The Pure Pantry Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix Review

Santa may not finish this year... because he will be in your kitchen, searching for more of these cookies, nibbling at the crumbs dotting his festive ensemble.


Seriously.


Now, let's be clear folks. I'm not a letter-writer. I'm not the sort of consumer who has convinced herself that whole contingents of CEOs are just waiting in their offices for my reactionary note regarding their product. I'm the sort of person who has a negative experience with a product, makes a big blustery production detailing all the snarky quips I will hurl at them in letter form and, due to said blustery production, gets it out of my system and no longer feels the need to write a scathing letter. Or any letter of any sort.

Pity for my boyfriend, receiver of aforementioned 'blustery productions',  may begin flowing now.

The above must be said because it is testament to the supreme munchability of these discs of joy that I actually WROTE an email to The Pure Pantry. Telling them that their cookie mix is the best cookie mix ever. Truth. Not to mention that they took the time to send back what seemed to be a (mostly) original email thanking me and letting me know that they are coming out with new (!!!) products in 2010.


I have scarfed down both the straight up choco-chip and the coconut twist, both are supreme in their own right. The coconut variety is made with buckwheat which, if you don't already know it is pretty much the end-all-be-all of non-GF flours. Buy it, use it, love it. These are soft, moist, with that dark, Nestle Toll House reminiscent quality nipping into each bite. What is that quality? I'm not sure exactly but it's the taste and texture and feeling you must remember from biting into a warm, gooey cookie. You remember, don't deny.

(As a side note, I despise the word 'moist'. I even hit up the Thesaurus for another likely candidate but all the synonyms are even more putrid. Dank, clammy, oozy? No thanks.  I guess we'll be sticking with moist. If you have any suggestions, please, let me know. It's going to become a problem.)

The classic chocolate chip (shown in the photos) is, on the other hand, more of a cross between the sugar and shortbread families with delightful pecks of chocolate and a mysteriously intriguing caramel/toffee flavor. Win. This batch came out more crumbly than it's coconut brother, perhaps due to the use of rice flour instead of buckwheat.

The real kicker about these mixes, the thing that had me clinging to the oven door, peeking inside, was that they SPREAD. Ever the experimenter, I hopefully doled them out onto the cookie sheet in blobs, much like you would a wheat-filled dough. Instead of baking up into the cake-ish mounds we've come to expect in my kitchen, they spread out under the heat of the oven and cooked up into the perfect cookie landscape. Sweet gravy. I ate four before anyone else got one.

Bites of Note:

• The coconut mix suggests, if I remember correctly, something in the 10-12 minute range for cook time. The first batch was overdone in my oven - they were good to go in about 8 minutes. Strangely enough, the classic chocolate chip suggested something around 15 minutes and they were perfect in the suggested amount of time. This says to me that it's not a problem with my stove but rather the suggestion on the coconut mix... In any case, cook with care and keep an eye on those beauties. 
• If I could have only ONE of these mixes for the rest of my life I would decidedly choose the coconut version - they are softer which appeals to me a bit more and, let's face it, buckwheat rules. If you don't like coconut, get over it. Seriously, a disliking of coconut should not scare you away from these moan-inducing gems.

Leave a comment about what you think, check out the history of this company at The Pure Pantry, keep an eye out for their new products and pick up an order at my amazon shop, The Chop Shop.