Canyon Bakehouse Review and Giveaway

When I get a really delicious gluten-free product, I either eat the whole thing immediately or I ration it out to last as long as possible. My June delivery of the newest products in the Canyon Bakehouse gluten-free line was a little bit of both. I received Brownie Bites, Plain Bagels, and Everything Bagels.

I tried to make the new Brownie Bites last but that did not happen. My boyfriend Victor and I devoured them. They were soft, delicious, chocolatey goodness. The bagels, on the other hand, were rationed out because I just couldn't eat eight bagels in a row. Being a New Yorker and a carb-freak, the plain bagels were perfect to fill my carb cravings. They were thick but not too dense and made a great addition to breakfast. My favorite way to eat them is with a little almond butter or with some cheese and turkey bacon. So yum!

According to Canyon Bakehouse:

Similar to their existing gluten-free breads, the new brownies and bagels are made with 100% whole grains and have a taste and texture just like “real” bagels and brownies. 

• Made with 100% whole grains and real food ingredients such as extra virgin olive oil, organic agave and eggs.

• No artificial additives and fillers.

•  Certified Gluten-Free and do not contain dairy, soy or nuts.

• No GMOs.

Canyon Bakehouse co-founder Christi Skow, who inspired the company’s creation when she was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2007 explained that, “the taste and texture are so similar to ‘real’ bagels and brownies no one will even know they’re gluten free.  Our bagels and brownies are perfect for families and households with gluten-free and gluten-full eaters since they will no longer need to buy two sets of these staples.” 

All three new products are now available for online purchase and at Target stores nationwide.

Prior to receiving these samples, I can't remember ever eating Canyon Bakehouse. Now that they are on my radar, I am starting to notice their product line in many local markets. I would definitely buy the bagels and brownie bites again. The products are made in a dedicated gluten-free facility and use no GMO ingredients. Thank you Canyon Bakehouse for the delicious samples.

Want to win a prize pack of the three newest Canyon Bakehouse products? It's simple, just enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.




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It's National (GF) Bagel Day

When Celiac New Yorkers are told they need to be gluten-free, without a doubt the things I hear them complain about missing most are bagels. New Yorkers and bagels are like fish and water, they just go together. Although I have been Celiac for almost my entire life, I did cheat when I was WAAAAYYY younger and tried some real Long Island bagels. They're good, but they also made me really sick.

Fast forward 30 years and let's talk gluten-free bagels...

One of my favorite gluten-free bagels on the market is from Joan's GF Great Bakes. Today, February 9, is National Bagel Day. In honor of this day, why don't you buy yourself some gluten-free bagels from my friend Joan?? Pop her Everything Bagels in the over for 20 minutes and you have some gluten-free deliciousness at your fingertips.

You can currently find Joan's GF Great Bakes at stores in CT, IL, MA, NJ, NY, OH, and PA. You can also order online at www.gfgreatbakes.com. All products are shipped frozen.

Want a 10% discount on Joan's GF Great Bakes? Use code gfreefun at checkout for online orders only.

Joan's GF Great Bakes
90 E. Merrick Rd.
Freeport NY 11520
516-804-5600

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JoansGF
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/joansgf

El's Gluten-Free Snacks Fill the Savory Void

Did you ever eat a gluten-free snack that you didn't realize you always wanted but never had? Sounds weird, but I did and it was El's Bagel Crisps. I've seen gluten-filled bagel chips in the delis throughout NYC, but I never gave them a second thought. When Candice from Embrace G-Free tweeted about El's Gluten Free Snacks and I said I wanted to try them, El's responded immediately and sent me samples. I was so excited when two free samples of their snack bags showed up at my office a few weeks ago.

I dug right into the Bagel Crisps mainly because I never had them before. As a lifelong celiac, there are many foods I have never tried which always seems to surprise people. But being gluten-free for 30 years had its limitations back in the 1980s, but certainly not today. With products like El's Bagel Crisps, the gluten-free snack market is growing albeit slowly. El's Bagel Crisps did not disappoint. These crisps were crunchy, flavorful, and downright good. So good in fact that I had to put them away in order to avoid eating the entire bag. By day 2, they were gone!

Next up were the El's Medleys. When I opened the bag I thought "CHEX MIX?!?!" because that is exactly what it looked like minus the Chex. The medleys had gluten-free bagel chips, corn nuts, corn chips, potato chips and pretzels in a flavorful spice mix. I only have one word for these El's Medleys: DELICIOUS! Seriously, this was one of the best savory gluten-free snacks that I ever had. I can imagine this is what the commercially available Chex mixes taste like but only better because they are all gluten-free including the seasonings.

