Wholesome Cake

I received some samples of cake mix from Whole Some Chow, who offer both a vegan line and a gluten free, vegan line. I was iffy about whether or not this was going to be good, because honestly I have not had any vegan cake mixes that are actually good. Every other time when I have made a cake with oil instead of eggs it separated after being baked. The other issue with vegan cakes is density. It's expected they will be more dense, but some are just inedible.

Thus, you can understand my doubt that these cakes would be tasty, but I gave it a go. I started out with the chocolate cake, which was good enough to frost.  The vanilla cake was really good; the first day I could hardly tell it was vegan, but the second and third day it almost seemed to become more dense.  The raw batter was actually better than the baked cake.

Then there was the chocolate lavender cake.  I waited as long as I possibly could because I dislike lavender and just could not imagine it in a cake.  When I finally did make it it had a similar consistency to the plain chocolate, but something was off about it both in taste and texture. Just not for me. Overall I do not think I would buy these mixes, but if you're vegan, I suppose they are worth a go.

Pure Pantry Flour

I've been trying to catch up with trying out new products, but there are so many on my list. This past week I finally had an opportunity to try out the Pure Pantry All Purpose Mix, and used it to make sugar cookies. I figured I could hardly go wrong after someone I know ended up making amazing...

Sofella Chocolate Cake

Last year I discovered a gluten free cake mix called Sofella and my previous post can be read here. Almost a year has past and I got a chance to try it again. The cake is still AWESOME! And now they have an all purpose mix too. Try it for yourself. Enough said. :-)

Now this is Something Good

I love Koalas and I love Chocolate Mud Cake...do you know what the 2 have in common? They both are based in Australia. I recently met some fellows from Something Good while on a business trip, and have finally gotten a chance to try some of their excellent products.

If you're extremely sensitive to gluten this is a company you should have on your radar, as Australia's laws on testing for gluten are much stricter than the US requirements, and for a product to be endorsed by the Australian Coeliac Association, which can be considered an equivalent to the Celiac Sprue Association here in the US, says a lot.

Now, as for the cake, well, we ate it up so quick I didn't get any pictures of it, but for being gluten, dairy, soy, and nut free, it was fabulous. When I have time I bake from scratch, but this is certainly one boxed cake I will come back to. Because of the difference in where the product is based, it suggests baking for 55 minutes at 345 degrees. I can tell you at 350 it's done in about 27-30 minutes. I added in some dairy free chocolate chips, and spread some orange chocolate fudge sauce over the top. Paired with a big glass of almond milk, I was in chocolate bliss. This cake would also be great if made into 2 layers with jam in the center.

Their cake and bread mixes aren't exactly readily available in the US at the moment, but you can pick up or order from Gluten Free Specialty in Sacramento. Who needs Betty Crocker, when I can have something this good.

Graham Cracker Crust

I made a killer cheesecake this past weekend, let's not even think about how many calories there was in one slice of this bad boy, and yes it contains dairy, but I do plan to attempt to make the exact recipe with dairy free ingredients. Now with all that said, the big hump to making gluten free pie or cheesecake is always the crust. This time it came out perfect. How you ask? I used a box of Kinnikinick graham cracker crumbs. I've been making graham crackers from scratch myself for years, and half stay crackers and half become crumbs, but it's always nice to have a fast, convenient option.

1 box of these, some butter, and some cinnamon, 5 minutes baked by itself, then filled with whatever filling you're planning on, and you too could experience one of the best graham cracker crumb crusts.

King Author Gluten Free Brownies

King Author Flour has been around for quite some time, in fact they were around back in the 1800's, but they are new to the gluten free industry, so do their new mixes cut it? Well, they have 8 gluten free mixes, and the company kindly sent me out some to try. They have a flour blend, pancakes, pizza crust, and the one I have tried thus far...a brownie mix.

I can make some awesome brownies from scratch, so in order for me to actually purchase a boxed brownie mix it needs to be Fantastic!- does this one make the grade? Well, if I didn't have any flour, or cocoa in the house to make brownies from scratch (this hardly ever happens)- yes I would buy this mix. Was it the best brownie mix I have ever had- no; does my husband who isn't gluten free really like these- yes.

These were super easy to make, they bake up well, and they do crisp up on the top just like the picture on the box, which it is a rarity for the imagine on a box to actually match the end result you actually get. This product is free of all the eight most common allergies, however a downfall of the product that others might be knit-picky about- the first ingredient is sugar, and as usual, it contains cornstarch. Knowing someone with a corn allergy, and me personally being concerned about limiting my corn intake, that knocks my opinion down just a smidge. Overall, this brownie mix gets 2 thumbs up. Now I just wish I had their pizza crust mix.

Gluten Free Calzones

Several months ago I made a pie crust from the Gluten Free Pantry Pie Crust mix, and I froze the second half of the dough. Well I was starting to think the dough might not be good for much longer so I pondered about what else I could make using the pie dough, and it came to me- calzones.

