Product Review: Pamela's Ginger Cookies with Sliced Almonds

My great-grandmother was an amazing baker. Her cookie recipes especially were amazing, my favorite was her molasses cookies. They had a light, airy texture and somehow always achieved the perfect balance between the molasses and the ginger. I use the past tense referring to the cookies because, of course, I can no longer enjoy them and I haven't yet succeeded in replicating them quite right with gluten-free ingredients. It is a work in progress and I hate to tease my readers, but if I ever do get it right, I can't publish it. Family secret.


But I can recommend a substitute! Pamela's produces a wide-range of gluten-free cookies (often also non-diary) and I just recently tried their Ginger Cookies with Sliced Almonds. The ginger flavor was a little too strong for my palate (spoiled by past tastes of perfect molasses cookies), but they are, after all, ginger cookies and a strong ginger flavor should be expected. The cookies have a nice texture and the sliced almonds are a nice edition. They're neither dry or moist and, therefore, go very well with tea.

This afternoon, I paired my ginger cookies with tea purchased from the Baxter Tea Company, an amazing little, Maine-owned company that sells amazing teas. The Baxter Tea Company is a great business in several respects (small, Maine-owned, sells tea), but what captured my business was that the owner donates ten percent of her profits to maintaining Baxter State Park. That is a cause I whole-heartedly support, especially if I get high-quality loose tea as part of the bargain! This afternoon's tea was Dutchess Grey, a variation on Earl Grey that contains lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon and safflowers. I don't care for the heavy flavor of bergamot in Earl Grey, so this was an excellent selection for me and the spicy citrus flavor complimented my ginger cookies beautifully.

Product Review: Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix

I've enjoyed Pamela's products for several years now, their mixes and baked goods are always safe bets- especially when you're looking for something to satisfy a sweet-tooth! Their Baking and Pancake Mix is a wonderfully versatile product, creating light, fluffy pancakes and moist, yummy cakes and muffins. I always keep a big bag of this mix in my kitchen cupboard because it works in so many recipes (and the recipes on the back are excellent!) and is so easy to use, the mix already contains a combination of brown rice flour, white rice flour, tapioca starch, sweet rice flour, potato starch and xanthan gum. This is the secret to non-gritty and non-crumbly gluten-free baking: xanthan gum and a diverse combination of flours. Having a wide variety of flours in one bag saves space in small kitchens!


Today, I used the Pamela's mix to make blueberry pancakes. I just followed the simple recipe on the bag and in a short time had a plate of light, fluffy blueberry pancakes. I've also had great success with other recipes from the bag. Their straightforward muffin recipe is easily adapted to create blueberry muffins, apple cinnamon muffins, chocolate chip muffins- the sky is the limit. On the first bag of Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix there was an amazing recipe for carrot cake. My gluten-free-phobic brother enjoyed it without complaining and he won't touch anything I tell him is gluten-free (so, I don't tell him until after!). The recipe wasn't included on the second bag- horror! But fortunately, I rescued the old bag from the trash and will reprint it here:

Carrot Cake

• 1/2 cup oil
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 and 1/2 cups grated carrots
• 2 and 1/4 cups Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup walnuts (if you like walnuts in your carrot cake . . .)

Beat oil, eggs and sugar together, mix in remaining ingredients- batter will be thick. Pour into two greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or use two, greased, 8-inch cake pans and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Cool and frost with a cream cheese frosting.