I think El's Gluten Free Snacks hit the jackpot in creating a snack that was totally absent from the gluten-free world. They filled a void that I didn't even realize was there until I had their delicious bagel crisps and medleys.

Here is some more information about El's Gluten Free Snacks:

After more than a year of recipe development and testing El’s is proud to offer our Bagel Snaps, a gluten free bagel chip which we make entirely by hand and which is the only gf bagel chip on the market, and our Medleys snack mix which incorporates our Snaps and other gluten free ingredients, all baked in our own zesty coating. 

El’s snacks are:

• Gluten Free
• All Natural
• Whole Grain
• Free of Dairy
• Free of Eggs
• Nut free
• Non-GMO
• Vegan
• A good source of Omega 3’s.
• All batches are tested for less than 5 PPM of gluten.

You can see more information on our Snaps and Medleys at www.elskitchen.com.

Joan's GF Great Bakes in the Washington Post

I am a huge fan of Joan's GF Great Bakes. Not only are they a Long Island company, but they produce delicious gluten-free products and have an awesome family and staff. Joan puts her heart into her products and started baking gluten-free goodies for her Celiac grandsons. I am thrilled that they are getting national press in today's Washington Post. Congratulations to Joan and her GF Great Bakes.



The Hole-y Grail: A GF Bagel Worth Schmearing

If you are on the gluten-free eating plan or live with someone who is, I bet there’s an empty space in your brunch buffet -- say, right where the toasted, chewy sesame seed bagel halves would be.

The staff here at AWCE has received enough samples of GF baked goods to tell that their overall quality is improving. Still, cardboard and sand come up way too often as accurate descriptors.

Leave it to a Jewish bubbe to fix things. Ten years ago, when Joan Popkin’s twin grandsons were toddlers, they gnawed on certain foodstuffs and got a little sick. The Long Island homemaker with a degree in health education felt like she was watching a rerun of what had happened when their father (her oldest son) was young. The symptoms stopped for all three once their diets were wheat-free.

Although Popkin had never been much of a baker, she says she began testing and developing breads, muffins, cakes and cookies that her family could enjoy. She quickly nixed the use of soy products (“hated the smell of them,” she says), and lots of trial runs went straight into the garbage can.

Now her grandsons are 12 (“they come and sweep the floor in the bakery!” she says), and Popkin’s an entrepreneur (“having the time of my life,” she says). Joan’s GF Great Bakes has its own commercial kitchen in Bellmore, N.Y., near her home in Merrick, but there’s nary a humming Hobart. She has a staff of seven who bake in small batches and use stand mixers like yours and mine to blend rice and tapioca and garbanzo bean flours; nonfat proteins such as whey powder; egg whites, and very little dairy.

Her bagels are her biggest sellers; six varieties that come in a package of five for less than $7. Even cinnamon raisin.

Popkin, 64, and various relatives attend plenty of food/trade shows these days. I met her at the Gluten-Free Spree in early May and tasted samples that suggested neither cardboard nor sand.

But what would a real connoisseur make of GF Great Bakes, I wondered? I presented Joan’s frozen bagels, English muffins and Sicilian pizza to Erin Hartigan, D.C.’s own Gluten Freebird.

“I was wowed,” she chirped. “The instructions are a bit more finicky than typical GF breads (microwave defrosting before toasting or baking). But I think the end result is more than worth that bit of extra effort.” All the samples I gave her passed Freebird’s texture/moisture/consistency test. She ate them hot and buttered, and also cooled. Her verdict: two snaps up.

The ’za was her favorite: “I don’t really buy frozen pizza, so I split it with my gluten-eating boyfriend. He was equally impressed. I was excited that the cheese had dairy ..... and that the crust had herbs in it.” Popkin uses a McCormick’s blend of Italian spices and some Parmesan cheese in the pizza dough (“one piece has 34 grams of protein in it,” she says).

Freebird did not quite sing a song of Joan’s English muffins, though their texture still made the grade. Our GF consumer missed a characteristic yeasty flavor and slight sourness she remembered from her days of eating regular English muffins. Popkin says hers are egg-, dairy- and soy-free; it’s tough to create lots of flavor with so much taken out (“put a little salty butter on it -- that’ll take care of any flavor deficit,” she says).

And so the GF empire grows. Popkin keeps testing a challah bread (“can’t get it to be consistent,” she says). Her egg-, dairy- and soy-free Italian bread will debut in six weeks (“it still tastes like Grandma made it,” she says).

Joan’s GF Great Bakes ships across the country and is sold in 80 stores; mostly small family supermarket chains. Looks like the closest local store to carry her products is David’s Natural Market in Gambrills, Md.

-- Bonnie Benwick