Review: Better Batter Gluten Free Flour

Cupcakes and Christmas Lights

If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I've been having a lot of baking struggles lately. I don't know what happened, I feel like last year I was so much better at this. I've baked probably five different cornbreads and thrown away all of them. The last one was almost a success, the flavor was better, but after a day the bread turned into a dense brick.

Last week on a random afternoon I decided to make the trip out to A New Leaf in Needham, MA because I heard it's a mecca of gluten free deliciousness. It really is too, shelf after shelf of gluten free products. I went to get a box of Better Batter gluten free all purpose flour mix. I also knew that they stock Joan's Gluten Free Great Bakes. Their English Muffins are $12 for 6 but they are SO incredibly good that I couldn't resist.

Pardon the iPhone pics:

A new leaf 1

A new leaf 2

So anyway, back to the post at hand. The Better Batter. My first experiment was cornbread. I used a regular cornbread recipe from allrecipes.com and subbed the flour 1:1. I've learned over the years that the key to gluten free baking is in the mixing process and I usually dissolve the sugar in the eggs/milk mixture before adding it to the dry ingredients and then folding the two together very gently. This usually gives me a light fluffy end result. I wasn't paying attention when I made the cornbread and I forgot to do this and ended up with some pretty dense stuff. It tasted good but I ended up throwing it away because it was like a rock after one day.

The next experiment was cupcakes for the New Year's Eve party. I used another basic recipe from allrecipes.com and again subbed the flour 1:1. This time I remembered to dissolve the sugar and it worked perfectly. Light, fluffy cupcakes!!! Not crumbly or gritty, no gluten-free aftertaste. Delicious!!!! I made a chocolate buttercream frosting and that was heaven. I used Earth Balance buttery spread and Almond Breeze unsweetened vanilla milk for the dairy substitutes. I believe the almond milk is what's giving my cupcakes their greyish hue. I am going to use rice milk next time to see what happens. I highly recommend Better Batter, it works perfectly as a 1:1 substitute in your old gluten filled recipes and the taste and texture is fantastic. It even smells like wheat flour in the bag I think. I love it.

Comments

Allie said…
hey jen!! love that first pic! so cool... and i LOOOOVE better batter -- bought my sis a box for christmas!
nikki8 said…
I love that flour! I haven't used anything else since I found it. I'm jealous you can get it in a store. I have to order it online. Glad you had a good experience. I'm going to try the dissolving the sugar technique. I'd never heard of that.
Jen said…
Nikki, I swear the sugar dissolving technique has been an amazing discovery. If you don't dissolve the sugar first, the end result tends to be more dense and you get more of a crust on the top of cakes and cupcakes. But dissolve the sugar and the end result tends to be lighter and fluffier!!

Thanks Allie!!
Kerrie @ TFK said…
Have you tried domata yet? It was my fave gf flour mix....

Popular Posts