Gluten-Free Products: Worth Eating?

I eat gluten-free things and then tell you if you ought to.

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Donut showdown: Katz vs Kinnikinnick

Both from-the-freezer-section donuts are gf, nut free, and Kosher. You’re also paying donut shop prices per donut, but that’s not a huge surprise in GF Land.

Katz Powered Sugar Donuts- worth eating, but not buying. They are lighter than a real cake donut, and the powered sugar doesn’t stick worth a damn. You also are supposed to nuke them for a few sec before eating to take the chill out. That makes the donut even lighter.

Kinnikinnick Vanilla Glazed- worth eating and will buy again. Sweeter than Katz but as addictive as real donuts. Defrost and eat (and you will want to eat the whole box). Texture and flavor are on point. The glaze is decadent and amazeballs. Looking forward to the Pumpkin variety come Fall.

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This is not a muffin. They are lying liars. If you notice, the first ingredient is SUGAR. Not a muffin. So we made a cake. Same instructions, including glaze, in a 9x9 pan. Results: tasty cake. You have to cut slashes in the top so the glaze gets into the cake nomnom. The crumb was good, and it is nice and lemony without tasting fake. Chia seeds get stuck in your teeth like whoa. They stand in real well for poppy seeds though, so that's nice. Totally worth eating. Might buy again if I remember where I got it.

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Product Review: Trader Joe's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour

My unbiased & detailed review of Trader Joe's All Purpose Gluten Free Flour - how it performed in my gluten free pizza crust recipe.

Hokay. I bought this stuff over the weekend and made my usual muffin recipe with it (only with raspberries. blackberries, and blueberries in rather than strawberries or blueberries alone, because that's what was in the freezer. Bananas were included as per usual), and LOL NO.

The review I've linked liked this flour better than I did. She made a pizza dough/pastry recipe with it and it refused to brown; she also thinks that it's King Arthur's all purpose flour blend. I made the same muffin recipe with actual King Arthur's, and those muffins were pretty damn good (not as good as the ones I made with Pamela's Baking and Pancake mix, which I have now subscribed to on Amazon, but damn tasty, would have been pleased to have spent $2.85 on it at Starbucks, pretty damn good). The Trader Joe's blend muffins? NO.

No, these muffins were just a smidge up the scale from the leaden, gummy, rocklike muffins that, as a newly-diagnosed gluten-intolerant/possibly-Celiac patient, I assumed I would be faced with as my only muffin options for the *doom music* rest of my life. They were weirdly wet in places (not even just near the fruit, which is somewhat normal) and mostly dry elsewhere, and they have a strange, unidentifiable aftertaste that makes me think of really stale Saltines.

I can't recommend this flour, unless maybe you're making Hagrid's rock cakes. If you are making rock cakes, please don't invite me over. I'd rather be at my house eating muffins made with Pamela's or KA. 

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I made these with King Arthur All-Purpose Gluten Free Flour, strawberries, bananas, and white chocolate chips, and they were AWESOME. Would bake again, A+++.

I think I might have liked the Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix muffins a teeny tiny bit better, but I enjoyed both batches of muffins very much and would bake with either mix again in a heartbeat. In fact, I might go make some muffins rtfn.

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I usually eat another brand of waffles at home--<a href="http://www.vansfoods.com/our-products-waffles">Van's</a>, I prefer Blueberry--so when I visited my parents I was excited about trying these.

Wow, was that excitement every misplaced. I had a hard time choking them down. These things taste like and have the consistency of cardboard. No amount of syrup helped. Seriously, these are absolutely not worth eating and Kinnikinnick should be ashamed of themselves.

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I went back to the midwest to visit my family, and my mother bought these cookies for me. Two friends and I ate most of the package, but a little begrudgingly--they were extremely dry and didn't taste like much, just sort of vaguely sweet. They were crunchy, which is sort of a shortbread trait, but nothing else about them made me think of shortbread.

Verdict: There are worse GF cookies out there, for sure, but I can't say this is a good option for GF shortbread when Pamela's Lemon Shortbread exists. But if you don't like lemon, I don't know what to tell you.

