Gluten free baking!!
Now, I don’t know much about it to be honest, thankfully I don’t have a gluten allergy.
I do have other allergies though like most nuts, bananas, onions, peaches and in general lots of tasty tasty things.
Personally, if I want to eat something and I happen to be allergic to it I will substitute it with something else that is equally tasty with less chance of killing me or I will make it myself, removing the offending killer if it’s not integral to the recipe.
Today though, you need not go to the effort of making it allergy friendly for yourself or go without that which you desire with the many “free from” products in stores.
These products, which take out popular allergens from food that would usually have them in, are put at high high prices and are very convenient for those too lazy to cook themselves.
When it comes to an allergy with nuts, in baked goods for example, it is easy enough to remove a few chopped nuts without too much of a change.
Unless a nut flour is used like almond flour the science will stay about the same.
When you are trying to remove the key ingredient for that recipe though, like flour in a cookie, it’s a lot more tricky.
Now, I’ve never eaten anything gluten free (that usually has gluten in of course) so I thought I would test the water and see how the world of gluten free cookie mixes was coming along.
This one I found for 49p, instead of it’s usual £1.99 price tag.
Considering a pre-made pack of tasty cookies is about £1 the RRP is already looking pricey.
The cookies on the pack look very tasty indeed and it is stated that they are “full of flavour” and “free of gluten”.
We can only hope on the flavor aspect.
Unfortunately my hope got knocked quite a bit when I saw the ingredients in these cookies.
First off, it’s a good rule of thumb that the more ingredients on a package, the worse for you and with 15 ingredients, not including what’s in the chocolate chips, it’s not looking good health wise.
That’s not to mention what the ingredients are.
The first ingredient is sugar, not great, but what’s that ingredient half way down?
….mashed potato flakes?!?!?!
Okay, I don’t usually put a sprinkling of potato in my cookies but…lets keep an open mind, potato doesn’t taste like much, right?
This mix needed me to add an egg and 70g of margarine to turn the strangely greyish powder into a cookie batter.
I have to say, the powder smells awful.
The only way I can describe it is….it smells like a pet shop.
That smell that every pet shop everywhere seems to have but you have no idea what in particular it is.
EW!
Also, I’m not sure why margarine is called for instead of butter, just because you have an allergy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a health nut and as we could see by the ingredients it’s not really going to help health wise with everything already in there.
Plus, margarine is TERRIBLE for cookies and biscuits, believe me, I know from experience.
Still, we will see what the magic of the mix will do!
Yum, it’s finally looking like you’d expect a chocolate cookie to look!
Go team cookie!!
The strange gray color of the mix has disappeared and it looks tasty and chocolatey!
The recipe says to mix it into a workable dough and then roll the dough into a stick and roll that in cling film.
That’s not going to happen.
The dough is so sticky there is no chance.
Usually I’d add a little more flour but….that mightttt be cheating and a little fatal in this instance.
I rolled the super sticky dough as best as I could in some cling film and then placed it into the fridge for an hour as instructed.
After cooling it says to cut the roll into 1/2 centimeter pieces then place them on a greased baking tray.
They turned out like this.
I’m pretty sure they were supposed to be rounds but as I said earlier, margarine is a terrible idea for this method of making cookies purely because it doesn’t harden like butter does and just “squishes” instead.
Still, I’m going to forgive them in this instance and fix them a bit before they are baked, after all they are supposed to be cookies and not…erm….fingers?
I curled them around to make sort of rounds and pressed them down in the middle.
I won’t say what they look like…..
Off you go to the oven my pretties!
I will see you in 8-10 minutes!
Hello cookies!
They look quite nice really, the crackle on the top looks lovely!
I left them to cool and then dove in.
That is where the loveliness ended.
Oh dear.
That pet shop flavor.
They taste like hamsters have been rolling in the mix.
I’m not sure double chocolate cookies are really the right name for these, hamster flavoured cookies of doom?
I think that’s more accurate.
I have no idea what makes that very weird flavor come through but I can say it’s nottttttt good.
I’m pretty sure if this was my only idea of what cookies tasted like I would never eat a cookie again.
I’m not sure if it is possible to get a tasty gluten free cookie but I can tell you that these Feel Free Gluten Free Double Chocolate Cookies are bloody revolting and they should not be eaten at any time.
They officially get my “Worst cookie I’ve ever eaten” award.
Considering they are double chocolate that is saying something, even chocolate couldn’t save these, though the nicest part of them is the chocolate chips.
All in all, if you have a gluten allergy and are craving a cookie, don’t look here, trust me.
You’re better off without one.