I mixed up some cheese, spinach, some salt & pepper, and an egg (as a binder), and rolled out the dough- yes it rolled out with wax paper between the roller and the dough. They needed alll come out great shape wise but it worked, and then I baked them. I wasn't really sure how long to bake them, but I went off the guidelines of the pie crust instructions and a calzone recipe, and ended up baking them for 30 minutes at 375 and well....

they were a little too done...a little extra crispy on the bottom, and they got harder as they cooled. It sort of reminded me of a hot pocket, from what I vaguely recall. We ate them, but they weren't as satisfying as I was hoping for. Next time I would cook them for less time or try a pizza dough mix, as pizza dough seems like it might have more of the right consistency.

I'd love to hear if you've you've tried making calzones, and if were successful or not.

Pure Pantry Baking Mixes

This past weekend there was a Pure Pantry sampling at Gluten Free Specialty, and it was the first time I got to try this brand. The company currently offers 4 mixes: 2 cookie options, and 2 pancake options, and the word on the street is that they will be coming out with sugar cookie mix, and maybe some others

The mixes are gluten free, dairy free, casein free, soy free, and nut free, and the company offered both cookies made with and without eggs; both were relatively tasty. The mixes are a little on the high end for a gluten free mix, but now that I've had a taste, I'd be interested in trying out their other mixes.

Ingredients: Brown rice flour, white rice flour, potato starch flour, organic corn flour, tapioca flour, evaporated cane juice, organic brown sugar, gluten free/dairy free chocolate chips, (evaporated cane juice, chocolate liquor, non-dairy cocoa butter), baking soda, aluminum free baking powder, organic sea salt, xanthan gum.

Arrowhead Mills Gluten Free Cupcake Mix

Recently I was sent Arrowhead Mills Gluten Free Cupcake Mix courtesy of Mambo Sprouts, and I'm sorry to say it was disappointing. The cupcake mix comes with cupcake liners, birthday themed, which is cool, and a recipe for frosting on the back. Now if it was an all inclusive mix: cake mix, frosting mix, and liners, that is a great marketing idea, but the product itself still needs some work.

I found the cake to be bland, dry, and missing something; my husband thought it could have been slightly sweeter. The cupcakes dried out without a day of sitting on the counter in a sealed container, and I ended up throwing most of them away. The other thing that kind of bugged me about this product is that it contains milk, but the frosting recipe on the back of the box named a dairy free chocolate chip by name. Why would you offer a dairy-containing mix, and then suggest using dairy-free chocolate chips to make frosting to put on the top? Did they forget their mix wasn't dairy free? I think Arrowhead Mills has some work to do on this one.

Glutino Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

New to the Glutino line, at least for my area, is the Gluten Free Pantry Chocolate Chip Cookie & Cake Mix. The picture on the box sure does look delicious, but did the cookies I make resemble them? No. An immediate red flag to me was that their brownie mix has xanthan gum in it, but for some reason this mix does not, and I really wish I had noticed that before I chilled my dough, or I would have surely added some. Taste-wise, these cookies rock, but all they wanted to do was spread out into thin crisps on my bake sheet.

First tray of cookies- thin as can be. And this was after the two hours of chilling in the refrigerator, which was supposed to produce "thicker" cookies, per the box. Instead, I got cookie pancakes, lol.



Second tray of cookies- I turned the oven temperature up from 325 as instructed to 375 and decreased cooking time by 2 minutes. The result was slightly less "pancake-like" cookies, but this time a little too crunchy.


Third tray of cookies- I turned the oven temperature back down from 375 to 350. I kept the cooking time the same (1o min) and got the best results.

Petosa Sweet Potato Brownie Mix

Awhile bake I was approached by Mixes from the Heartland, and did not have a good experience with a couple of their soup/chowder mixes. Their cheeseburger chowder and the Harvest Chicken and Rice meals, well let's just say I followed the directions but in the end a pound of ground turkey and 2 chicken breasts were lost in the process.

Then most recently I was approached by Petosa, which I discovered is the west coast packaging component of the same company. This time I was given some dessert options the company produces. In the end I tried out the Sweet Potato Brownie Mix, and this go around I had a much better experience.

When it comes to breads and sweets if the dough doesn't mix up right or taste right, it is generally true, from my personal experience, that the item isn't going to cook or taste right when finished. This batter whipped up nicely, and tasted good before baking, and even better after baking. Now would I call this a brownie- not sure. It's kind of more of a cross between a brownie and a cake, but let me tell you it is quite tasty with cream cheese frosting. It would also be better with some add ins like nuts, or perhaps toffee bits, but again that's just my preference. Overall I would give this particular mix a 3.5 out of 5.

