Melbourne has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of the most food-diverse cities in the world. Walk through Fitzroy, Carlton, or South Yarra on any given weekend, and you will find people from all walks of life gathering around tables, sharing food, and celebrating together. That shared experience should never be interrupted by a dietary restriction. And yet, for years, Melburnians who follow a vegan lifestyle, manage coeliac disease, or simply avoid gluten have had to settle for dry, flavourless slices that bore little resemblance to the real thing.
That is changing in a meaningful way, largely because of specialty bakeries that have made inclusive baking their core philosophy rather than an afterthought. Among those setting the standard in this space, The Cake People stands out as a name that consistently comes up when locals debate where to find the best cake Melbourne has to offer. Their commitment to crafting genuinely indulgent, beautifully designed cakes for people with dietary restrictions has shifted expectations across the city, and rightly so.
Understanding why this matters requires a bit of context. According to Coeliac Australia, approximately one in 70 Australians has coeliac disease, yet only around 20 per cent of those cases are diagnosed. Add to that a growing population of people choosing plant-based lifestyles, and a significant portion of any birthday party, wedding, or corporate event will include guests who cannot eat a conventional cake. The Cake People recognised this gap early, and their inclusive cake range reflects a genuine understanding of both the science and the soul of baking for diverse needs. Their menu of specialty dietary cakes in Melbourne has become a reference point for celebration baking done right.
Why Inclusive Baking Is Harder Than It Looks
Most people assume that swapping out a few ingredients is all it takes to make a vegan or gluten-free cake. Any experienced baker will tell you that is far from the truth. Gluten is not just a protein that some people react to; it is a structural backbone that gives cakes their rise, texture, and crumb. Remove it without a thoughtful replacement strategy, and you end up with something dense and gummy that no amount of frosting can rescue.
Similarly, eggs in conventional baking serve multiple functions simultaneously. They bind the batter, add moisture, contribute to leavening, and give the finished product a tender crumb. Replacing them with a single ingredient rarely achieves the same result. The Cake People approach this challenge by treating each dietary requirement as its own baking discipline, using different combinations of ingredients depending on the specific cake and the outcome they are trying to achieve.
Flaxseed meal, aquafaba, chia seeds, and commercial egg replacers each behave differently under heat. The Cake People’s bakers understand these differences and apply them with precision. It is this kind of technical rigour, combined with genuine passion for the craft, that produces cakes people actually want to eat rather than cakes people feel obligated to acknowledge.
The Vegan Cake Range: Rich, Indulgent, and Completely Plant-Based
The vegan cake range at The Cake People does not feel like a compromise. These are celebration cakes in the fullest sense of the word. Their signature vegan chocolate mud cake has developed something of a cult following among Melbourne’s plant-based community, built on a base of dark couverture chocolate, oat milk, and coconut oil, with a texture so dense and fudgy that first-time customers frequently ask whether it is actually vegan. Learn more: https://www.thecakepeople.au/collections/vegan-cakes
The secret, as with most good baking, is in the quality of ingredients and the method. Using high-fat coconut cream in place of dairy creates a richness that closely mirrors butterfat without any animal products. Pairing that with a well-balanced combination of flaxseed meal and apple cider vinegar provides the binding and lift that eggs would otherwise deliver.
Beyond chocolate, their vegan vanilla sponge layers are light and fragrant, layered with a cashew-based buttercream that pipes beautifully and holds its shape at room temperature. For those who want something a little more adventurous, the vegan salted caramel and banana cake has become a seasonal favourite, using medjool dates and coconut sugar to build deep caramel notes without any dairy. These are not novelty products. They are cakes designed for people who love good food and happen to live without animal products.
Gluten-Free Cakes That Do Not Taste Like a Substitute
Gluten-free baking has a reputation problem. Years of cardboard-textured supermarket products have made many people sceptical that a genuinely delicious gluten-free cake is possible. The Cake People are quietly dismantling that scepticism, one celebration order at a time.
Their gluten-free range uses a proprietary blend of almond meal, tapioca starch, and rice flour rather than relying on a single alternative flour. This combination creates a structure that mimics the texture of conventional wheat-based cakes far more accurately than any single-ingredient substitution. The result is a crumb that is tender without being wet, with enough integrity to hold layers, support frosting, and travel well to an event venue.
Their gluten-free lemon and almond cake deserves particular mention. It is naturally dense and moist from the almond meal, brightened with fresh lemon zest and a house-made lemon curd filling, and finished with an Italian meringue buttercream that adds a lightness balancing the richness of the base. It does not taste like a gluten-free cake. It tastes like a very good cake that happens to be gluten-free, which is precisely the point. Visit: https://www.thecakepeople.au/collections/gluten-free
For chocolate lovers avoiding gluten, their flourless dark chocolate torte offers an intense, almost brownie-like experience that needs no apology to anyone. Dense, glossy, and deeply satisfying, it is regularly ordered by customers who have no dietary restrictions at all, simply because it is exceptional.
