Mindful Baking Cafe (Gluten-Free & Vegan)

I’m pretty unhappy with my experience. We have a place we typically go to for cakes for our annual bday party and this year they were booked. I thought I’d reach out to a local place. Everything looked good until pick up. They forgot the writing on the cake. So I picked up a completely blank cake which was annoying. They offered a $5 refund which is honestly offensive considering I wouldn’t have ordered the cake without the basic writing. Whatever no big deal I thought and I fixed the cake up using things I got from the grocery store. I added the happy birthday candle and palm trees for reference. I go to cut it and I was actually shocked. Literally half the cake was this gross sugar frosting. Tasted worse than what you get in a jar and I paid $88 for this cake. I was seriously shocked. I will not be returning to this place.

We’re so happy to have a gluten free and vegan bakery in our neighborhood. We have family and friends with diet restrictions. Their baked goods are still very delicious- especially the cookies!!

I bought a loaf of bread from them when they were at the farmer’s market in Printer’s Row. It’s the best bread I’ve had so far. I have Celiac and haven’t had gluten in four years. I could eat this bread by itself.

I have many food allergies including needing to be gluten free. Mindful Baking Cafe Chicago to the rescue! Even though I don't need to be vegan, Diane, the owner of the bakery makes her own mixes that I eat and tolerate well all the time. My husband and I fell in love with her donuts while we were dating and knew we had to have them at our wedding. We got 6 different flavors including: red velvet, chocolate, powdered sugar, brown sugar cinnamon, strawberry, and apple cider. Everyone loved them! We would have used her for our cake as well but fell in love with another bakery for that. We highly recommend Mindful Baking regardless!

I was not aware the food was all vegan, so maybe that's why everything I have has tasted the way it has, whenever I have had vegan food, it's typically rather bland or has an odd flavoring. Somehow I missed this detail about the place until I went to leave this review. However, having celiac disease I was excited to have a GF bakery so close. Especially since the prices are decent compared to others. However I have gone many times & always gotten different things, but pretty much everything has not been that good (to me). The texture of a lot of stuff is not similar to non GF food, but maybe that was not the goal. Usually GF baked items can have a "normal" consistency, but most items here do not. Also the overall flavor is just pretty odd. I have had cookies, pies, muffins, even soup. I can get a box mix & get a tastier result at home. SO if you are used to eating vegan food, this is probably super tasty in comparison to a lot of other options. However, if you are not & just looking to try something, be warned you may not like it. I think there is good potential & minor tweaks to recipes would go a long way. I know for me when baking GF I had to find the right type & brand of flour to perfect some things & had a lot of trial and error. Developing celiac later in life gave me an advantage of at least knowing how things "should" taste so I could compare. Lovely ambiance though & except for one time, everyone has always been very friendly.

I’m really disappointed with my visit today. This store claims to offer gluten-free and, at times, sugar-free options. However, during previous visits, I was told by a friendly staff member that certain items in the display were sugar-free. Today, I asked about the same items, and a different staff member, who was noticeably unfriendly and seemed unwilling to help, told me they were not sugar-free. This inconsistency is very concerning, especially for people who rely on accurate dietary information due to health reasons. It makes me question whether the gluten-free and vegan labels are truly trustworthy. If you have food restrictions, be very cautious. Unfortunately, based on my experience, I no longer feel confident about the transparency or accuracy of this shop's claims.

I really love my experience in mindful baking. I was surprised that all their baking is gluten free and vegan, was heaven for me (Juliana). I was lucky that Diane (the owner) was there, she was kind and explained that she make all these delicious creations. I bought the flax bread and it was so delicious, I can't wait to come back and try more things.

I tried emailing Diane to resolve the issue but it's been months with no response. My wife and I love Mindful Baking so for her birthday we ordered a cake and drove 3 hours into the city to pick it up. We purchased a small strawberry shortcake cake for $65 plus an additional $15 for decorations. When we arrived home, we cut into the cake. At first we thought it was the wrong flavor because the cake was brown. To our surprise, it was actually burnt and the edges were rock hard. The "strawberry shortcake" part was a very thin layer of strawberry jam. The frosting was excessive and overly sweet and the extra charge for decoration was absurd since it was amateurish at best. Previously we had Diane make a chocolate cake for us and it had no issues at all but that was also in 2018. The quality has declined over the years.

I am gluten-free and vegetarian so when I first learned about this VGF bakery (vegan), I was excited to try it out; so much so that I drove nearly an hour in traffic to try out their cakes and cookies. Unfortunately, I am disappointed. Both items are dry and dense. Gluten-free bakery items have come such a long way and this reminds me of the options available back in 2014, when I first became intolerant. The cake has so much frosting to try and make it enjoyable but I don't like frosting so that's half of the cake removed. I can see why this would be a wonderful option for a kid's party but I was not too happy with it. I did think the prices were extremely reasonable and the variety was great. Service was also friendly.

