Brownies, Cookies and Cakes, Oh My: A Review of Wegmans Gluten-Free Mixes

There are times in life when you don't have time to cook from scratch, and this can turn into a big problem for a person who can't eat gluten. For the past two weeks, I have been running up against this problem.

I haven't even seen my kitchen, and the kitchen I do have access to doesn't have a lot of the equipment I have at home. I finally decided to look for a few box mixes I could try. I have tried many on the market and the results have been ... mixed. A select few have been good, but boy, the cost is outrageous.

I was at the store and noticed is now selling its own gluten free brownie, cake and cookie box mixes, so I bought a couple to try; the brownie and vanilla cake mix.

My first review will be the brownie mix since brownies are close to my heart. The price is a bit better than most other gluten free mixes on the store shelves. I did like the fact that the chocolate chunks we soy free and the flour mix is a rice flour, cocoa powder, potato starch and cornstarch base.

The box tells you to use two eggs and 7 tbsp of butter. I set the stove to 350 and greased an 8x8 square pan. You need to melt the butter and the chocolate chunks in a small pan or you can use the microwave (they do provide instructions). Next, they tell you to beat the eggs with an electric mixer on medium high for two minutes. I didn't have a mixer, so I used a whisk and tried to get as much air into the eggs as possible. I added the mix to the eggs, started to mix and then added the butter. The texture of the batter is definitely different than the non-gluten brownie mixes but that is normal. I placed it in the oven and cooked it for 27 minutes (every oven is a bit different so check on them during the last few minutes of cooking). They looked good and the smell was even better. You would not realize they were gluten free by looking at them.

I let them cool, cut and then passed them around to people that don't need a special diet. Everyone liked them and I agree the brownies were a hit. The brownies were moist and left no after taste. The only thing I noticed was I could tell rice flour was used but I was looking for it. It was so minor no one would detect it. I was truly impressed and will use this batter again. Stay tuned, in a few days I will review the vanilla cake mix.