Product Review - Betty Crocker Gluten-free mixes

A friend sent me several of the new Betty Crocker mixes: chocolate chip cookie, chocolate cake and vanilla cake. I really appreciated her generosity because while I had been anxious to try them, I wasn't terribly optomistic and didn't want to invest in a case of each from Amazon just to find out that they were pretty much the same as every other mix I've tried. Which can be summed up in one word: Meh. So far, I can't find any local stores that stock 'em. There may have been a spotting in Petaluma's Raley's - I'll have confirmation on that later this week. If so, I'll be making a trip north to pick up the brownie mix (the one I'm missing in my quad-fecta!)

So, for the ones I did try:

OMG!! They were amazing! The chocolate chip cookies barely made it off the cookie sheet. They were awesome! I would have never in a million years guessed that they were a) gluten free and b) from a mix! They tasted just like Nestle's toll house made from scratch following the recipe on the back of the chips package!! Incredible! I pay like $7 for a package of a dozen GFCF chocolate chip cookies that taste like CRAP! I'm sure the mix is like half that and it made three DOZEN! THREE DOZEN delicious-no-WAY-these-are-gluten-free-but-totally-ARE-gluten-free chocolate chip cookies!!

Same goes for the chocolate cake mix. We made cupcakes this go around and they were decadent and fluffy and light and airy and soooooo chocolatey without a hint of that gluten-free weirdness that usually screws up the texture and totally beats you over the head with their NOT REGULAR CUPCAKINESS. Could NOT tell the difference between this GF mix and a regular BC chocolate cake mix. Brilliant. Am anxious to try it in an actual cake next time. I haven't had much luck in the past. Gluten free cake mixes have just not made up edible cakes, but the cupcakes have been passable. So next time will be the real test!

The yellow cake mix... eh, not quite up to the same AWESOMENESS as the other two. But I think vanilla/yellow cake is a tougher task too. There's nothing to hide it - it's basically just naked out there. The flavor was just off a bit, and the color was a bit on the browner side. It just looked off - and we made these into cupcakes too, the more forgiving format. I think possibly the addition of a tsp or two of vanilla would go a long way. I'm going to get it again and play around with it a bit. There's a lot of potential. It didn't have the grit or graininess of other GF yellow cake mixes, so it's got an advantage there. It was definitely the best yellow GF cake mix I've ever had. So there's that. It's just that's a pretty low bar to begin with!

I can not wait to try the brownie mix... well, maybe I can. I'm just now regaining consciousness from the weekend's Halloween candy induced coma. Might need a few more days to shake it off!