Meet Baking Duo: Jason Kraft and Amanda Macdessi

Filling 5-10 orders a week, the couple behind this allergy-friendly and vegan patisserie create cakes and baked goods for birthdays, school events, anniversaries, corporate events, baby showers, holiday parties and weddings.

But you won't see a storefront soon–these goodies are made in an industrial kitchen rented here in Milpitas.

Milpitas Patch: When and why did you open up ?

Jason Kraft and Amanda Macdessi: We launched in May 2008. At that point, Amanda already had several years of experience making desserts without peanuts, nuts and eggs, and she was ready to transition from her previous career as a special education teacher to become a pastry chef. 

Amanda completed the Baking and Pastry program at the in Campbell (now called the French Culinary Institute), and instead of working for an established bakery, she decided to start a new business specializing in baked goods for people with food allergies and restricted diets. 

Amanda handles the baking and decorating while Jason (who completed his MBA at Santa Clara University in 2010) runs the business side, including accounting, marketing, customer service and deliveries.

Patch:  How did the two of you come up with the name?

Kraft and Macdessi: We decided on "Let Them Eat Cake" as the name for our business, since it fits well with our mission of serving people who normally couldn't eat cake from traditional bakeries, due to the risk of cross-contamination from other allergens. Many of our customers end up buying cakes for their children who have never tasted cake before.

Patch: Why an allergy-friendly and vegan patisserie, and what does it mean to be allergy-friendly and vegan?

Kraft and Macdessi: The primary focus of our business was initially cakes and cookies made without eggs, dairy, nuts and peanuts. Our egg-free and dairy-free baked goods are already vegan (which means they contain no animal products), so we started advertising to vegan customers. As our business grew, we began getting requests from customers with other allergies, such as gluten and soy.

By "allergy-friendly," we mean that we carefully screen our ingredients to ensure they do not contain specific allergens and are not cross-contaminated with those allergens. This often includes contacting the manufacturer to find out how they handle cross-contamination issues. It also means that we manage our baking processes to avoid contamination between our orders by starting with orders for customers with the most allergies. For example, if we have to bake one cake that's gluten-free and egg-free, and another cake that's just gluten-free, we will bake the gluten-free/egg-free cake first, then put the cake away and sanitize all equipment and surfaces before we start on the gluten-free cake.

Patch: What kind of baked goods do you offer at Let Them Eat Cake?

Kraft and Macdessi: We offer a variety of products, including cakes, cupcakes, cookies, muffins and fruit tarts. All our products are custom-made, and we typically require a minimum of 2-3 weeks advance notice for all orders, due to high demand. We do not have a retail shop, but we bake out of a commercial kitchen that's been licensed and inspected by Santa Clara County, and customers can pick up orders by appointment or we can deliver within the greater San Jose area.

Patch: What's the most popular item you offer?

Kraft and Macdessi: Our most popular items are our cakes, specifically birthday cakes. The prevalence of food allergies among children has increased rapidly, and we are the only bakery in the area that can make a safe, professionally decorated birthday cake for children with food allergies. We offer a variety of flavors of cake and frosting, but the most common flavor selections are vanilla and chocolate.

We also get quite a few orders for cupcakes and cookies from parents who are looking to bring food into school. Many schools maintain a nut-free environment and only allow food to be brought in if they are made by businesses that are nut-free.

Patch: What makes the baked goods at Let Them Eat Cake different from other allergy-friendly and vegan bakeries?

Kraft and Macdessi: There are some bakeries that make all their products without all major allergens (eggs, dairy, gluten, nuts, and soy), but we feel that the quality of the product suffers if you have to make too many substitutions. Since we accept custom orders only and bake in small batches, we can tailor each order to provide the best quality product while still avoiding that customer's allergies, so if a gluten-free customer can have eggs and soy, we will include eggs and soy in the cake. There are two exceptions: Due to the prevalence of severe allergies to peanuts and nuts, we do not use peanuts or nuts in any of our products.

Let Them Eat Cake is accepting a limited number of new orders on a first-come, first-serve basis. Read the reviews on Yelp.