No Regrets Bakery

My mom used to joke that when we moved to Texas, 27 years ago, people would give her directions like “follow this road until you get to the big red barn.  Turn left on the dirt road, then right at the windmill.  If you’ve run into the creek, you’ve gone too far.”

Google maps may have caught up with most places, but it hasn’t yet found No Regrets Bakery.  I’m sure glad I did, though.

Monica had been trying to take me to No Regrets for months.  It’s owned by Casey Harris, a friend of our good friend Sara’s mom (less than 6 degrees of separation = win!).  We finally had some time, and we both desperately needed out of the city and away from distractions.  Well, out of the city, we got.

About 25 minutes west of I-35, on Highway 297, is one of many small towns.  Welcome to Alvord, TX, population 1,334.  I never even knew this town existed, and it’s only 45 minutes away from me!  Google maps was absolutely no help, so we called the bakery to get directions.  Another 3 miles and turn at the bright pink truck.

Yes, the pink truck is real.  There are some pretty strict rules about signage, so Casey decided to place something unmistakable close to the road.
This may not have been more true than yesterday.  Therapy, comfort, is definitely what we got.

Not only do they have bakery items, but they also have some lunch/dinner items on the menu.  There was a wonderful turkey chili that beckoned our hungry bellies, and it brought along some corn muffin friends.  “The chili was great.  It was hearty with just enough spice” said Monica.  It definitely satisfied.

The apple fritter was a soft, spicy, cake-like confection of deliciousness.  I had found my new favorite comfort food.  It is so bad for me.  But wait… this is No Regrets!  What does that really mean?  Casey wants everyone to be able to enjoy her foods, so they are made with natural ingredients and low glycemic sweeteners like coconut sugar, agave, stevia, and fruits.  This apple fritter isn’t fried, but baked.  It’s made with coconut sugar with a little bit of an agave glaze.  Casey also works to stay away from the pure starch flours and uses a lot of healthier flours like nut meals, sorghum, and quinoa.

The carrot cake was delicious, as well.  Though Monica and I split most of our goodies, I got the majority of this one to myself (Monica told me ahead of time she doesn’t like carrot cake).

As you can see from the inside, there are lots of nuts to boost the protein content.  My first thought was that there were too many nuts (I never use nuts in my carrot cakes), but the more I ate of it, the more I realized those nuts were very important to this cake.  I really enjoyed it.  The icing was great, too (Monica was prepared to eat her half of the icing), but it didn’t leave me feeling like junk.  Because there’s no junk in it.

The goji berry and chocolate brownie is definitely worth a try!  It’s about as far as you can get from my brownies (which are full of fat and sugar), but still have a great taste.   In fact, it had an excellent flavor.  It also had 13g of protein, only 5 grams of sugar, and half of the carbs were fiber.  I very nearly bought a whole bunch to take with me to work.

Many of Casey’s customers are personal trainers (or their trainees) looking for high protein foods.  She creates a variety of protein bars and protein balls.

Monica had really been looking forward to getting some blueberry hand pies, which she described to me as sort of like a “fried pie.”  Casey wasn’t able to make any Saturday because they are very labor-intensive and her husband had headed down to the GIG of North Texas meeting to deliver goodies.  But since Monica had sent her a message beforehand that she was looking forward to those, she made sure there was something extra special.  Enter the blueberries and cream cookies.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I never wanted to leave.  As a matter of fact, we almost didn’t.  We enjoyed 2 1/2 hours of relaxing and listening to people come and go.  It was quite busy!  The longest Casey had to speak to us without other customers in the store was 6 minutes.  Her breads, cheddar biscuits, and cinnamon rolls had all been bought out before we arrived, even though we were there 45 minutes after it opened.

No Regrets Bakery does special requests and works very hard for people with multiple allergies to enjoy the foods, too.  Casey really is wonderful, personable, and extremely nice.  I’m definitely going to bring my children out to meet her soon, and get them some wonderful treats.

FYI – I have no financial interest in the bakery other than to see a good business do well.  As I said before, it is owned by a friend’s mother’s friend.  Casey didn’t even know I write a blog until after we had paid for our food and just before we left.

Until No Regrets Bakery gets onto Google Maps correctly, I made a little map to help you out.  🙂

As you can see from the “A” dot, Google Maps is a few miles off.  It is the same with Bing.