Betty Crocker Gluten Free Mixes and Giveaway

Contest has ended: Sarah S. is the winner!

I was contacted by MyBlogSpark to see if I would be interested in reviewing the Betty Crocker Gluten Free Baking Mixes.  I was all about it because I like baking, but don’t want to mess with mixing different gluten-free flours, so I prefer mixes for things like cake and cupcakes.

MyBlogSpark sent me baking tool set with a rolling pin, pastry brush, spatula, and timer, and an 8″ Square Cake Pan – which was perfect because I realized a month ago that I didn’t own an 8″ square pan.  The best part is that MyBlogSpark is going to send one of my readers the same gift set with a value of $60, to get them all set up for baking.  See entry details at the bottom!

Back to the baking…
In addition to the gluten free cake, cookie, and brownie mixes, Betty Crocker now offers Gluten Free Sugar Cookie mix and All-Purpose Gluten Free Rice Flour Blend.  I’ll definitely be making the Gluten Free Sugar Cookies this coming holiday season, but for now I wanted to make the Banana Bread that MyBlogSpark recommended with the Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix. (note: this pic below is a provided picture – mine wouldn’t have looked so good or been sliced so nicely)

I already had a Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix in my pantry, so I was going to use that because Chocolate Banana Bread sounds awesome.  I took the bananas and mix when I went out of town to visit my family with the intention of making the Chocolate Banana Bread, but instead used the Chocolate Cake Mix to make a birthday cake for my sister.  I wish I would have taken a picture because I know my readers have been impressed with my cake decorating in the past (complete sarcasm).  I was just going to spell out her name – Jackie – in m&m’s on top.  Simple enough, right?  Well, I didn’t start it far enough to the left and had made the letters too big, so by the time I got to the C, I realized I was going to run out of room.  After trouble-shooting with another sister, I ended up writing JAC – E.  Yep, sound it out – it’s still Jackie.  This is what happens when people let someone who writes like a 3-grader decorate a cake.  There was also a non-gluten-free yellow cake made since there were a lot of people there and only my mom and I need to eat gluten free – and most people preferred the Betty Crocker Gluten free Chocolate Cake over the other one.  I couldn’t have the regular cake, so I can’t compare, but the people who tried the Chocolate Cake thought it tasted great and would have never guessed it was gluten free.

I picked up a box of Better Crocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix at the store when I got back to town to make the Banana Bread recipe.  I always have extra-ripe frozen bananas because I buy and freeze them when I see them for a reduced price.  I can’t leave well-enough alone with a recipe, so decided to make the bread recipe into muffins, mostly because I don’t like slicing bread.  And while I was looking for the recipe, I saw a recipe on the Betty Crocker website for Gluten Free Banana Cupcakes with Browned Butter Frosting.  I knew I HAD to make the frosting, because I love browned butter in things.  I make buttercream frosting regularly, but never thought to brown the butter first!

The Banana Bread Muffins were SO simple to make, and I mixed up the frosting recipe while the muffins were baking.  The result of these together was awesome.  The muffins taste like cupcakes, with or without the frosting.  I’m sure it would have been so good in bread form too!

Looking good…

Looking better….

Looking and tasting amazing!

While I was eating mine, my husband took it from my hand (which is brave to do to a pregnant lady), tore the bottom of the muffin off and put the bottom of the muffin on top of the frosting – so it was like a sandwich with the frosting in the middle.  Brilliant!  I took a picture the next day to demonstrate.  Ignore the fact that the camera focused on the grass and not the muffin.

If you can’t find the mixes you want in a local store, order from Amazon.  I paid $5.15 for the mix in the store, which is steep, but still worth it.  The yellow cake mixes end up costing around $3.69/box when ordered in a pack from Amazon.  And it never hurts to have extras around!

And finally – enter the giveaway through Rafflecopter (it’s super-simple).  Giveaway ends July 1, 2013 at 12 a.m.  Winner will be contacted by email and must respond within 48 hours.  You do NOT have to eat gluten free to enter this contest – open to all US residents.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The information and prize pack have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark, but I was under no obligation to post or host the giveaway.