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Skittles are gluten free, y'all. Sometimes they even come with baby Skittles in the package.

Lest you think my iPhone's camera is bad, these are "Dark Side" Skittles. I don't know why they did that, but okay. I enjoyed them, and there wasn't a flavor I particularly disliked the way there usually is with variety-flavor candies (Starburst "Fruit Punch" flavor, I am glaring at you for tasting like cough syrup).

Verdict: worth eating.

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Got this at Trader Joe's to keep for one of those oh-shit-I-forgot-to-bring-a-lunch days. I avoid soy, this has it, but whatev. It was okay. Not sure I'd buy it again, but it made an okay (if entirely protein-free, so of course I was hungry again in two hours) lunch. It did taste a little like mushrooms, but there were barely any mushroom bits in it, which made me sad. 

I'm having a hard time coming up with a verdict on this one. It was kind of worth eating if there are very few other options around?

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Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix (http://www.amazon.com/Pamelas-Ultimate-Baking-Pancake-4-Pound/dp/B000NMJWZO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370563727&sr=8-1&keywords=pamela+pancake)

I made muffins using the recipe on the side of the package, which recommends using half a cup of fruit and half a cup of nuts. I used half a cup of chopped frozen strawberries and half a ripe banana instead. This mix includes a lot of almond, which came through somewhat in the finished product--which was DELICIOUS. I could have eaten all six muffins (the package's recipe makes a half batch of muffins) in about five minutes, but I managed to hold off so I could see how they aged:

Sunday: Fresh muffins are AMAZING, OMG

Monday: Muffins still extremely tasty, bit more moist than on Sunday

Tuesday: Still good, but a little too moist

Wednesday: Should have eaten them yesterday, now they're kind of soggy and have reverted to dough near the strawberry pieces.

RESULT: SO VERY WORTH EATING...Inside three days. Fish, houseguests, and Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix muffins go bad after three days. Even so, I am going to try a couple more mixes and may end up buying this one in bulk. STRONG CONTENDER for best baked goods.

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Namaste Foods Muffin Mix (no sugar added)

RESULT: Worth eating, but I wouldn't buy this mix again. I added blueberries and ate the results, but wished they were about three times sweeter.

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Pamela, we need to have a talk.

The lemon shortbread is seriously good (RESULT: WORTH EATING), but the plain agave-sweetened shortbread (http://pamelasproducts.com/products/cookies-and-biscotti/cookies/butter-shortbread/) is FUCKING TERRIBLE. It is soft. Shortbread is not soft! Shortbread is dense and a little crispy/crunchy/toothsome. SHORTBREAD IS NOT SOFT. Also, the butter shortbread doesn't taste like shortbread. It tastes like nonspecific mediocre cookie. (RESULT: So very NOT WORTH EATING).

But the lemon shortbread is awesome and I need to NOT subscribe to that fucker on Amazon. /o\ Even though it would probably make an awesome crust for something. Maybe lemon bars. 

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Got one of these at the DC GF Expo on June 2.

RESULT: Worth eating, A+ would eat again! Crunchy almonds, sweet fruit, pretty filling.

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Enjoy Life Soft-Baked Snickerdoodle Cookies

Ingredients:Sorghum flour, brown pure cane sugar, date paste, expeller-pressed vegetable oil (safflower oil and/or sunflower oil), juice concentrate (grape, apple, pear), natural rice dextrin, ground flaxseed, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, rosemary extract.

RESULT: WORTH EATING. I am so fucking addicted to these things that I SUBSCRIBED TO THEM ON AMAZON, holy crap.

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Crunchmaster Multi-Seed Crackers

100% Whole Grain, Cholesterol Free

Got this sample packet at the DC GF Expo on June 2, 2013.

Ingredients: Brown rice flour, sesame seeds, potato starch, quinoa seeds, safflower oil, flax seeds, amaranth seeds, tamari soy sauce powder (tamari soy sauce [soybeans, salt], maltodextrin [corn]), salt.

I avoid soy but tried this sample packet anyway.

RESULT: worth eating (pleasantly crunchy).