FARGO — These days, most people recognize the abbreviation “GF” on food products to mean “gluten-free.”
But Ebony Kunkle would probably label her baked goods “GFGF,” meaning “gluten-free just got fancy.”
Not only did this Fargo resident teach herself how to bake without gluten, she did so while mastering the elusive art of French pastry. Her tiny bakery, The Colorful Cookie, sells pain au chocolat, eclairs, and gourmet gluten-free treats that rival those of a finalist on The Great British Baking Gunniers Show.
Her macarons come in a rainbow of colors and flavors that wouldn’t be out of place in a French patisserie. Her tarte aux fruits frais (fruit tart) is a gluten-free tart crust filled with vanilla pastry cream, fresh fruit and glaze. Her Napoleon is a flaky pastry layered with homemade vanilla bean custard, topped with a glossy vanilla glaze and perfectly shaped chocolate feathers.
Contribution / Colorful Cookies
“Gluten-free isn’t just about bread and muffins,” Kunkle says as she rolls out pie dough in her tidy South Fargo kitchen. “In the Fargo-Moorhead area, you see a lot of gluten-free bread and buns, but you don’t see pie dough, so that’s why I went in this direction.”
Kunkle has only been baking gluten-free bread for about a year, but “business has been really good,” she says, relying on word-of-mouth recommendations, vendor markets, and the occasional backyard wedding to keep her busy.
Unlike many gluten-free bakers, Kunkle didn’t get into this style of baking because she or her family have allergies. Instead, she started out making macarons, which paved the way for her to create gluten-free treats.
“The celiac community is quiet, so we didn’t realize how much of a need there was,” Kunkle said, “You don’t realize how many people there are in the Fargo-Moorhead area until you go and become a part of that community. This is a big trend.”
From military mom to macaron master
Kunkel, who grew up in Detroit and later moved to Cedar Falls, Iowa, enlisted in the U.S. Army right after graduating from high school. During her eight years of service, she broadened her culinary horizons while stationed in Korea and other places. When she got out in 2017, she wasn’t sure what to do next.
“For eight years you’re told who you should be, where you should be, how you should be, and then you’re on your own,” she said.
Chris Flynn / Forum
Around the same time, she discovered the internet the macaron, a labor-intensive French treat consisting of a meringue cookie sandwiched between sweet fillings.
“I like to be challenged,” she says. “It was, ‘What can I make that no one else can make? And how can I make it perfect?'”
Though her first efforts were unsuccessful, she eventually mastered the tricky cookie-making process.
Chris Flynn / Forum
By 2019, Kunkle, who was divorced, and her son, Caleb, had moved from Madison Heights, Michigan, to the Fargo area for her job. At the time, she was a macaron maker, and when she brought macarons to parties, people encouraged her to sell them.
“No,” she replied. “No one’s going to buy it.”
But eventually, she listened to her friends and decided to give it a try. In May 2023, she reached out to a mommy group on Facebook to ask if anyone wanted to try making macarons.
“We gave out over 100 boxes of cookies over Mother’s Day weekend,” she recalls, “and that’s how it started. It just went from there.”
Chris Flynn / Forum
To expand her gluten-free menu, Kunkle attended educational meetings with gluten-intolerance groups and other gluten-free groups on Facebook. She learned about gluten-free baking from books and YouTube.
Going gluten-free is a serious and costly transition. She got rid of plastic bowls because plastic is porous and absorbs trace amounts of gluten. She needed dishes and utensils that had never come into contact with gluten. To this day, she maintains a gluten-free apartment.
“We eat out a lot and we’ve always loved rice, so it wasn’t difficult for us,” she said.
Chris Flynn / Forum
Kunkle’s next step was to learn how to make gluten-free napoleons, eclairs and croissants using a flour mixture that includes rice flour, tapioca starch, arrowroot starch, sorghum flour and xanthan gum. It was a tricky substitution because the gluten proteins in wheat flour give the finished product its structure, chew and rise. Many of her early efforts ended up in the trash.
“The first three months were a success,” Kunkle says, “but I was lucky in that the people who bought my product were very kind.”
By February, she had made great progress in figuring out the properties of gluten-free dough.
“If we can put a man on the moon, we can figure out how to make gluten-free dough,” she says with a smile.
“Fargo was very good to me.”
Kunkle has received support from members of the local gluten-free community, including one of her customers, Melissa Currens of Fargo, who said she couldn’t eat an eclair for nearly 20 years until she found The Colorful Cookies.
“It’s so nice to be able to eat pastries again,” Cullens said. “It’s really hard to make gluten-free products that don’t fall apart or leave a lingering aftertaste. Ebony has perfected her craft. Her products are moist and flavorful.”
Chris Flynn / Forum
She also gets support from other local bakers. When Kunkle needs advice, she turns to people like Jason Amodt of Breadsmith in Fargo and Shelby Hubhack, a gluten-free baker and owner of Have Have + Harvest in Holly, Minnesota. Kunkle stocks small quantities of Hubhack’s flavored granola and delivers it to pickup points for local customers to order. Similarly, the two entrepreneurs sometimes promote their products together on their Facebook pages.
“We don’t want to fight for attention,” Kunkle said, “we just want to know how we can all work together.”
Kunkle’s products will also be sold at the seasonal Blue Eagle Market in Burnsville, Minnesota, as well as Burnsville Potato Days on Aug. 23 and 24.
When there aren’t any special events happening, Kunkle also takes custom orders, with prices ranging from $2.50 per macaron (with a six-piece minimum) to $3.75 per Napoleon slice. She also sells variety boxes, with prices starting at $25.
“About 70 percent of my business is through word of mouth,” she said. “That’s pretty much it. Especially in Fargo, everybody trusts everybody. Fargo has been very good to me.”
Find colorful cookies
.
