CLEAN MADE
A Space for the gluten challenged – who love cake!

Clean Made started in 2016 with a simple idea: to bring authentic community, education, and accessibility to the wellness, “clean” eating and sustainability realms without all of the labels, dogma or “woo woo” that dominated the space.

Since, Clean Made has evolved into a space for gluten free recipe development, gluten free recipe adaptation and more. Clean Made is not exclusively paleo, gluten-free, vegan, or keto – and it’s not exclusively focused on food - or cake. Our driving force is to allow those with food allergies and sensitivities – and even those who just want to be a little healthier – to have their cake and eat it too.

Life is short. Eat the cake.

About our CHIEF CAKE MAkER

Shawna dawson beer

After spending the last two decades working in the realm of hospitality marketing, PR, branding and events as the founder and principal of Sauce LA, launching dozens of Los Angeles’ top restaurants and chefs, and creating and launching a couple of her own successful event brands – the LA Food Fest and Artisanal LA – she realized while eating her way through the city the native Angeleno calls home, something was wrong. Terribly wrong. After a long odyssey of doctors, naturopaths, self-discovery and Google (so much googling!) she put the pieces together and was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and “non-celiac gluten reactivity.” Read: facing the reality of not being able to eat gluten, dairy, soy or legumes as someone who ate for a living. Following that experience she also realized that everyone she knew was only a degree or two away from someone with a similar issue, or the parent of child with food sensitivities or allergies.

Shawna also knew that with these questions came even more questions about lifestyle, the products and services we bring into our lives and share with our friends and families, and how those pieces fit together to take care of this planet we all call home. She set out to create a hub for people on the same wellness journey to find answers to their many burning questions, in one place, that didn’t exist when she needed it most – and in 2016 Clean Made was born.

Clean Made has many starts and stops over the years (life happens) but after being effectively “pandemic-ed” out of business, Shawna started spending more time than ever in the kitchen (and off the internet). In August 2021 Shawna’s husband Marcus was very unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer and she needed something to do other than just work for her consulting clients, do cancer research and doom scroll, and found herself watching a sea of cake videos.

When his pandemic 50th birthday came around she decided she’d make his birthday cake because finding beautiful, delicious, gluten and dairy cakes made without refined sugars, artificial coloring and all sorts of other junk, that also aren’t an afterthought at a bakery trying to check all of the boxes (or cross contaminated from a gluten filled kitchen) is still hard, even here in a city the size of Los Angeles. She was surprised to find the process was as relaxing as working on a painting or building ceramics – except you get to eat the canvas! She decided she'd make a cake a week in 2022 and quickly found herself fielding requests for special cake orders and Clean Made Bakes was born. She’s done a lot of recipe development and recipe adaptation since and there will be a lot of cake content coming – including recipes to make these cakes and bakes yourself at home.

Shawna wants everyone to know, no matter how healthy or fit you are, or how clean your diet is, always stay on top of your health, heart and cancer screenings. Prevention and monitoring need to start early and often. Sometimes genetic and environmental factors beyond our control get the best of us and early detection is everything.

Also, life is short. Eat the cake! Just make it a gluten and junk free one made with nothing but the good stuff. ;)

Want to join us? Submit a collab query here.