Product Review: Pamel's Bread Mix and Flour Blend

Recipe Title: Pamela's Amazing Bread
Recipe Link: http://www.pamelasproducts.com/recipes/amazingbread.html
Product Link: http://www.pamelasproducts.com/ProductsMIXES.html#BREAD
Status: Approved
Rating: 10/10

Jen's Notes: One of these days, I'm going to start taking my own food pictures. Soon, my lovelies, soon.

In the mean time, you can occupy yourself with another product review from your favorite reviewer (right? right??). As you know, I've been trying to find a great bread recipe so that my adoring husband can have a sandwich for lunch. So far, it hasn't gone too well. So this week, I did the unthinkable.

I bought a mix.

I know, I know. It's shocking. I've always been a from-scratch kind of baker, and here I am buying a mix. It broke my heart to do it, but what kind of wife would I be if I let the hubby eat plain old meat cheese for lunch? See, you couldn't do it either. But enough chatter. On to the review!

Short summary: Awesome. It was easy-peezy to make, especially if you have a bread machine. I would recommend whisking your eggs together first, as always. Then it's just dump liquids + mix + yeast into the bread machine pan, set to desired cycle and go do something else for three hours. Really, the hardest part about making this recipe was hauling out the bread machine and getting the pan snapped back into place.

The flavor, you ask? Incredible. This was, much to my chagrin, the best gluten-free bread I've had so far. With last week's pudding catastrophe still fresh in my mind, you can only imagine the joy I felt when I watched the dough start to come together in the bread machine, and it actually looked like dough! Real, honest-to-goodness dough. And it tastes like bread too. Yes, it even works for sandwiches. Hubby has been happily having real sandwiches all week with this bread. This bread is still a bit dense, so he only uses one slice of bread folded over. I'm going to try adding an extra egg to see if that lightens things up a bit.

My only complaint is the price. The mix (at my grocery store, anyways) is about $6 per small bag, and that bag only makes one loaf. So the quest for the perfect bread recipe will continue, but I've promised hubby to keep making this bread until I can find a suitable from-scratch alternative. I'm planning to do some fiddling in the kitchen this weekend, so keep your eyes peeled!

Also, I'll throw in a little side review today. If you're like me, and have problems slicing bread evenly, you might want to consider getting a slicer. I spent an hour or two searching online, and I believe I've found the most bang for your buck in Rival's Fold-Up Food Slicer. It's only $40, and it allows you to set the slicer to your desired thickness. It folds up too, so that makes it a little easier to store. Hang on to the instruction book for awhile, though, or you might forget how to put it back together (I did). I didn't have any problem using it, and one nice feature is that you have to hold down two buttons together to get the blade to turn -- definitely a plus if you have a little one running around, and you don't want them to sever their limbs. I can't speak to its durability just yet, since we've only had it for a week, but I like it quite a bit so far. You will need to order it online, though, because Wal-Mart doesn't carry it in the store.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 3.5 hours
Start to Finish: 3.5 hours + 5 minutes

Product Review: Pamela's Chocolate Brownie Mix

Recipe Title: Pamela's Irresistible Chocolate Brownies
Recipe Link: http://www.pamelasproducts.com/recipes/pamirrebrownies.html
Product Link: http://www.pamelasproducts.com/ProductsMIXES.html#CBM
Status: Vetoed
Rating: 3/10

Jen's Notes: On Easter Sunday, I decided to try out the gluten-free brownie mix that's been sitting in my pantry for a few weeks now. We were going over to my mom's for Easter lunch, and I knew there would be at least one dessert there that was just chock full of gluten. So it seemed like a good idea to have a (hopefully) tasty alternative for my husband.

The brownies were pretty simple to make. One nice thing about this mix is that there are a variety of recipes on the bag, so you should be able to make them with whatever ingredients you have on hand. There's a recipe using butter, another using only oil, etc. The cook time, however, was quite a bit longer than the 18 minutes prescribed by the recipes on the bag. Mine ended up cooking for about 30 minutes before the toothpick came out clean.

When it was all said and done, though, the flavor was just not there. The texture was grainy, but I could have lived with that if that was the only problem. The brownies also had a strange metallic aftertaste. I felt a bit like I was munching on aluminum foil. Chocolately aluminum foil, at least. According to my brutally honest little brother, this was the "worst thing you've ever made." These brownies turned out to be QUITE resistable, contrary to the recipe title. Only four of us were brave enough to try one, and none of us liked them. The other half of the brownies went into the trash.

Another complaint I had was the amount of brownies produced. This didn't end up being an issue for us, but considering that the mix was $6, I would like to get more than eight normal-sized brownies out of it. Imagine if we had actually liked them -- it wouldn't have made enough brownies to feed everyone, and our holiday crew is only 8 people (in my family, feeding everyone requires 2x per item per person).

If you are feeling creative, you might be able to make this edible by adding some sugar or honey to the mix, or maybe adding a cream cheese frosting. If you're going to use this mix, you'll need to do something to cover up that metallic flavor. As for us ... well, you know you'll be the first to know when I find some tasty brownies!

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Start to Finish: 35 minutes