Bisquick Gluten Free Pancake and Baking Mix. $4.49 per 16-ounce box.
Bonnie: Traditional Bisquick is a premixed baking product consisting of flour, shortening, salt and leavening. It was originally intended for making biscuits; today, it's used for many baked goods, including cookies, pizza, cake and pancakes. This new gluten-free version is not Bisquick in its traditional sense, as it's missing the shortening. Instead it's a blend of rice flour, sugar and leavening. It works fine for pancakes with, of course, the addition of that missing fat.
Bisquick Gluten Free Pancake and Baking Mix is convenient and comes with lots of recipes, both on the box and on Betty Crocker's Bisquick website. But those who are gluten-intolerant or have celiac disease will pay dearly for this help and convenience, as it costs more than twice as much per ounce as traditional Bisquick.
Carolyn: Bisquick was invented by a train chef who combined flour, lard, baking powder and salt ahead of time and set it aside in the icebox to help him quickly whip up biscuits for late-boarding passengers. The baking mix's name is a portmanteau word derived from the words "biscuit" and "quick."
I doubt that chef would recognize (or like) the namesake biscuits produced by Bisquick's new gluten-free version. The texture resembles cornmeal, and the biscuits also have an eggy smell and look, although they're not overly heavy and do brown up nicely. In other words, they're not bad; they're just not really biscuits.
Celiac-sufferers are probably used to this with their baked goods and may have even come to expect it, but those who are familiar with traditional Bisquick may be disappointed to find that this new gluten-free version is missing its fat. I'm not sure if this is because Betty Crocker is trying to save money, or because adding fat to rice flour is not as technically easy as adding it to wheat, but it makes Bisquick Gluten Free less convenient and cost-effective (and it is already quite a bit more expensive than regular).
Some Bisquick website recipes, including the gluten-free version of the popular Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, don't require adding extra fat. But those who would use this primarily for biscuits and pancakes and other recipes that do call for it might be better off using rice flour and a gluten-free cookbook.
Jovial Whole Grain Einkorn Pasta. Spaghetti, Linguine, Penne Rigate, Rigatoni, and Fusilli. $3.39 to $3.69 per 12-ounce box.
Bonnie: Einkorn, the oldest cultivated wheat in the world, is now available as pasta from Italy under the Jovial label. It's a whole grain, packed with more vitamins, minerals and fiber than regular durum whole-wheat pasta, and has twice durum's antioxidant power, including as much lutein as a whole egg. What's more, early studies suggest einkorn might be tolerable for celiac sufferers.
The pasta is a bit chewier than regular whole-wheat pasta, but tastes similar — in other words, fine. The real question has to do with price: Is this Jovial Einkorn pasta really worth $4.50 to $5 a pound, given all the many less-expensive sources of its same vitamins, minerals and antioxidants?
Carolyn: In the past few years, pasta-makers have had their food scientists working overtime figuring out new ways to cram pasta full of extra nutrients (see our previous reviews of Ronzoni Garden Delight, Smart Taste, Healthy Harvest and Barilla Whole Grain). But the Jovial company has instead simply used an older wheat variety that naturally has more nutrients.
Heirloom veggies and grains like einkorn usually get abandoned, not because they don't taste good or aren't good for you, but because of their looks, durability and, especially, how expensive they are to grow and harvest. So it should be no surprise that this pasta made from better-for-you wheat costs more.
To answer Bonnie's question: No. As much like regular whole-wheat pasta as this tastes (i.e. not as good as plain pasta, but not bad), Jovial Einkorn Pasta probably isn't worth the extra money over regular, cheaper whole-wheat or regular, even cheaper, white-flour pasta to me. But Whole Foods shoppers will probably feel differently.
KC Masterpiece Sauces and Marinades. Southern Style Barbecue Sauce, and Buffalo Marinade. $1.89 per 18-ounce and $2.99 per 28-ounce bottle of sauce, and $2.99 per 16-ounce bottle of marinade.
Bonnie: I don't think this new KC Masterpiece marinade contains enough heat to truly be called Buffalo. It might be fine for folks who like only a little spicy heat, but everyone else should supplement it with more cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce.
The also-new Southern Style Barbecue Sauce is all about sugar — 7 grams of it per tablespoon — mainly from high-fructose corn syrup. Because of sugar's potential to caramelize and burn, be sure to apply this sauce toward the end of your barbecuing or broiling time.
Besides flavor, both also add sodium. The barbecue sauce has 370 milligrams, the marinade 500 milligrams per two tablespoons.
Carolyn: Kansas City physician and barbecue hobbyist Rich Davis started KC Masterpiece in the late 1970s as a way to market his award-winning sauce. (The first two letters in the company name stand for Kansas City.) They've stuck like molasses to their home city's style of sauce base ever since, apparently needing a really good reason to stray, and they've found it with this new thinner, hotter and more vinegary East Carolina-like sauce.
As a New England native now residing in the Mid-Atlantic, I'm not qualified to vouch for this Southern Style sauce's authenticity, but I can tell you that it's complex, interesting and delicious.
The company's simultaneously launched Buffalo Marinade is also solid, delivering the namesake Buffalo taste along with just the right amount of subtle heat.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. She has an interactive site (www.biteofthebest.com) about products she recommends. Follow her on Twitter: BonnieBOTB. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book" (Running Press). Each week they critique three new food items.
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