This company makes, I believe 40+ mixes, and I have had a success one out of three times. Their directions and nutritional information need some work. For instance, how many servings are actually in a package- I discovered the soup mixes are meant to feed a family of 6-8 people; that's a lot of food, so what if you only want to make half the package- not instructions for that, or how many calories are in a prepared serving, not just the dry mix (that's not very helpful). Would I try something else from this company- most likely, but it would probably be some sort of dessert mix- perhaps muffins, or a cake mix.

Doodle Cookie Mixes Delight the Tastebuds

Debbie Doodles Cookie Mixes get 2 thumbs up from me. They use slightly more healthy flours, are easy to make, and taste really good. Mike couldn’t tell the difference between these and the peanut butter cookies that I used to make before going gluten-free, and the chocolate chip cookie mix was super tasty and the cookies lasted a little over a week without getting super dry!

Better Batter Brownies

With a name like Better Batter, it has to be good, right? Mostly. These brownie bites were a little hard to get out of the pan and they sunk and firmed up the next day… but flavor-wise? Definitely better than most others we’ve tried.

Breads from Anna

Bread. It's one of the more challenging items to find a satisfying substitution for those on a gluten free diet, and what if you have multiple food allergies? Breads from Anna started with just one mix back in 2004, and now the company offers ten mixes. This company caters to those who are gluten free, dairy free, corn free, soy free, yeast free, and even rice free! So what are they made out of? Well they use more of the bean and pea flours, along with millet, and arrowroot...some of the grains that seem to be neglected and not as frequently thought of. (Rice, potato, and tapioca seem to be the most widely known as gluten free grains but there is quite a selection to choose from.)

Being free of so many allergens does however make the cost of the product increase greatly. In fact I would say this line of bread and muffin mixes is one of the most expensive ones I've come across. With that said, it's worth it. I'm a big banana bread fan, so I tried out a free sample of Bread from Anna's banana bread mix. It was very simple to mix up, and baked right up without any fuss. The loaf browned on the top without burning, and it sliced like a fresh loaf of bread; it wasn't crumbly, it wasn't hard like a brick, and it wasn't cooked on the outside but not in the middle- the 3 most common problem with baking gluten free bread.

This product gets 4 stars! And my husband, who is not gluten free, says it's "unbelievably fabulous banana bread!" My only real compliant is that the labels all seem to look really similar and so it was hard to distinguish the products on the shelf.

Doodles Cookies

Every area of the country has different gluten free products to offer. Based out of Illinois is Doodles Cookies, a gluten free cookie mix company, started by a woman who just liked to bake. This mix uses some slightly more healthy flour options. The majority of cake and cookie mixes have white rice flour and potato starch in them, but these do not. The company offers chocolate chip cookie, nut butter cookie, and sugar cookie mixes. Doodles uses oat flour and brown rice flour, which I think give these cookies a nice textural blend.

The company shipped me a sample of all of their mixes, and so far I have made the chocolate chip cookies. I found the mix easy to work with, although I little thick. I will say the picture on the box is deceiving, as it dos not make flat, mostly smooth cookies, but clumpy cookies. Regardless of looks, I would compare them to Chips Ahoy. They're not a super soft cookie, but a slightly firmer, slightly crumbly cookie that would be good for dunking in a glass of milk. Also, they remained consistent in moisture level from the day I baked them to a week later, which is generally impressive, as most gluten free baked goods dry out after 2 or 3 days.

Gluten Free Mama's Scone Mix

The scone, a breakfast or dessert item, sweet or savory. Usually a scone is made with, surprise!, wheat and barley, and sometimes oatmeal, but lucky there are gluten free scone mixes. To my knowledge, I have never had a scone, until now, so I can not compare these gluten free scones to your typical scone, but I can tell you what I thought of the Gluten Free Mama Scone Mix. My husband and I previously reviewed her sugar cookie mix, and she a was kind enough to send us a few other mixes, and I'm finally getting around to trying them out.

She has so many different scone recipes listed online, but I ended up making apple crumble scones. Her recipes call for cream, but I just used almond milk, and it worked out fine. In the instructions for the scones it sounded like I was only supposed to end up with eight big circles, but that didn't seem right to me, so I made them the same size I would with biscuits. The dough mixed up real well, but I found the sprinkling of the "crumble" to just be an unnecessary, messy step that can be skipped.

In the end, they tasted great, very moist, and light, although because of the fruit, (and really this goes for any baked good with fruit in it) they only lasted about 3 days, and I had to throw some away because I just could not eat them that fast. Would I buy this mix, which comes in a 2lb bag, and makes 3 batches of scones for around $9- if I loved scones, absolutely.

