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.

Nestlé Toll House Allergen Free Semi-Sweet Morsels: I wasn't expecting much from these. Straight out of the bag, the cold chips are brittle and leave a bit of a greasy mouthfeel behind, but, undeterred, and having spent almost seven dollars on them, I threw them into some chocolate chip cookies and they were surprisingly good! Nice chocolate flavor, no grease or wax detected in the mouth, and a pleasingly smooth texture once they've been warmed up that remains even after they cool. I'll buy them again since my favorite chocolate chips (from Guittard) are harder to find in stores. I found these in the regular baking aisle of my Kroger rather than in the "natural" section where I do most of my GF shopping.

These come in a 10 oz bag rather than the standard 12 oz. So heads up if you're used to just opening a bag and dumping it in without measuring. They also come in dark chocolate in an even smaller—9 oz—bag! I'll try those next in these S'mores cookies from Minimalist Baker, which definitely need a darker chocolate to balance the sweetness of the marshmallow.

Organic. Labeled gluten free, but not certified GF. Free from peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, milk, wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish.

Current Ingredients: organic cane sugar, organic chocolate, organic cocoa butter.

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.