Sunshine Coast coeliac chef Monica Topliss has created a range of nutrient-dense packet mixes, including wraps, pizza bases and muffins, under her label Flourish Wholefoods. Photo: Glenn Barnes Source: News Limited
Sunshine Coast coeliac chef Monica Topliss has created a range of nutrient-dense packet mixes under her label Flourish Wholefoods. Photo: Glenn Barnes Source: News Limited
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It started out with avoiding gluten, but the list of ingredients avoided by cafe customers has been slowly growing – sugar, eggs, grains, agave and dairy.
It’s something Monica Topliss (pictured), a Sunshine Coast chef known for her gluten-free creations, knows too well. During her time as head chef at the Sunshine Coast’s Kunara Organic Marketplace and Cafe, she watched customer perceptions constantly shift.
“When I started, agave was in, and then customers said it was bad. It’s so controversial, everyone has their own idea of what to use.”
Frustrated with the “free-from” market dominated by low-nutrient, preservative-packed foods and mixes, Topliss, who was diagnosed with coeliac disease as a baby, created Flourish Wholefoods, her petite range of muffin, wrap and pizza base packet mixes, that use nutrient-dense wholefoods for healthful alternatives to supermarket standards.
She mixes well-known gluten-free flours, such as flax meal and tapioca, with on-trend coconut flour and lesser known green banana flour to mimic the texture and taste of glutinous foods.
“Green banana flour is amazing to work with. I source it from north Queensland and it’s one of the only foods in the world with RS (resistant starch) that releases short-chain fatty acids as it’s digested and provides a whole host of benefits to the body.”
The mixes are paleo-friendly and, Topliss says they are a much lighter alternative to many of the products currently sold at speciality cafes.
“A lot of paleo stuff is quite heavily laden with eggs or nuts so the sweets are heavy and dense. I wanted to create something closer to the original counterpart.”
Despite being raised in the hospitality industry (her father owned businesses in London), Topliss says being diagnosed with coeliac disease didn’t faze her.
“When you’re born a coeliac, you don’t really know what you’re missing,” she says. “Back at that time, doctors used to think that after puberty, you could counter it by going on a normal diet for 12 months. So when I turned 14, I went straight to the bakery and ordered a box of cream doughnuts and all these cakes.”
Health issues forced her to abandon gluten again, but the taste of good bread stayed with her, sparking the inspiration for her line.
Topliss has released her own gluten-free cookook, and is currently writing recipes for Kunara Organic Marketplace.
Flourish Wholefoods retail for $7.95 per pack. Visit: monicatopliss.com
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