gluten-free eats

Nature's Bakery Fig Bar: Raspberry: I mostly gave these a try because they had ingredients I could eat. I was pleasantly surprised by how soft and tender the cookie part is, though I can't say it has a flavor beyond being pleasantly whole grain. The filling is sweet and crunchy with fig seeds, and I could really taste the raspberries. Could I taste the figs? Maybe, in that they were toning the raspberry flavor down in an earthy kind of way.

This is called a bar, but really it's a Fig Newtonesque cookie, two per package, with six packages in a box. I found them at Target in the granola/protein/snack bar aisle, but they're too sweet for me to be anything but a dessert. They're also marked "low sodium" (70 mg for two cookies), but they always make me very thirsty, so idk.

In addition to Raspberry, they come in Blueberry and Pomegranate. If you're in the market for a GF Fig Newton analogue, you might give these a try. Though for whatever reason they don't have one that's just fig.

Certified GF, vegan, kosher, non-GMO. Made in a dedicated peanut and tree nut free facility.

Current Ingredients: Brown Rice Flour, Brown Rice Syrup, Fig Paste, Raspberry Jam (Naturally Milled Sugar, Cane Sugar, Glycerin, Rice Starch, Raspberries, Apple Powder, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Citric Acid, Locust Bean Gum), Canola Oil, Cane Sugar, Gluten Free Five Grain Flour (Amaranth, Quinoa, Millet, Sorghum, Teff), Date Paste, Whole Grain Oats, Glycerin, Flaxseed, Leavening (Monocalcium Phosphate, Baking Soda), Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavor, Citric Acid.

Trader Joe's Gluten Free Madeleine Cookies: These tender little cakes are moist without being greasy and dense without being heavy. Plump and light with that distinct madeleine shape, including the bump on the back, these are as good as any madeleine I've ever had from a package. They're also dairy free, but still taste buttery and rich. There is a slightly starchy aftertaste/mouthfeel, but it's barely enough to mention. I'll buy these again.

Individually wrapped. Labeled gluten free, but not certified GF. Made in France.

Current Ingredients: egg, sunflower oil, sugar, rice flour, water, potato starch, glycerin, dried glucose syrup, corn flour, glucose syrup, guar gum, rice starch, rapeseed lecithin, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), sea salt, natural flavors, xanthan gum, mixed tocopherols (to preserve).

May contain almond, hazelnut.

Miyoko's European Style Plant Milk Butter, Salted: I'm really happy with this! It spreads nicely straight out of the refrigerator, melts easily on toasted bread, and tasted appropriate on the fake bagel I put it on, with no coconut flavor. It does, however, have a slightly funky smell which is particularly noticeable if you melt a significant amount for cooking or baking. This is because it's cultured, like a cheese. I can't say I like the smell, but I do like the results as it successfully replicates some of the tanginess of dairy.

This can be used as a 1:1 replacement for dairy butter in baking, and so I gave that a spin as well, with these chewy chocolate chip cookies from My Gluten-Free Kitchen. They were indeed chewy and baked up nicely, though they didn't brown as much as I expected. (I used Bob's 1-to-1 Baking Flour, and, as the recipes warns, it was good but not great. Kind of gritty, even with a 24 hour chillin' in the fridge. But the cookies were still pretty damned good so I made them again with America's Test Kitchen flour blend (yes it contains milk powder my life is complicated) and that solved the grittiness problem, but I think my fiddling with the butter/cream cheese ratio in order to use up all the fake cream cheese caused them to spread more than the first batch. They were still excellent, but thinner and more crispy. I will continue to experiment with this as I am nothing but dedicated to finding the perfect chocolate chip cookie.)

Back to Miyoko's butter, I also used it in some vegan chocolate cream cheese frosting, but I didn't let it warm up enough on the counter so it was kind of in shards in there rather than fully blended into the mix. My bad. The next time I made regular vegan cream cheese frosting and I thought I let the butter warm up more, but I had the same problem. So I just let the mixer run and eventually everything became fluffy and smooth, and it worked out great. The butter itself is kind of an uneasy lard color, but not so much that it makes a white frosting look off. I'm going to try it in a buttercream next.

This product is very easy to find in my area and also comes in unsalted. I buy it at my local Kroger analogue, but I've also seen it at Target and Trader Joe's, and of course all the fancy grocery stores carry it. It's one of those slabs of butter, a wide, flat rectangle, and must be refrigerated. When I ate dairy butter I always kept the stick I was using on the counter so this is something new for me. I'm also a bit wary of how long this plant butter will last before it...goes bad? Anyone have intelligence on this? I know it has an expiration date on it but fake dairy products always last longer than those numbers do.

