This isn’t going to be the fairest of reviews because I used this mix for something it wasn’t designed for, and it didn’t do the greatest job. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of pancakes and lately I’ve been working on finding the best gluten free pancakes. Recently I reviewed Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pancake and Waffle Mix. Before that I had reviewed Trader Joe’s packaged Gluten-Free Pancakes. I also tried the gluten free oatmeal pancakes at Francis Restaurant on Alberta Street here in Portland Oregon.
I started with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Cornbread Mix. Here are the ingredients: Whole Grain Cornmeal, Potato Starch, Whole Grain Sorghum Flour, Evaporated Cane Juice, Whole Grain Corn Flour, Tapioca Flour, Baking Powder, Sea Salt, Xanthan Gum. To make gluten-free cornbread with this mix, you need: 1 1/2 Cups milk (rice, soy, dairy); 1/3 Cup oil or melted butter; and 2 Eggs.
I figured this mix would make good pancakes. I don’t know if anybody reading this has been to Vita on Alberta, but they make these amazing corn pancakes that I used to love back when we ate there a lot. I heard recently that they’ve made these corn pancakes gluten-free, but haven’t confirmed it. They are one of the places in town you would expect to be gluten-free friendly and do appear on our gluten-free restaurant list. At one point I was making my own corn pancakes with oat flour and spelt, but eventually I had to stop eating spelt and haven’t come up with a good gluten free recipe for them.
The problem with the Red Mill Gluten Free Cornbread Mix is that it contains too much xanthan gum to make pancakes. Xanthan gum is an ingredient used in gluten-free cooking which is good for replacing gluten. It helps make things stick together like gluten does. Unfortunately, it can end up making batter too thick for certain purposes, and when making pancakes, you want the batter to be thin enough to pour. I ended up having to add four times the amount of liquid specified by the menu just to get a batter that was kind of OK. I actually stopped because it seemed like I was pouring liquid down a black hole instead of into some batter.
I also added some vanilla, which goes really well in corn pancakes. Here are some pancakes from when I finally got the batter so it would pour, even though it was still too elastic.
The good news is that my pancakes turned out nice and fluffy, which is how I like them. Also, the flavor of the mix is really wonderful. The cornbread mix ends up tasting rich and satisfying. I especially love corncakes with some butter and honey, and these are great served that way as well. But for corn pancakes, I’m going to keep looking. This mix would be perfect if it weren’t for the xanthan gum, which I’m sure is necessary for making the corn bread properly, but isn’t great when you’re making pancakes. Maybe next time I’ll try to come up with my own gluten free corn pancake recipe.
We want to know: If you have a favorite gluten-free pancake recipe, let us know in the comments. Also we’d love to hear from anybody who has used this mix for its intended use: cornbread.
Times we have visited: once (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 2 out of 5 stars (for making pancakes)
Price compared to “regular”: Around same price.
Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Corn Bread Mix
Here’s the mix on Amazon.
Gina says
The ironic thing is that xanthan gum is completely unnecessary in corn bread. I actually find it detrimental because corn bread isn’t supposed to be elastic. It’s supposed to be crumbly. It’s the only bread-type recipe that I just substitute a brown rice flour for the wheat flour.
I love Bob’s Red Mill, but I haven’t had good results with their flour mixes. However, I will be forever faithful to their GF flours.
Dave says
Yeah I was thinking that might be the case – not needing xanthan gum in cornbread. It’s no good for pancakes especially! We use their flours too, but this is the first flour mix we’ve tried.
Gina says
I tried their all-purpose mix. It has some garbanzo bean flour in it, which makes the dough smell and taste like salty beans. That’s not what you want in cookies or scones! I don’t like to add a lot of sugar to my recipes, but there’s no other remedy if there’s a bean flavor to mask.
Valerie says
This cornbread mix is one of our family’s favorite Bob’s products. It’s definitely on the menu when we have company who are not accustomed to eating gluten free. Admittedly, I favor a corn “cake” over corn bread, so perhaps that’s why I like it so much. It also cooks up nicely with rice milk and egg substitute.
James says
Those pancakes look terribly delicious. I’ll be trying the recipe and give you my feedback!
Dave says
Excellent! Let us know!
Charles says
An answer to the product review of Bob’s GF Cornbread Mix.
That was great experimentation to find the xanthan gum as a hindrance to making pancakes with the product.
For cholesterol reduction, skim milk and Tapioca flour are used.
I wanted a GF corn muffin. I tried all kinds of corn flours of varying grinds with baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt. Best I could do was to make it rise about a 1/4″ and it tasted like sawdust..
Applying a little creative thinking, since most of the exotic GF flours are difficult to obtain and expensive on the East Coast not to mention I have no idea of the ratios to use. Why not use a blend of Bob’s products to get the need characteristics to the baked item. So I combined 1/2 and 1/2 of Bob’s Fine Ground corn meal to Bob’s GF Cornbread mix and added 50% more liquid, in this case, skim milk. I also hand mixed until the batter stiffened but still pourable. For cholesterol reduction, also used two tablespoons of Tapioca flour to replace the eggs, one tablespoon for each egg. Using paper muffin cups was a no-no with GF, seems the batter is most tenacious to the paper and one tears apart the muffin to get it off. I did NOT want to use lard on the muffin tin so I tried Smart Balance buttery spread with excellent results. Finally, a GF corn muffin that I can release from the muffin tin that actually tastes good. I did try medium and coarse grind Bob’s corn meal, taste is the same but a lot more crunch..
So there’s is the muffin, what of the pancake? I happen to like Bob’s GF pancake mix with some minor alteration. I use nearly twice as much skim milk and substituted two tablespoons Tapioca flour for the two eggs. I let the batter sit for 15 minutes so that it “slakes”, so say the masons of cement. The batter becomes thicker but still pourable. I use an aluminum Teflon griddle, two burner with gas. I can get reasonable temperature control. The batter mixture is easily scorched, the pancake will have a bitter taste, so a medium flame seems to work best, reducing flame as the more pancakes are cooked.
So that is success with the standard GF pancake. So a little experimentation is in order. Why not add Bob’s fine grind corn meal or even corn flour to Bob’s GF pancake mix. I will try that soon, but I thought that I would suggest it to those who truly love their corn pancake.. Why wait for me.
IMHO: Try more combinations of Bob’s products to use the properties of the core ingredients. Not that I have a taste for these: corn fritters, scones, even cookie mixes could possibly be created this way.
Best!
Chas
Dave says
Thanks for sharing your experiences with the mixes. We’re constantly experimenting as well and it’s good to hear what works for others!