Hi, and welcome to A Clean Bake! I’m Nora, the baker.People used to know me as The Carb Queen. For most of my life, my diet consisted of four food groups: pasta, bread, cheese, and cookies. Actually, that’s being a little dramatic. I ate a lot of cupcakes too. Growing up, I was a vegetarian and lacked a firm grasp of good nutrition and my daily meals consisted mostly of sugar, carbs and dairy. Feel free to cringe openly. It sounds kind of gross to me too, in retrospect.I wish I could say that I had the self control to just wake up one morning and overhaul my diet because it was The Right Thing To Do, but that’s just not the case. I had to get very sick with a severe leaky gut, SIBO and a lot of other issues in order to finally become motivated to make a major change. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy, but there was also a silver lining: over time, I learned to listen to my body, trust my gut (literally) and figure out what was right for me. After a lot of trial and error, what ultimately ended up making my gut – and lots of other little problems I didn’t even realize I had – feel better was an unrefined, low-carb, (mostly) grain-free diet centered around lean protein, healthy fats and vegetables. I had a lot less trouble re-learning how to eat than I did re-learning how to bake without my beloved wheat, butter and refined sugar (before this, I briefly ran a conventional baking blog called Buttercream Fanatic). I searched the internet for recipes and tips, but since I didn’t fit cleanly into any diet box – most gluten-free recipes include dairy; most vegans eat wheat (which I don’t), but no eggs (which I do); and paleo was too restrictive for me to commit to fully – it was impossible to find anything that I didn’t need to heavily adapt to make safe for myself to eat.So, I started developing my own recipes instead, and decided to share them here in the hope of being able to help others who are in the same boat as I am: they want to continue to enjoy food (especially dessert!) despite having to cut common dessert ingredients out of their diets. I like to think I come up with loophole recipes for when you think that you can never eat your favorite treats again! Every single post on this site is a testament to the fact that you can eat healthy, but still have dessert! I am available for collaboration and freelance recipe development and photography projects.Please go here for more information.