Krusteaz Gluten Free Double Chocolate Brownie Mix

Thumbs up on this one. This mix was new at my local grocery so I thought I would give it a try.  The brownies pass the ultimate GF test, which is you can’t tell that they are gluten free.  Moist dense, and chocolaty, with the added chocolate chip bursts.

You just need to add add oil, an egg and water, so they whip up fast.  I do recommend whisking the egg before adding the water and oil and then again before the mix.  The more air you whip into eggs in any GF recipe helps them rise better.

Because they recommended the 8×8 pan rather than a 9 x 13, the brownies are fairly tall, and take a while to cook.  But they’re worth it.

The Great Sub Roll Hunt

One of the things the hubby misses most is a good cheesesteak (He hails from Philly, the home of said delicacy — aka a steak and cheese sub).  While most other types of bread have now been duplicated for GF — sub rolls are not one of those things.  So I have been blundering about looking for a substitute.  I decided to try Gluten Free Pantry french bread and pizza mix.  I didn’t really expect it to have the texture of French bread, since that’s almost impossible to achieve at home even with gluten, but I thought it might achieve the fallback position of making a decent sub roll.  I used the oven method, but did not put it in a standard bread pan as I wanted the roll shape.  The dough is quite sticky, so you will need to use extra GF flour in order to shape it.   I divided into two loaves.  However, the dough didn’t rise all that much, and in the oven flattened out even more, so one of the loaves better resembled a cibatta than a french loaf.  The directions called for mixing with a mixer for 2 minutes, which may have something to do with the lack of rising. 

On the whole, it tasted pretty good, although not that much like French Bread, rather more like pizza dough.  The texture was neither French bread nor a sub roll but more like a rather thick biscuit.  We still enjoyed our cheesesteaks.  And on the plus side it doesn’t have that xanthan gum bitter taste to it.  

After meal life:  The bread was pretty filling, and I couldn’t finish my cheesesteak, so I tucked it in the fridge for the next day.  I couldn’t eat it, though, as the bread was roughly the consistency of lead.  So if you make the bread, put any leftovers in the freezer promptly. 

We had put the other loaf in the freezer, and took out one of the pieces two days later to cut up to make croutons.  Those were excellent — a little olive oil and butter and some spices.  Scrumptious. 

Overall rating:  4 out of 5. 

Brief Comments:  Not really French bread, but still fairly tasty.  You must immediately freeze the leftovers.