SUGAR, spice, and all things nice - easier said than done if you're gluten-intolerant.

Delicious gluten-free delights can sometimes be hard to find, with cakes crumbling from drought and the waitress responding to your gluten-free request with 'um we can do you a salad?'

But a quaint little tea room on Earlston's High Street is bursting with imaginative delights that gives Willa Wonka a run for his money.

At the Thomas and Ethel Tea Room and Gallery, gluten-intolerants no longer have to turn down delicious scones and cakes and watch with envy as their friends tuck in.

Mother and daughter team Debbie and Tegan Thomas opened the eatery 11 months ago and have gradually developed it into a 100 per cent gluten-free establishment – with many products dairy free and vegan friendly as well.

The Thomas's are both gluten intolerant and have experienced endless frustration when going out for food.

Debbie explained: “When we go out for something to eat we have less or no choice from the menu. We enjoy good food but a lot of places just don't provide good quality gluten-free alternatives.

“It can be annoying and sometimes embarrassing when you have to sit and reel of a whole list of questions to the waiter about what's in this and how have they cooked that.

“So we fully understand the inconvenience that eating out can be. It can take away from the enjoyment of going out with people.

"We wanted to have a place where gluten-intolerant people can have pretty much whatever they like - cakes, scones, tray-bakes, pastry, rolls, sandwiches - anything.

“We make everything we sell ourselves so we know exactly what's went in to it, which is reassuring for our customers.

“As well as gluten free, we also strive to create products that are dairy free, egg free, and vegan."

Debbie and Tegan want to rescue gluten-free products from their reputations as tasteless and cardboard-like, and stress that gluten-free foods can be enjoyed, not just eaten out of necessity.

“We aren't catering just for these types of people - people who aren't gluten or dairy intolerant try our products and say can't tell the difference between ours and normal products. They say they're delicious!

"Anybody can come along we aren't a 'strictly only celiacs allowed' establishment," Debbie joked.

“We named the tea room after my grandparents as a nice nod to them because it was my granny that taught me how to bake.

“And, people sometimes turn their nose up at gluten-free products so we kind of have that motto 'You can't say you don't like it till you've tried it!' Like your granny would say.”

This a completely new business venture for Debbie, but her daughter Tegan has a lot of experience in the industry.

She's a skilled chef and her special talent lies with pastry, but her intolerance used to reek havoc with her immune system, and often whilst at work in past jobs, she would faint from being exposed to gluten in the kitchen. So going completely gluten-free has been something that's really helped her too.

Debbie and Tegan love their job and enjoy the chance to be creative in the kitchen, always trying to come up with new recipes and traditional treats with a twist.

And for those people trying to stick to their 'clean eating' New Year's resolutions, Thomas and Ethel's dairy free and vegan foods could be the way to sneak in some guilt-free (ish) goodies.

We won't tell anyone...