I am slowly starting to make my way through the big bag full of product samples and information I got at last year’s Expo West. If I’m lucky, I’ll do most of it before I go again this year.
Stem Ginger Cookies
Sunstart Bakery
“Cookies made from ingredients naturally free from gluten and wheat”
“Sunstart Bakery is a dedicated wheat-free facility located in the beautiful glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland. Sunstart Bakery is accredited with the higher British retail council award and is the recipient of the British Bakery award for innovation. Sunstart Bakery USA was established in 2004 and our USA facility is centrally located near Chicago.”
$4.20 per 7 oz (10 cookie) box or $3.00 each if you buy a case of 12.
They have several flavors:
Chocolate Chip
Coconut
Raspberry
Stem Ginger
Chocolate & Orange
I’ve only tasted the ginger.
Ingredients: Flour base (brown rice flakes, millet flakes, soya flour, corn starch, xanthan gum), desiccated coconut, naturally evaporated cane sugar, stem ginger, molasses, monounsaturated safflower oil, rice syrup, sea salt.
For all of the cookies, they state they are free of wheat, gluten, eggs, nuts, potato, vege (don’t know what that is), and transfats. For the following, they list them as things the cookies are not free of: dairy, corn, soy.
But the ingredients do not mention dairy at all. The box does say “contains milk & soya.” I am not sensitive enough to dairy to be able to tell if there are trace amounts there. They are definitely and totally gluten-free from what I can tell, not just their ingredients but Codex compliance and a dedicated facility.
Okay, here’s the fun part, the nice people at the booth last year gave me a whole box to take home. We made them last. They are some of the best boxed cookies I’ve ever had. They are flaky and melt in your mouth with intense flavor. They are big and substantial enough that one is a dessert. Miriam loves them too and considered a cookie to be adequate compensation for not getting cake at a friend’s birthday party.
Although they are hardly lowcarb (though not terrible at 10 grams usable carbs (12-2 fiber) per 20 gram cookie), I’m seriously considering ordering a case.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Grant // Mar 28, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I spoke with a rep at Sunstart Bakery about the “contains milk” on the label. She emailed me this response:
Hello,
Per your question re ‘dairy’ listed- we do so as a precaution .
1. There are trace amounts of skimmed milk powder in the flour mix, so we say contains milk as a precaution, although the amounts of ceasin and lactose are minimal
2. Soya flour is when the Soya beans are dehulled and their oil extracted before being ground into flour. its basically a process of removing the oil and refining into flour.
The amounts of casein and lactose are minimal.
We will have new products without any traces in near future.
I have email her to ask whether this contains traces of milk because the equipment is shared with another product that contains skimmed milk powder or that it an actually ingredient used to make the flour mix. I will post the response I get.
2 Grant // Mar 28, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I just found the list of ingredients for the Chocolate Chip Orange Cookies which contain milk powder. I’m assuming that the equipment is shared with the other cookies so the trace amount is from this cross contamination. I will see what the rep has to say.
Sunstart Chocolate Chip Orange Cookies.
Ingredients: Vegetable margarine (vegetable oil, water, salt, emulsifier: polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, colors: annatto, curcumin, flavoring), desiccated coconut (15%), gluten free flour (maize starch, whey powder, potato starch, soya flour, milk powder, glucose, salt, stabilizer: hydroxypropyl methy cellulose), choclate chips (12%) (sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, skimmed milk powder, cocoa powder, emulsifier: soya lecithin, salt, flavoring), sugar, millet, brown rice flakes, natural orange flavor.
3 admin // Mar 28, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Hi Grant, thanks so much for your comments and your reports.
I also spoke with Sunstart at the Expo West convention in mid-March. I met them last year too and got the samples. I asked about the dairy and they said it was listed as having dairy (without it being in the ingredients) due to cross-contamination on shared equipment. He didn’t say anything about it being in the flour mix, though it may all just be about contamination.
They’ve revamped their cookies and I got a new box to try. Posting a new review is on my to-do list. The primary change is the size. Appearently people thought the old cookies were too big(?).
I’m happy to say the taste and texture seem to be unchanged. But the other thing is the new box (and this is just for Ginger; I haven’t seen the others) says “dairy free.” So it seems they’ve solved the cross contamination problem. Or so I hope. I tolerate traces of dairy so can’t tell if there are any. I gave some samples to friends and will get their feedback.
Cyndi
4 tina // Dec 2, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Thank you so much for posting this article and for posting the email about the dairy inquiry. I was about to email them myself to ask about the dairy content of their shortbread cookies. My son is allergic to a lot of stuff and he loves these cookies. I am just glad that there is a bakery out there that makes a delicious cookie that he is able to enjoy. Thank you again for the review. The cookies are delicious 🙂
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