Betty Crocker Gluten Free Fun

A few weeks ago one of my readers won the Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Prize Pack sponsored by MyBlogSpark. I asked her if she wanted to review her winnings and she was excited to contribute to Gluten-Free Fun. Thank you to Debbie Gilbert for her review and her delicious looking picture!

I was very happy to win the recent Betty Crocker Gluten Free prize package, which included their GF mixes for chocolate chip cookies, brownies, vanilla and chocolate cake and Bisquick. The prize arrive at a time I really needed a pick-me-up and I've been having fun with it!

I had previously tried the brownie mix which is insanely good! What I love about it is not only the taste, but also the texture. For me, the problem with so many gluten free baked goods is the texture (they're are dense or hard or crumbly). But the Betty Crocker mixes taste and feel like real food. Yes, I use the word 'real' still, because I've been diagnosed for just over a year and am still on my learning (and acceptance) curve. I have been very strictly gluten free since getting my diagnosis, but I still miss many of my old favorites - I can't even walk on the same side of the street as my favorite, old (now off-limits) pizza place. So finding the Betty Crocker mixes has been great for me and helped me feel less deprived.

So hmmm, I wondered... what to do first when the package arrived?!?: Then I looked at the gluten free Bisquick box and saw the pancake recipe and suddenly I wanted some.

Confession time: After I was diagnosed with Celiac last year, I started getting irrationally angry at the sight of those iHop commercials which run during the news every evening; the ones where they show the close-up pictures of those luscious pancake dishes. I say 'irrationally' because I've never even been to an iHop, wouldn't know where to find one, and haven't even had pancakes in (probably) 20 years. But suddenly, now that this was no longer a possibility for me, it upset me.

With that inspiration, I set out to make myself a pancake brunch. Like all Betty Crocker mixes, they are so easy, they are basically fool-proof, hence, perfect for me. The results: 

The Bisquick GF pancakes are light and fluffy and rather terrific. Unlike the iHop commercials, I didn't stuff mine with cheesecake; instead I topped them with fresh strawberries and greek yogurt and drizzled them with GF vanilla agave syrup. YUM! And something else that worked well: The recipe on the Bisquick box makes 10 pancakes - too much just for me. So I wrapped up the extra pancakes in the fridge overnight, and the next day popped them in the toaster to see what would happen - and they came out even better - A little crispy on the outside - perfection!

OK, so now I no longer have to become irrationally angry when I'm watching TV and see those iHop commercials. I'm not missing anything.

Thank you to Erin and Betty Crocker for restoring my pancake sanity! Now Betty, please get to work on a Ray's Pizza mix so I can go back to walking down the west side of 6th Avenue. Thank you.

Debbie Gilbert AKA @GothamTomato