Celebrating Together: Cakes That Accommodate Everyone at the Table
One of the most thoughtful aspects of The Cake People’s approach is their understanding that dietary restrictions rarely affect just one person at a table in isolation. A birthday guest with coeliac disease does not want to watch everyone else enjoy the main cake while being handed a separate small cupcake off to the side. That experience, however well-intentioned, is isolating.
The Cake People have built their entire custom cake service around the idea that one beautiful cake should be able to serve everyone. Their bakers work with customers during the consultation process to understand the dietary landscape of the event and design a cake that meets the most restrictive requirement without compromising on quality or presentation for anyone else at the table. Learn more: https://www.thecakepeople.au/collections/character-cakes
Research from Food Standards Australia New Zealand supports the value of this approach. Cross-contamination remains one of the leading causes of adverse reactions among people with coeliac disease who dine out or consume bakery products. The Cake People maintain strict protocols in their kitchen to prevent cross-contamination, using separate equipment, designated preparation areas, and ingredient sourcing practices that reduce risk significantly. This is not a minor operational detail. For someone with coeliac disease, it is the difference between participating safely in a celebration and sitting it out entirely.
Custom Orders and the Consultation Experience
What separates a truly great specialty bakery from an average one is not just the product on the shelf; it is the experience of getting exactly what you need for a specific occasion. The Cake People’s custom order process begins with a detailed conversation about the event, the dietary requirements, the flavour preferences, and the aesthetic vision the customer has in mind.
This consultation model matters because dietary baking is not one-size-fits-all. A wedding cake that needs to be both vegan and gluten-free for 120 guests involves different considerations than a small birthday cake for a child with a nut allergy. The team asks the right questions, offers honest guidance about what is achievable, and ensures the finished product genuinely reflects the care and detail that goes into the planning conversation.
Customers across Melbourne’s inner north and eastern suburbs have noted the consistency between what is promised at the consultation stage and what arrives on the day of the event. That consistency, built over years of refinement and genuine attention to detail, is what keeps people coming back and recommending The Cake People to friends navigating their first experience ordering a specialty dietary cake.
The Broader Movement Toward Inclusive Celebration Food
The work being done by bakeries like The Cake People reflects a broader cultural shift in how Australians think about food at shared events. A 2023 survey by the Australian Institute of Food Safety found that over 40 per cent of Australians now know at least one person in their immediate social circle with a significant dietary restriction or allergy. As awareness grows, so does the expectation that hosts, caterers, and bakers will accommodate those needs with the same standard of quality applied to everything else on the table.
This shift creates both a challenge and an opportunity for the baking industry. The challenge is technical, requiring investment in ingredient knowledge, kitchen protocols, and staff training. The opportunity is significant, a growing customer base that is currently underserved and deeply loyal to the businesses that treat their dietary needs with genuine respect rather than reluctant obligation.
The Cake People are well-positioned to lead this space in Melbourne. Their investment in product development, their consultation-driven custom order model, and their reputation for quality across both conventional and specialty dietary cakes give them a foundation that newer entrants to the market will find difficult to replicate quickly.
What to Order and When
For those exploring The Cake People’s range for the first time, a few starting points are worth noting based on popular feedback and seasonal availability.
The vegan chocolate mud cake and the gluten-free lemon almond cake represent the strongest expressions of their respective ranges and are the best introduction to what the bakery does at its best. For events where dietary requirements are mixed across a large group, the custom layered cake service is worth the consultation time, as the outcome is almost always a cake that guests across all dietary backgrounds genuinely enjoy.
Seasonal specials rotate throughout the year and often reflect Melbourne’s produce calendar, with summer options leaning into tropical fruits and lighter textures, and winter specials drawing on spiced flavours and richer chocolate profiles. Following The Cake People on their social platforms is the most reliable way to stay across what is currently available and when to place advance orders for high-demand periods like Christmas and Easter.
Final Thoughts
Inclusive baking is not a trend. It is a permanent and necessary evolution in how the food industry approaches celebration and community. For Melburnians navigating dietary restrictions, the availability of genuinely excellent vegan and gluten-free cakes is no longer a matter of lowered expectations. Bakeries like The Cake People have demonstrated, through years of consistent work, that technical skill and thoughtful ingredient choices can produce cakes that stand on their own merits entirely, not just as dietary alternatives but as exceptional food by any measure.
The next time you are planning a celebration in Melbourne and someone at your table has a dietary requirement, the conversation does not need to begin with apologies or compromises. It can begin with a phone call to a bakery that has already done the hard work of making sure everyone gets a slice worth celebrating.
