Over the weekend I went to Trader Joe's and stocked up on a bunch of their gluten free fall items. I grabbed anything that was pumpkin, apple, corn, sweet potato or cinnamon related. Whatever gave me the fall feels was in my cart. I was a little disappointed because there were some specific items I was wanting to get like the GF pumpkin bagels, GF pumpkin bread & muffin mix, pumpkin spice hummus, etc., and my location did not carry those. FEAR NOT THOUGH! I was still able to have some success and find 7 different items to try. Out of the 7 items, I have only had 1 of them before, so everything was a new experience for me. Here were my thoughts:
Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips (5/10)- I love sweet potato chips and have never had them in tortilla chip form, so I was really excited to taste them. Unfortunately, they left me disappointed. Don't get me wrong, they were a good tortilla chip, but I could not taste any kind of hint of sweet potato. That's why it got such a low rating. I just really wasn't impressed and felt like it was any other tortilla chip out there.
Soft Baked Snickerdoodle Cookies (7/10)- When I first read the label, it said that there was no wheat, eggs, milk, nuts and soy. This made me uneasy because in my past experiences, when all of the ingredients are absent, the food tastes dry and flavorless. Boy oh boy, was I surprised! These little snickerdoodle were so tasty! They were soft and I could taste all of the sugar and cinnamon flavor like a normal snickerdoodle. Definitely a small, fun fall treat.
Cinnamon Coffee Cake Muffins (10/10)- These are the product that I have had before, and I am SO THANKFUL that I found these. I've had pre-packaged GF muffins before and they are always dry and tasteless. These, on the other hand, are heavenly. I am 100% convinced that if you gave one to someone who isn't gluten free, they would think it's just an ordinary and normal muffin. The texture, the moistness, the flavor and everything about this muffin are perfection. I would highly recommend getting a package because you will not be disappointed.
Apple Cider (7/10)- What says fall more than some good, old fashioned apple cider? This was really tasty and refreshing, but I was missing some of the cinnamon and nutmeg hints of flavor. It tasted more like an elevated apple juice, which is fine, but I want more fall flavor in my apple cider. To make this a 10/10, I would stick it in the crockpot to warm up and add in some of those spices.
Pumpkin Spread (6/10)- I have heard really good things about this spread, but after trying it, it just wasn't for me. I expected is to be sweeter like a jelly, but it just was straight up pumpkin. If that's your things, you will really like this, but I need something sweeter. I paired it with a Trader Joe's Gluten Free Plain Bagel (8/10), and those on the other hand were really good. They were thick like a normal bagel and stayed together really well. They are probably my favorite GF bagel brand out there right now.
Pumpkin Bique Soup (2.5/10)- I love a good fall soup, but this one was a FLOP. I so badly wanted to like it, but there were some intense flavors in there and not in a good way. When I looked at the ingredients list I saw apple cider vinegar was one of them, and that was definitely the intense flavor I was tasting. It overpowered everything else and all I could taste was the unpleasant apple cider vinegar flavor. I'm not sure if that was just a fluke, but I could not take any more bites.
Baker Josef's Corn Bread Mix (9/10)- Cornbread is just such a fall comfort food and I am obsessed with it. I have always used the Krusteaz Cornbread Mix, so I was excited to try a new one to compare the two. This cornbread blew my mind!! The texture, sweetness and corn flavoring were all perfection. It was the tastiest cornbread I have ever had and definitely beat out the Krusteaz brand. It will be my new go-to cornbread mix in the future.
Overall, this was a successful gluten free haul. Yes, there were some misses, but there were a lot of successes too. I would say my top favorites were the muffins, cornbread mix and snickerdoodle cookies. These were all my personal opinions though, and you might like something that I didn't care for. I would recommend trying these products to find out for yourself!
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