Review: King Arthur Gluten-Free Pancake Mix

When someone representing King Arthur Flour contacted me via e-mail about the new gluten-free mixes from the company, I could hardly believe the words I was reading. King Arthur Flour has long been a premier gluten product manufacturer so finding out that they decided to get into the gluten-free market was pretty exciting news. More products in any given industry usually bring more competitive prices which is something we are all looking for these days.

The gluten-free mixes from King Arthur Flour include pizza crust, cookies, bread, brownie, muffins, cake, pancakes, and a flour blend. The boxes for the mixes indicate that the products are gluten, wheat, soy, and nut free. However, as noted on side of the boxes, the gluten-free products are produced in a gluten-free, allergen-free (8 most common food allergens) manufacturing facility. The mixes are also Kosher and have GIG’s esteemed GFCO stamp of approval.

When asked what items I’d be interested in reviewing, I told the representative that anything except the bread mix would be welcome. The company sent me the flour blend and the pancake mix to review. The ingredients in the pancake mix are brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, more rice flour, sugar, cornstarch, salt, xanthan gum, natural flavors, and some stabilizers. The instructions call for whisking 2 eggs, butter (or oil), and milk together and then stirring the mixture into the pancake mix. We opted for the oil recipe version and used skim milk.

Right away I noticed that the pancake batter was much thinner than I was used to. I could not add more mix since all of it was already in the bowl. The box said the yield was 16 4” pancakes. I got 24 (some larger than 4”) out of it, making it clear that using skim milk might have affected the thickness of the batter quite a bit. We’re not going to buy regular or even 2% milk to make pancakes but would cut back on the amount of milk to thicken the batter up in the future. If you added a little more milk than called for, the batter should make perfect gluten-free crepes.

Since the batter was thin, the pancakes were also. However, the taste of the pancakes was absolutely delicious. You could serve them to the pickiest gluten eater and they’d never know they were gluten-free. In fact, my husband ate 11 of them at one sitting. We had to freeze a lot of pancakes to thaw, reheat and enjoy at a later date. With limited freezer space, this is not an optimal pancake mix for the two of us to use. If the company offered alternative instructions – for instance, to make a half batch – that would be excellent. I can figure out how to half two eggs, two cups of milk, and four T. of oil, but don’t know exactly how many cups of the mix are in the bag. For a family of four or more, using the whole mix at once would work fine, of course. For two people (at our house anyway) exactly half a batch of pancakes is perfect.

After reading a rave review of someone who found the mixes outside my area and these reviews for the chocolate cake mix, now I’m anxious to try that – and other – gluten-free mixes from the line soon! I’ve not been able to find the new King Arthur Flour gluten-free mixes in my area yet. The products can be purchased online, but I hope that at least Whole Foods locations here will soon have them. They carry several gluten products from King Arthur Flour so hopefully, they can make room for the new gluten-free mixes on store shelves. After all, the 365 gluten-free Bakehouse mixes were discontinued a couple of months ago.