Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Mixes Coming to a Store Near You
Thursday July 2, 2009
How hard is it to perfect a gluten-free recipe? The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Jodi Benson, Director of Baking Products Research and Development at General Mills. The company is rolling out the new Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Mixes nationwide this month.
Ms. Benson told the WSJ that General Mills "food scientists spent three months baking over 1000 pans of cakes, cookies and brownies in the process of conducting over 75 experiments using different gluten-free ingredient formulations."
Early in development the yellow cake mix caused scientists problems when "the rice-based cake mix wouldn't rise and left moist matter in the bottom of the pan." I know the feeling! So gluten-free cooks, don't be too hard on yourselves when you create a flop. World-class food scientists experience gluten-free flops too.
The Betty Crocker Gluten-Free product line includes:
- Betty Crocker® Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix
- Betty Crocker® Gluten Free Devil’s Food Cake Mix
- Betty Crocker® Gluten Free Brownie Mix
- Betty Crocker® Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
Hey Teri, I tried the Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake Mix this evening. I didn’t even know they were making them, and I stumbled across one box at Kroger this afternoon, so I snapped it up. It cost me $4.68, as opposed to the $2.49 I would have spent on a regular Betty Crocker cake mix.
The texture was nice — it’s light and fluffy, not dense like a lot of gluten free stuff. It wasn’t as chocolatey as I would have liked it to be, and certainly not as chocolatey as a regular, non-GF Devils Food mix. However, it wasn’t bad, and I think if I’d glopped some vanilla ice cream or some frosting on the top, it might have been more flavorful.
On the whole, while I thought it was better than some GF mixes, it still wasn’t quite as good as a Betty Crocker product should have been. I’d give it 6 or maybe 7 out of 10.
patti
Thanks for the info on the new BC Devil’s Food Chocolate cake mix Patti. Groceries in my area aren’t carrying the new mixes yet so I haven’t tried them. Too bad they are so much more costly than “regular” mixes.
Teri
Thanks for the review Patti. I still haven’t tried the BC mixes…