they were all having the same difficulty locating high-caliber gluten-free bakery products.

And so, in late 2004, Mariposa Baking emerged from its cocoon.

Do you bake in a dedicated gluten-free facility?

Yes, we spent much of 2006 building a new dedicated gluten-free facility in Oakland, California, where all of our baked goods are now made.

What do you use instead of wheat flour in your baked goods?

We mix combinations of organic brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, potato starch and tapioca flour.

Many companies claim to make the best-tasting products. How do we know Mariposa's taste as great as you claim they do?

We know that it is easy to say and hard to live up to -- that is why we had Ralph, a Culinary Art School Baking graduate; Jack, a former owner of a San Francisco truffle shop voted Best of the Bay Area; and Harry, an award-winning chef and former faculty member at the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago taste-test our products. We blind-tested against the finest wheat-based products and when our tasters could not tell the difference between our products and wonderful wheat-based products, we knew we could make the claim that our baked goods are of the finest caliber.

What do you mean by artisan-crafted?

Mariposa's products are handmade in small batches, from start to finish. We love baking our products and seeing the individual character of each biscotti and brownie emerge from our craft.

Sometimes we notice that our products look a little rustic and we think ... just like hand-hewn wood, this rustic character is more beautiful to behold than a product that is precisely manufactured by a machine.

What is the shelf life of your products?

The biscotti will stay fresh for at least three months.

For the brownies, if you do not want to indulge immediately, they will last up to 7 days in an unheated place or we recommend refrigerating them and they will last 7-21 days. The brownies also freeze beautifully and they keep for months in your freezer. Simply thaw and enjoy, or as some people do, eat them straight from the freezer without thawing!

Do your products contain preservatives or additives?

No, our products do not contain preservatives or additives. They are also free of hydrogenated oils. All of our products have been accepted by the Feingold Association, an organization of families and professionals dedicated to helping children and adults apply proven dietary techniques for better behavior, learning and health. Mariposa's products are featured in the Feingold Association's "Foodlist & Shopping Guide" publication which lists products found to be free of synthetic colors and flavors, as well as preservatives such as BHA, BHT and TBHQ.