I'll definitely keep buying this, and I'm excited to finally try some of those recipes I've been hoarding that call for butter, vegan or otherwise. Dinner rolls! Scones!! PIE CRUST????

Current Ingredients: Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Cultured Cashew Milk (Filtered Water, Organic Cashews, Cultures), Filtered Water, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Sunflower Lecithin, Sea Salt.

Simple Truth Dairy Free Sweet Caramel Frozen Dessert Bars: These bars are a Kroger house brand and delicious. The caramel ice cream is smooth and sweet and creamy and has a hint of coconut to it that melds really well with the caramel, which tastes absolutely real and not at all like "caramel flavor." There's a little caramel swirl in the ice cream that you can't really appreciate until the chocolate shell snaps off in huge sheets, which, let's be real, it will. Though the shell is made of actual chocolate, it can be a bit greasy if you get too much of it in your mouth at once, but it's thin enough to bite into easily and the toffee bits embedded in it are crunchy and good. I'd buy these again.

Current Ingredients: Caramel Frozen Dessert: Water, Sugar, Coconut Oil, Soluble Maize Fiber, Coconut Cream (Coconut Extract, Water), Pea Protein, Inulin, Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids (Emulsifier), Stabilizers (Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum), Natural Flavors, Caramelized Sugar Syrup, Beta Carotene (Color), Caramel Flavored Sauce: Sugar, Glucose Fructose Syrup, Water, Caramelized Sugar, Salt, Pectin (Gelling Agent), Sodium Citrate (Acidity Regulator), Natural Flavor, Sweet Chocolate and Vegetable Fat Coating: Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Lecithin (Emulsifier), Natural Vanilla Flavoring, Caramelized Sugar Pieces: Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Invert Sugar, Sodium Bicarbonate.

Snyder's GF pretzels come in several shapes. I've tried both the mini pretzels and the pretzel sticks, but I prefer the sticks for structural and texture reasons. Both taste exactly as you'd expect from a bagged pretzel, right down to the slightly fishy aftertaste commercial pretzels sometimes have. I don't remember if the intensely starchy mouthfeel is also authentic to wheat-based pretzels, but they have that too.

If you want a crunchy, salty pretzel you can probably find in your nearest natural food store, these will do, and an opened bag stays fresh for weeks, so you don't have to snarf them all down in a matter of days unless you want to.

Current Ingredients: corn starch, potato starch, tapioca starch, palm oil, sodium carboxymethylcellulose, dextrose, salt, sunflower lecithin, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), yeast, citric acid, soda.

RXBAR Chocolate Sea Salt Protein Bar

Ingredients: Dates, Dried Egg Whites, Cashews, Almonds, Chocolate, Cocoa, Natural Flavors, Sea Salt.

Thick, stubby, and dense. You can see salt crystals sprinkled on top. Bite into it and it's chewy, slightly sticky, tastes very vaguely of cocoa and caramel (that's probably the dates), gritty (also probably the dates?) with little crunches of salt and big chunks of almond. I could see the chocolate chunks, but couldn't really taste them so I ate one straight; they're 100% cacao, bitter and not too flavorful; the cashews get lost in all the commotion, some bites tasted of coconut which shouldn't be happening.

That wasn't exactly easy to eat, a lot of chewing, with a lot of stuff stuck in my teeth afterward, and a bitter coffee-like aftertaste from the chocolate. I don't feel like eating that again. There's nothing wrong with it; it's just not for me.

The bar in my hand is labeled gluten free and has no gluten, dairy, or soy ingredients, but it's manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, milk, soy, and wheat.

Now for the competition:

EPIC Almond Butter Chocolate Performance Bar

Ingredients: Dates, Egg Whites, Almonds, Unsweetened Chocolate, Sea Salt, Vanilla Extract.

Thick, stubby, and dense, but more tender than the RXBAR. Can taste coconut again, is that the dates? Can taste caramel again. The almonds are there, chopped in small pieces. The chocolate is not making itself known; it's in little chunks; you get occasional hints of its bitterness. This was chewy and stuck to my teeth but wasn't as gritty as the RXBAR. I could eat it again.

The bar in my hand is labeled gluten free, soy free, and non-GMO.