Mixed Review: Cherrybrook Kitchen's Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted by Lucy Baker, October 9, 2010 at 3:00 PM

Ever wonder about a boxed mix you've seen in the store? Is it any good? Could it replace something you'd otherwise make from scratch? Welcome to Mixed Review, where the whole point is putting boxed mixes to the test! —The Mgmt.

Even for seasoned pastry chefs, baking gluten-free desserts is no easy task. And for the rest of us, it can border on impossible--show me the supermarket aisle that stocks white rice flour and xanthan gum. That's why gluten-free mixes, when they're good, can be important kitchen staples. (Suddenly, after years of forgoing sweets, you can have cake and cookies again!). The trouble is that they're often not good: oddly textured, gummy, and artificial tasting.

A friend of mine who has a wheat-intolerant kid raves about Cherrybrook Kitchen, a Massachusetts-based company that produces a line of all natural baking mixes that are wheat-, peanut-, egg-, and gluten-free. (You can also make then dairy-free and vegan by substituting margarine or vegetable oil for the butter.) I decided to give their classic chocolate chip cookies ($5.45) a whirl.

To prepare the mix, I combined the contents of the box with 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup softened butter, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla in a large bowl. I stirred and kneaded it with a wooden spoon until it came together into a normal-looking, if rather shaggy, dough. As I rolled the dough into balls, I noted how sticky it was. Clumps adhered themselves to my fingers--so much so that I had to pause and wash my hands after forming every three or four balls.

I baked the cookies at 375°F for 10 minutes, until they were just beginning to turn golden-brown at the edges. After letting them cool a bit, I selected the largest one with the most visible chocolate chips and took a bite.

The texture was light and crumbly--a pleasant surprise, as I've had my fair share of gluten-free cookies that were heavy as a brick. The edges were crispy and the center, if not exactly "doughy," was soft and had a clean, buttery taste. In fact, the overall flavor of the cookie was very pure, with notes of vanilla and brown sugar. My only complaint was with the chocolate chips: they weren't very melty, and they didn't pack much punch. That said, I don't think I've ever had dairy-free chocolate that I did like.

Overall, the Cherrybrook Kitchen mix yielded cookies that I would deem excellent when compared to other gluten-free mixes I've sampled, and above average when compared to regular cookie mixes. I fed them to several friends who said they would never have guessed they were gluten-free. High praise.

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Tags: chocolate chip cookies, cookies, gluten-free, Mixed Review