My friend Dana, who is gluten intolerant, had a birthday picnic last month. So, I decided to bake some gluten-free treats that turned out rather well, so I thought I’d share them:
gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, and gluten free Boston Cream Cupcakes.
Unlike the cookies, which were from scratch, I decided to try the
Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Yellow Cake Mix as a base for the cupcakes. I hit upon the idea of Boston Cream cupcakes because I had read mixed reviews of the BC boxed mix, so I wanted to be able to dress up the cupcakes a bit, just in case. And, happily, I discovered that both J
ell-o instant pudding mixes and
BC tub frostings are gluten-free, which took a lot of guesswork out of the filling and frosting. Jell-o pudding mixes list “modified food starch” under the ingredients, and this is corn starch unless otherwise stated, Kraft is very diligent about listing allergens. This opens up a ton of possibilities for flavors and fillings. Obviously, if someone is also casein intolerant, other arrangements for fillings would have to be made. I’m definitely not an expert on non-dairy fillings, but I’ve heard (although I haven’t tried it for myself) that the non-instant pudding works better with soy and almond milk than the instant.
Before trying the cupcakes, I searched around to find other people who had already tried the mix, to see if anyone had tweaked the box directions to get a better result, and I hit upon a fabulous resource,
A Gluten-Free Guide, which has all manner of gluten-free info, recipes, restaurant lists, food reviews, etc. On this site was posted a review of the BC gluten-free yellow cake box mix, along with tweaks that the author said vastly improved the cupcakes’ taste and texture (backed up by reviews posted on the site). It called for adding, amongst other things, instant pudding and orange juice directly to the mix. So, I decided to give it a try, and they turned out better than I had even hoped. However, and I can not stress this enough, pudding flavor does make a difference in taste, and if you can find it, I definitely recommend the French Vanilla pudding over the regular vanilla, for both the cake and the filling.
Not really. It’s better, and easier. The original Nilla banana pudding recipe is an actual cooked pudding dish. Bah. Too much work! And just using boxed pudding according to box directions is okay I suppose...but it lacks something – unless you tweak it just a bit. This dish is a snap, and I’ve never yet met a person who didn’t love this, and I’ve fed this to a lot of people!
The choice of pudding is crucial here. French Vanilla, not regular vanilla. If you’ve tasted both, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t tried the French Vanilla, get it. Sometimes it can be hard to locate, not every store carries it, but it is worth the effort, believe me. If all else fails, you can get it here. I use this pudding for cream puffs and as a base for napoleon filling as well. Yes, Jell-o makes a “banana crème” pudding as well – but trust me and go with the French Vanilla. Synthetic banana flavor is not the taste we’re looking for.
