Chocolate Chip Cookies With Pamela's Gluten Free Pancake Mix

Since we were trying out Chocolate Chip Cookies mixes, I picked up a bag of Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking & Pancake mix on my last trip to Whole Foods. The Pamela's mix can make a variety of things, such as chocolate chip cookies, muffins, cake, and pancakes. You only need to add different ingredients in order to make the item you choose.

I decided to try out the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on the bag. The recipe on the makes about 1 1/2 dozen to 2 dozen cookies. After adding the extra ingredients, the cookie batter had a nice soft yet firm texture and had a good taste in dough form. I dropped the batter on a parchment lined cookie sheet and baked at 350 degrees for 14 minutes as recommended on the package. The cookies turned out beautifully and had a nice flavor. They were crisp at 14 minutes of baking time, but softer and chewier at 13 minutes in the oven.

These cookies were well received by most of my family, except for my son who thought they had a gingerbread type flavor and didn't care for them. The cookie mix is a good one since it lacks the bland rice white, tapioca, potato flour taste of many gluten-free baking goods. The day after baking the cookies are softer, but had a blander flavor. Not the basic bland white rice taste, but more like I made cookies using pancake mix. These cookies are best when fresh from the oven.

Gluten Free Pantry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

With our dinner on Saturday, I tried out The Gluten Free Pantry's Chocolate Chip Cookie mix. The mix makes around 2 dozen small cookies. I dropped the cookie dough by spoonfuls on cookie sheets that I had lined with parchment paper. They held their shape during baking and had nice clean edges. This recipe has the dough cooking at a lower temperature (325 deg.) for 12 to 14 minutes rather than 8 to 9 minutes (like the traditional Toll House recipe).

The cookies were well received by my family taste testers. The most critical (the kids) of the group, thought they were great! Nice crisp cookies and tasty semi sweet morsels that weren't bitter. My husband enjoyed them too, but he prefers the softer chewy richness of the traditional Toll House recipe.

Overall, this is a great cookie mix to have around when you just need to make some chocolate chip cookies. But as my family's resident baker, I've been asked to play more with my alternative flours and try to come with with a chewy rich cookie. What sweet diversions......

Hamburger & Hot Dog Gluten Free Bun Recipe from Bob's Red Mill

After a Saturday full of yard work, I planned on grilling hot dogs and making chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I needed a gluten-free recipe for the hot dog buns and chose the hamburger/hot dog bun recipe from Bob's Red Mill. Due to time considerations, I chose to try one of the Gluten Free Pantry mixes for the chocolate chip cookies.

The hot dog bun recipe has a few additives that I don't use anymore in my gluten free baking, i.e. apple cider vinegar or gelatin. However, thoughts of a crumbly hot dog bun made me pause and think. What if I chose to add was 1/2 tsp. of kuzu powder dissolved in 1/4 cup of the water needed for this recipe? Kuzu or kudzu root is generally used as a thickener in oriental cooking or for desserts, but I thought it might be a good addition to the bun recipe.

The bread dough is primarily brown rice flour, tapioca flour and potato starch. The dough is actually more like a batter which is ooey gooey and very sticky. You will need to make shapes for your buns out of aluminum foil and spray them well with vegetable spray as well as your pan or parchment paper. After they had a chance to rise, I baked them in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.

The flavor of the buns was simple and okay with all the condiments added to the hot dog. As a stand alone bread recipe, it was too bland for my family. We have been eating whole grain or sprouted grain breads before discovering that I have a gluten sensitivity. We all wanted our bread to have a fuller whole wheat type of flavor. We all gave this recipe a thumbs down due to its bland flavor.