Photo Courtesy of Blooming Lotus
If you are food conscious and craving something substantial with your coffee, it’s time to wake up and smell the scones at Blooming Lotus Gourmet Bakery (2215 E. North Ave.). Opened less than two years, it became an almost instant success. Owner Susan Goulet labors daily at her bakery that is unique to Milwaukee and Wisconsin but may also be unique to America and the world. After years of experimenting with low-carbohydrate, high-protein bakery, she has developed recipes that are made without grain flour, including the most common and—for nutritionists—the most troublesome grains, wheat and corn. Instead, she uses high-protein nut and seed flours and does not add any oils or fats. Besides being healthy, the amazing part is that the bakery is very tasty, especially the scones and cookies.
To rise above the bland offerings of the “free-from” food phenomenon, Goulet sources exclusive ingredients to achieve the ideal taste, texture and nutritional profile for her personally developed recipes—Julia Child-inspired but fortified with essential nutrients, fiber and a stellar serving of plant-based protein.
Take her pre-baked pizza crust made of almond flour and organic raw buckwheat groats. It packs 33 grams of protein, which is seven times greater than the nearest competitor. “No” is a good thing when it comes to her top sellers like “No Corn” Cornbread muffins made from a sweet potato jalapeño peppered batter, the versatile appetizer “No Rye” Rye Chips and the “No Oatmeal” oatmeal cookies, which taste like cornbread or oatmeal cookies but are made without the grains that can cause inflammation and that many scientists believe may lead to serious illnesses like heart disease or even cancer. And yes, it all tastes good.
“Many people have grown up on processed foods overloaded with sugar and salt which dull the taste buds,” laments Goulet. “It takes a while to revive the palate.” Prompted by strict dietary restrictions to manage her Crohn’s Disease, she spent years experimenting with flax meal and ground chia seeds as natural egg replacement substances to keep baked goods consistently moist, firm and vegan-friendly. “It’s important to read the labels. ‘Gluten free’ has become a buzzword, and the food industry is jumping on the bandwagon to produce cheap products with no nutritional value,” says Goulet, who embodies the holistic lifestyle as founder and director of the Milwaukee Yoga Center and a yoga instructor at UW-Milwaukee.
“We have people from New York, San Francisco and Chicago that are stopping here on business trips, vacations or family visits asking if we can open a store in their city,” she remarks. Optimally poised to fulfill the needs of a growing culinary niche, Blooming Lotus Bakery has given Milwaukee something novel besides cream puffs to yelp about.
