Tested: Betty Crocker GF Yellow Cake Mix

I got back from the UK at the end of August and since then, I have this box of Betty Crocker GF Yellow Cake Mix staring me in the face. I don't know why I've been putting off trying it. Bloggers left and right were trying the mix, apprehensive as we all were that it would truly be GF, but none of us got sick (from what I've read.)

When I went back to re-read the ingredients, I was happily surprised to notice there were no corn products, as I'm largely cutting back on/phasing out my corn consumption for a time. This made it easier for me to crack open the cardboard and ready the mix for a trial run. Let's discuss how I feel about the mix, noting that I am ECSTATIC a mainstream baking enterprise like Betty Crocker got involved in being aware of the gluten-free growing population, though I may be less enthusiastic about this particular mix.

Pros:

1) The mix is relatively easy to make, just as a mix is supposed to be.

2) The product looked like regular cake product when produced, fooling any non-GF person you may be trying to trick into tasting a GF good.

3) I added some pumpkin and chocolate chips like I would into a regular mix and it came out fine.

Cons:

1) Although the mix is easy to make with a few additions, it calls for an entire stick of butter and 3 full eggs. Now I didn't try substituting applesauce/oil for butter or egg whites for eggs because I didn't want to throw the chemistry completely off. The no butter recipe on the BC website calls for shortening, none of which I could find without soy. If I could find a way to cut the butter down, I'd be a bigger fan.

2) The consistency of the cake wasn't quite what I'd expected. BC mixes produce moist, light, fluffy results. I figured that the GF of it all would make the cake denser or perhaps a tad gritty. There was no grit in the final taste, however the cake was dense. But like really dense. Like I felt I was eating a dense cake donut dense; I had to jump up for a glass of lactaid milk. Now I love cake donuts, don't misunderstand, but I expected it to be more birthday cake than dense donut. Although, I might have found a good baked donut mix ;)

Not really bad/Not really good:

1) I thought the batter looked weird. You could see a lot of the gritty textured granules staring you right in the face which led me to be prepared for a gritty texture. Since there wasn't a gritty texture I was both pleasantly surprised and equally annoyed I had expected it because of the batter.

So all and all, the mix was pretty good, but I have to say I've had better. And I might have even made better. Again, I'm more than excited that Betty Crocker took the time and effort to acknowledge there is a market out there for GF products, however, I just wish the product had been something of a Betty Crocker non-GF caliber.