Shoppers were treated to a special treat this weekend at Whole Foods.

The Deerfield grocery store was host to a sampling of Tia’s Bakery gluten-free cakes and cookies, a new line it’s carrying to serve the one in every 133 Americans who are gluten intolerant.

Gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, can cause intestinal damage and distress to those with gluten allergies or celiac disease, an autoimmune disease with no cure but with a means of prevention – abstinence of gluten in one’s diet.

“My wife had been baking for 30 years.  She was the baker for all of our friends and family – for wedding cakes, birthday cakes, church events,” said Paul King, general manager, Tia’s Bakery in Marina del Rey, Calif. 

“She found out six years ago that she was gluten-intolerant, and she stopped baking.  Then one Christmas we all cornered her and said, ‘you shall bake!’  She said, ‘I’m not going to bake if I can’t eat.’  We replied, ‘That’s your problem. Figure it out.’”

Within two years, Marilyn King took her original recipes and perfected them gluten free, using coconut and almond flours which are healthier than the typical gluten-free rice flour. 

Because she’s also intolerant of refined sugar, they’re sweetened only with organic agave nectar.  Yet gluten is what gives bread, cake and cookies flexible consistency and texture.

“It’s not difficult to create gluten-free products, but to create desserts with a taste and texture that we normally associate with cookies, cakes and brownies, that’s the secret,” Paul King explained.

It was also the secret to launching a successful business.

In 2008, when his other longtime business shut down and Marilyn King decided she wanted to start a bakery, he was not confident.  They launched Tia’s in January 2009, and within eight months their products were in 23 Southern California Whole Foods stores. The former floor man added, “I’ve been hawking cookies ever since.”

Having just arrived in Deerfield and the greater Chicago area last week and launching with in-store samplings, Paul King completely sold out their chocolate cakes in two hours at another store.  He ran out of strawberry shortcake by the end of Saturday’s event in Deerfield.

Andrea Wright of Lake Forest bought a Grandma’s chocolate cake. She’s not gluten intolerant but said, “I do love good flavor.”

Dorina Grunberg’s entire family of four is gluten sensitive.

“I have to cook a lot from scratch, and then I go to Whole Foods and try to find something that they cook gluten free,” the Deerfield resident said.  

She sampled and bought some of Tia’s Bakery products as well.

“It tasted the way it should," she said. "You don’t get the feeling that you’re eating something that tries to be something else. The strawberry shortcake was really good; that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”