Great bakery if you have a gluten allergy or intolerance. They have a variety of desserts. We will definitely stop by anytime we're in the area.

This little place was so good. Vegan and gluten-free options. I picked up some muffins and they were amazing. not to mention how adorable this place is. Can't wait to go back and sit there for a couple of hours and have coffee and good vegan bakery dishes.

...this place is cute, but there's almost no seating. Gluten-free friendly but not celiac safe, I ended up feeling as if I would have been happier stopping by Trader Joe's. Full disclosure: I reserved a surprise bag through to good to go. I was excited and drove all the way from Glen Ellyn in traffic to make my 11 am pickup time. There's nothing special here. The cupcake was over sweet. Cloying. Some of the overall feeling came from arriving after 11am (opening time) and waiting for ten minutes before anyone showed up. "We open at 11 today" she said dismissively. "Do you like soup? There's soup today." Meh. Overpriced.

Ugh! I purchased a piece of pumpkin cake at a fundraiser recently and it was worse than eating cardboard! The frosting was good but the color was a bit concerning; it looked like artificial coloring was used - something I like to avoid. However, I didn't realize that the cake was gluten free until after I looked up Mindful Baking online. Definitely make my cake with gluten!

I posted on Facebook that I wanted some vegan, gluten-free Paczki and a friend told me about Mindful Baking. I didn't see any Paczki on the online menu, but I wasn't far away, so I took a drive over. I almost bought something else because I didn't see the Paczkis, but then I spotted them and fell in love immediately. Heck, I don't even care for sweets that much and COVID killed my smell and taste abilities in December, but these babies won me over like crazy. I could taste the filling a little bit, and what I tasted was delicious. The texture was fantastic. When you can't taste much, texture becomes really important! What a great find and pick-me-up! Made my day. Happy Paczki Day!

I ordered The White chocolate strawberry silk pie which was gross. The pink florets had zero strawberry taste just sugar frosting. The white chocolate filling alone was good but the crust was just runny goop. I thought at first it was a caramel layer but it was just soggy runny crust. Also cinnamon graham crackers do not go well with white chocolate pie filling. The taste profile is way off. The Oreo crumble Cake slice had a sticker that said 2010 and after taking a bite I started to wonder if that was the year the cake was made! Lol. The cake was so dry and hard. Super dense without much flavor. The frosting was light and fluffy which made the dry hard flavorless cake even more of a stark contrast. The Sea Salt brownie was ok compared the rest but still tasted old and left a lot to be desired. All items were far too sweet as well. Sooooo much sugar was used. I want to support small businesses and being Celiac was excited to try but it was utterly horrible. Inedible. I can't believe all the good reviews. Either they had a VERY off day. Which I find hard to believe when I tried multiple items or people do not know what good gluten-free baked goods should taste like. They shouldn't be so sweet that the only flavor profile is sugar. Gluten-free cake can actually be light and fluffy and moist and not have a black bean aftertaste. Pie crust should not run out of the pie pan if turned on its side. I have done a lot of gluten-free baking and cooking from scratch for those that aren't gluten-free and they never know it is different. When I requested a refund the owner Diane asked me to come in and give them another try or a refund. When I explained I didn't want to come in as I tried multiple items and didn't think trying anything else would result in a better impression. Once I didn't want to come in she no longer was interested in helping me and told me to contact Doordash for my refund instead of taking care of it for me. She also proceeded to tell me what a horrible person I was because I didn't like her baking. Someone has no idea how to treat people or bake for that matter.

Super kind staff and delicious homemade egg breakfast sandwich! I enjoyed myself and will be introducing my partner to this place.

I hate to leave a bad review for a small business, but I have to warn other customers. I picked up To Good To Go bag and decided to try a cake when I got home. There were pieces of hard inedible material in it! You could easily break a tooth when you chew this cake. This is pretty scary and totally unacceptable!

I bought their assortment of brownies for a friend who is gluten-free - she LOVED them! And so did I! Excellent quality! And so so yummy... I will be back!

Gluten free and vegan options that are delicious say no more come to mindful baking! So delicious!

a fantastic neighborhood cafe with tasty vegan and GLUTEN FREEeee baked goods! I have nothing but wonderful things to say about their pizza crusts, cake slices, coffee drinks, bread, and mini pies! I need to come in some weekend for brunch soon. don't miss out!!

The owner is very sweet and genuine. We excitedly tried three different drinks: the bourban syrup one, the golden latte, and the lavender latte. All three were hits! Not too sweet, unique, and flavorful. Walking into this shop, my expectations were neutral and i was so pleasantly surprised! This is a great addition to Ravenswood. They have vegan homemade food that won't break the bank, tons of vegan options in the fridge/freezer (including vegan ice cream), incense and goodies. The inside has some more intimate seating (bar style against the window). Definitely will be back and explore the menu more.