For over 10 years, Mariposa Baking Co-Founder Patti Furey Crane thought she was allergic to tomatoes before she uncovered the true culprit to years of feeling mysteriously sick. Shortly after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Crane committed to eliminating all possible allergens from her diet. She soon noticed that the tomatoes she ate were usually paired with pastas, pizza crusts and salad croutons and that rather than the tomatoes making her ill it was actually the gluten that accompanied them. Simply by eliminating the gluten she felt better virtually overnight and it did not take long to make the connection that gluten rather than tomatoes was her key allergen.

With her new celebration of living life symptom-free and feeling great, came a knack for successful gluten-free baking experiments to satisfy her sweet cravings. Ignited by her husband’s praise for her creations and his suggestive business vision, Crane was soon moved by a strong entrepreneurial instinct to bring gourmet indulgences to others in the form of a company devoted to the artisan approach to gluten-free baking. Coming from a family of prolific and creative home bakers, Crane had years of baking experience to draw from as well as a collection of beloved recipes she could transform into gluten-free delicacies. 

From the beginning, she was anchored by a philosophy for using only the finest ingredients available and sought to guide her creativity and passion for this new business with the counsel of local culinary talent who could provide her with additional expertise. Crane soon met Kyoko Hiramatsu, a well-known pastry chef in the San Francisco area who was schooled at the prestigious California Culinary Academy, and invited her good friend and neighbor, Margret, to bring her wealth of culinary experience to the venture. Together, the women fused their enthusiasm for their gluten-free baking future, combined their knowledge and forged ahead with the challenging art of recipe development.  Months of baking experiments ensued with a near scientific laboratory approach to recipe refinement until their products were ready to launch. Mariposa’s founding team’s efforts were guided by a panel of gourmet, wheat-tolerant advisors who blind tasted the products against top wheat-based versions until the Mariposa creations were as good, if not better. Crane explains that if Mariposa creations tasted hands-down fabulous to those who had very discriminating palates and were not gluten-intolerant, then she achieved the mark of distinction she was looking for. The Mariposa tasting panel included a Culinary Arts School Baking Program graduate, an award-winning chef and former faculty member at the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago, and an owner of a highly acclaimed San Francisco truffle shop. 

Since opening the company in 2004, their efforts have paid off, earning them the distinction of being recognized as one of the best new local bakeries by a San Francisco Chronicle tasting panel in May 2005.

Although customer demand keeps the Mariposa team deliciously busy in their current boutique manufacturing facility, Crane looks forward to expanding while cautiously steering the company’s increased production capacity to preserve the finest-quality, artisan-baking methods and attention to detail for which Mariposa is already known.