Making It

The Good Kitchen

THE PERSON: Cindy Burdette THE PRODUCT: Diet-friendly desserts that hit the spot

HER STORY: The Cindy Burdette who started making sugar-free, lowcarb desserts for herself just a few months ago doesn’t look like the Cindy Burdette who is now at the helm of The Good Kitchen.

Just last summer, Cindy says, she was 40 pounds heavier. Perhaps because her father was a chef, she had always been fond of desserts. That, and her sedentary desk job, had caused her to gain weight. So she decided to make a drastic lifestyle change by starting an exercise regimen, cutting out a lot of processed food, and submitting herself to a ketogenic diet that called for lowcarb, no-sugar, high-fat food.

The diet—combined with exercise— worked like a charm. “In the beginning, Cindy exclaims. Good food was key to her new lifestyle, which meant that there was a focus on healthy, natural ingredients which aren’t processed.

She wasn’t ready to give up desserts, though, which was a challenge given the low-carb, no-sugar nature of her diet. Sure that there was a solution, Cindy turned to researching on the Internet and found a combination of recipes using ingredients such as glycemic index coco sugar and stevia for sweeteners. Developing the recipes wasn’t without its challenges—gluten to work with when it comes to baked goods because they result in crumbly pastries; some of the other ingredients made piecrusts quick to burn. But Cindy found her stride, turning out brownies, chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, and chiffon cakes that miraculously conformed to the requirements of her diet.

As these things go, her friends started asking to pay for orders, and Cindy (who still works at a tech company during the day) decided to jump in and make The Good Kitchen a real business. She asked a friend to make a logo (some other friends pitched in with the food styling and photographs) orders. The most popular offering is a berry cake, made of almond chiffon Her cheesecake, made from cream cheese and topped with strawberries, and salted fudge brownies are also way, but I had my blood tested [for sugar levels] before and after eating one of these, and there was hardly any herself form the core of her clientele, The Good Kitchen eventually hopes to target diabetics, whose medical condition might preclude them from enjoying desserts otherwise. To have a physical store, and to be able to serve more people and introduce healthy but she says.

THE GOOD KITCHEN is based in Mandaluyong City. For orders and inquiries, contact mobile no. 0947-9523467 or log on to facebook.com/ thegoodkitchenph.