Product Review: Josie's Best & Metta's Gluten Free Mixes

 As part of glutenfreetop10's participation in the online Nourished Festival (running through tomorrow- it's free!), Metta Gluten Free Flour and Josie's Best Gluten Free Mixes sent me some of their products to try. 

The recipes I used were from my daughter's Raddish Kids cooking club subscription. She has been a member for nearly 2 years and it has been one of our best investments as she has really expanded her cooking skills and we've gotten to eat some great food too. Raddish provides gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegetarian and vegan dietary modifications for each recipe in the subscription so we've been able to make each one gluten free.

Josie's Best Gluten Free Mixes

Josie's Best sent me 2 mixes to try: "The Muffin and More" and "The Pancake". I started with "The Muffin and More" which is an all purpose mix which can be substituted 1:1 with all purpose flour in recipes. This mix is also gmo-free and contains potato starch, brown rice, sorghum, tapioca starch and xanthan gum. I used "The Muffin and More" to make the Apple Cider Doughnuts recipe from my daughter's September Raddish kit. (Note I cannot share the subscription recipes, only the bonus bites which are published on the Raddish web site). My daughter had made this recipe earlier in the month with our standard mix so again. I had a basis to compare. In my hastiness to multitask that morning, I did not discover until the doughnuts were in the oven that I had left the melted butter in the microwave. Oh no! I decided to use that butter to dip the finished doughnuts in cinnamon sugar which was the next step anyway. Very surprisingly, we liked the doughnuts almost as much as the prior batch! I could not believe it! I do not know how much was "The Muffin & More" carrying the recipe but wow. 

For "The Pancake", I made the pancake recipe printed on the bag. This mix includes potato starch, brown rice, sorghum,  organic cane sugar, tapioca starch, baking powder, salt and xanthan gum.  I supplied the eggs, oil, milk and optional vanilla.  All in all, it was a great recipe. I decided to use the optional vanilla which I could really taste and enjoyed. Texture-wise these pancakes reminded me of gluten pancakes I'd get at my local pancake house. They also cooked on the griddle with ease (if you've ever had issues getting pancakes to cook evenly, you know what I'm talking about). I did let the batter sit on the counter for 90 minutes before cooking - unbeknownst to me, my family chose to sleep in that morning. It was well worth the wait. I went through most of the 18oz bags with these recipes so if you bake regularly, I definitely recommend purchasing the 5 pound packages at their web site. Josie's Best also make two other varieties: "The Waffle" and "The Crepe".  

Metta Gluten Free Flour

The Metta Gluten Free flour includes non-GMO brown rice, sorghum, tapioca, teff, arrowroot, potato, flaxseed and xanthan gum. It has a whopping 3 grams of fiber per 1/4 cup whereas my go-to mix has zero grams of fiber. 

 

I decided to use the September "bonus bite" recipe for Pumpkin Waffles to try out the Metta Gluten Free Flour blend. I had watched my daughter make this recipe one time before with a different flour mix so I knew the recipe and the only substitution I had to make was to replace all purpose flour with a gluten free flour blend. As the Metta mix has much more fiber than my standard starchy mix,  I had to add some milk to the batter to get a good consistency for waffles. Waffle batter you want thick but more gloppy than firm (technical terms...). Without the extra milk, I suspect the waffles would have come out as desnse as a hockey puck.  But what's important is how did they turn out? The answer is fantastic - they had a better texture than the waffles I made with my other flour blend - a nice bite (like you're puncturing a seal) while soft on the inside. So I definitely recommend Metta flour for recipes where you are making a batter than you can adjust the liquid content for. I would not use this for baked breads or cakes however unless you understand enough about the recipe to know how to adjust liquids. I do plan to use it for flatbreads as it seems it would be perfect and will use it again for pancakes and waffles. You can purchase Metta Gluten Free flour at their web site which also has a great set of recipes I plan to try. I'm most excited to make gluten free pani puri, as that is one snack I haven't eaten since having to give up gluten in 2007.  If you are unfamiliar with chaat, pani puri are little cups filed with spices, potatoes and chickpeas with a delicious tamarind sauce. I will update this review once I've tried it.