Cranberry-Apple Pie

So I had made a peach pie a couple of weeks ago and had half the dough ball left from the Gluten Free Pantry Pie Crust Mix, and with my sister visiting, I thought it would the perfect time to use it up. This time around I made a cranberry-apple pie, with pecans on top.
We all thought the pie was great, so now I know I can use this pie crust mix and make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. The only slight issue with the pie was that it could have been a touch sweeter, as I was using fresh cranberries.

Filling
2 medium apples, peeled, cored, diced.
2 cups cranberries
1/2 cup sugar (This will give you a semi-tart pie. If you like it on the sweet side, I would say use 3/4 to 1 cup sugar)
2 Tbsp vanilla almond breeze (or your choice of alternative milk, although that may effect the amount of thicker needed).
1 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with 1 1/2 Tbsp water.

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup gluten free flour blend (I used Tom Sawyer Flour Blend)
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (I used bob's gfree rolled oats)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions
1. Follow the directions for your crust. If you're making the gluten free pantry crust, don't bother rolling it out. Just press it in the pie pan. Bake unfilled at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, combine topping ingredients in medium bowl. Stir until small clumps form.
3. For filling combine sugar, almond breeze, and fruit into heavy large nonstick skillet.
4. Bring to a boil and add in the cornstarch/water mixture. Turn down to medium heat and stir until fruit is tender and sugar-cream mixture is reduced almost to glaze; about 10 minutes. Set aside.
5. When crust is warm from the oven, spoon in fruit filling and sprinkle with topping.
6. Bake pie at 350 degrees until filling bubbles and topping is golden brown, about 45 minutes.
7. Cool pie on rack at least 30 minutes.

Gluten Free Mama

Standing on the mix aisle I caught my hand reaching for the Pamela's baking mix to make cookies, but I said to myself, "know know Debbie, try something new." So I went for the Gluten Free Mama's Cookie Mix, as I noticed it was newer product on the shelf. I have fond memories of making lots of cookies, including sugar cookies, for Christmas with my mom. I remember one year every flat surface in the kitchen and dining room was covered in sugar cookies, waiting for icing. Trees, candy canes, stars, and more.

In my teen/early twenties I branched out from the holidays and started collecting cookie cutters shaped like fish, feet, palm trees, and more. And then boom- I converted to being gluten free. My first winter being gluten free was difficult as I just could not get the sugar cookie recipe with to turn out with the gluten free flours, but over the years I have come up with the perfect blend. And now there's a mix for them, lol. Someday I really should market one of my fabulous blends for cookies or bars, but anyhow, I digress.

So I bought Gluten Free Mama's cookie mix. Please check out episode 11 of GFree TV to see what I thought of it.

Peach Pie made with Gluten Free Pantry Crust

I don't normally make pie, maybe because it seems like more work than making cookies, but I came across a recipe that inspired me to make a Peach Pie. When it comes to the crust I have been making my own from scratch and sometimes it's a hit and sometimes it's a miss. This time around I decided to try out the Gluten Free Pantry Pie Crust Mix. The directions of the box says it makes 4 pie crusts, but I would have to say it makes 2 crusts that are the perfect thickeness.

I will tell you the pie overall was great, and I'd like to share the recipe with you.

Filling
2 lbs peaches (Now I cheated and used canned peaches, but you can boil peaches for a short time, and peal off the skins), cut into bit size pieces.
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons vanilla almond breeze (or your choice of alternative milk, although that may effect the amount of thicker needed).
1 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with 1 1/2 Tbsp water

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup gluten free flour blend (I used Tom Sawyer Flour Blend)
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (I used bob's gfree rolled oats)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions
1. Follow the directions for your crust. If you're making the gluten free pantry crust, don't bother rolling it out. Just press it in the pie pan. Bake unfilled at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, combine topping ingredients in medium bowl. Stir until small clumps form.
3. For filling combine sugar, almond breeze, and peach pieces into heavy large nonstick skillet.
4. Bring to a boil and add in the cornstarch/water mixture. Turn down to medium heat and stir until peaches are tender and sugar-cream mixture is reduced almost to glaze; 10 minutes or less. Set aside.
5. When crust is warm from the oven, spoon in peach filling and sprinkle with topping.
6. Bake pie at 350 degrees until filling bubbles and topping is golden brown, about 35 minutes.
7. Cool pie on rack at least 30 minutes.

WOW! Birthday Cupcakes Didn't Dissapoint

So for my husband's birthday I figured it was a very convenient time to try out the WOW cake mix I received from the company a few weeks ago. The mix actually didn't have any directions on the bake about bake time for cupcakes like most mixes do, which made me question if the cake wasn't going to turn out right if I divided it up into small circles, but it did. I baked them for about 30 minutes, and the looked delicious.

I've learned to taste test cakes before frosting them, so I cut one of the cupcakes in half and it was moist and flaky. Thus the frosting commenced. I used my good old stand by brand- Pamela's Products. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting, what else would a birthday boy want?

Check out our complete review at GFree Tv