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Gluten Free Packet Mixes from Andrew James

There are so many fabulous gluten free packet mixes around these days. Andrew James do 11 delicious mixes, the bread is incredible! They have a few packet mixes that are hard to find too...

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Gluten Free Packet Mixes from Andrew James
Kitchen and homeware manufacturer and retailer Andrew James are a fast growing, family owned company and they have recently branched out of the equipment and gadget departments to include packet mixes, including some fabulous gluten free packet mixes which we got to try.

I haven't yet had chance to try every one of the mixes but have got through a fair few, not easy to try them all when you have that much to do and are supposed to be on a diet!

All the mixes are an RRP of £7.99 which I will admit is a little on the steep side but there is usually an offer on on their website, at the moment 5 mixes for £20 which is a much better deal at about 4 quid a mix, round about standard price for mixes really.

There are a good variety of mixes available, some that aren't seen often however others are products we do see all to frequently.

So lets kick it off, the bread mix. Oh my! Well honestly, I didn't have high hopes, I know from old how gluten free bread goes down, but I dusted off the bread maker, as the packet mix is suitable for both oven and bread maker, and poured in the packet mix, along with water and oil, switched it on on normal setting (I find the gluten free setting doesn't work well) and set it to work for 3+ hours.

At first it just looked like it was going to be a thick dough ball, but then it started growing. And growing. And growing a bit more. Honestly it could not rise any more, it was touching the lid. But I left it to it, while quietly muttering to myself that it would be one big air hole when it came out.

When we removed it from the tin, it was HUGE, the tallest gluten free loaf I have ever seen. I whined, saying it was an air hole, so we cut into it. A tiny air hole. It was 95% bread, soft white bread. Immediately smothering it with butter, we all tried some and it was the best bread we have ever made, probably on par with Sainsburys fresh Bakery Gluten Free bread which no one has yet beaten in my book, thought this one is giving it a run for it's money. It was soft, tasty and like bread not cake like some bread mixes. In my opinion, best bread mix out there and worth the price.



Next up two cookie mixes, Chocolate and plain, we have made the plain but not the chocolate one. Each mix makes round about 15 cookies and all that needs adding is butter and egg. The picture for the plain biscuits is a little deceiving as it shows chocolate chips on the top of the cookies but they aren't included it is literally a plain biscuit mix. Simple to make but they are very plain, they would be better with choc chips added in. Taste wise, they were OK, the three of us who ate then all agreed they were a bit grainy and very sweet, but certainly they weren't the worst, remind me of american style sugar cookies.



Every Coeliacs favourite (note the sarcasm there!), next is brownie. Why is there always a brownie. My mum actually made this mix and somehow managed to over cook it! However despite the burnt top, it wasn't a bad brownie, again it was a very easy to make mix too. I like the more chewy brownies whereas this was more a cake but it was still very nice and chocolately. Definitely a good brownie. I'm so sick of brownies though it's not a mix I would use on a regular basis, just because I'm fed up of them.



Another set of popular mixes next, plain muffins and chocolate muffins. Out of these I have only made the chocolate ones. There is no butter in these ones, instead using oil, a lot of it, which did make them very soft and moist I admit but I do find cakes with oil go dry faster (but that might just be me!) The mix was super easy to make, just add eggs, water and oil, beat and put in muffin tins, a nice easy one the kids would love. The only thing I was disappointed with was that off the image I thought it had chocolate chips in, but it didn't, you'd have to add your own.

The muffins rose really well and the mix was velvetty and glossy thanks to the oil, the muffins took about 25 minutes to bake and were delicous straight out of the oven and when they were cold. Very rich chocolatey taste to them, definitely a good muffin, add chocolate chips and they are a winner!



Andrew James also have a plain Sponge cake mix as well as the muffins but I haven't yet tried this one so can't comment on what it is like!

As well as cakes and cookies they do also have a Scone mix which looks amazing, I will hopefully get round to trying those soon.

The final 3 mixes they have are savoury, First up a curry sauce mix, the image they use makes it look like chip shop curry sauce but it's not, when I made it up it instantly smelt like tikka masala and its taste is reminiscent of masala too, the mix is basically a spice blend which would be great with some chicken and served with rice. I didn't actually serve it up as a meal due to an allergy in the family but did make it up hoping it would be like chip shop curry so was slightly disappointed. However as a proper curry it would be super nice as it has a real kick to it, it gets my approval for a proper chicken curry.



Second savoury one is gravy, this mix makes about 32 servings according to the packet and it did thicken well so you would easily get that out of the packet. I find a lot of gravy mixes are salty but this one isn't, it's probably one of the least salty but it did have a very sagey aftertaste to it which wasn't to my taste, if you like sage then this gravy is for you. I have had FAR worse gravy but the sage taste does put me off a but.



These 2 savoury mixes RRP at £4 rather than 7.99, a little cheaper than the sweet ones and with the amount you get out of each packet they are a decent price.

The final mix they have to offer is a batter mix, they sell as fish batter but being me, I didn't use it for that purpose, instead I battered sausages with it. Like the other two you get a lot out of it, we used about 1/8th of the packet to do 2 sausages and had some left. It was a good thick batter too and deep fried well, it has a nice golden colour and was lovely and crispy, it was like proper batter, some have an after taste but not this one. Overall it was very good batter and one we would willingly pay £7.99 for since it would cover a fair bit and last a while.



Overall Andrew James have 11 gluten free mixes on sale, you can grab them from Andrew James website, definitely give the bread a go, certainly the best packet mix for bread out there

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