Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Allergen-Free Baker’s Top Five: My Favorite Allergen-Free Products From the Past Year

Today I head out to Chicago for the Nourished Conference and the Gluten-Free & Allergen-Free Expo. Based on what I’ve heard about Expo West, I’m expecting to find lots of great new products at this expo. But before we jump into the latest products, I thought it would be fun to look back on the past year, and highlight a few of my favorite new product finds from the past year.

This is my list – which means there are no rules (and no voting). It also means that while some of these products were new to the market in the past year, in some cases they were simply new to me. So, without further ado, here are my Top Five:

Enjoy Life Mega Chunk chocolate chips: This product filled a big gap in the allergen-free chocolate chip world. Sometimes a mini or regular-sized chocolate chip just isn’t enough.

So Delicious Coconut Creamer: Replacing thickened milks in baking got a lot easier with the introduction of Coconut Creamer. (Check out my chocolate truffles for an example.)

So Delicious Coconut Non-Dairy frozen dessert
: Oh my, this stuff is good, and in flavors like Cookie Dough and Cherry Amaretto. This is perfect over cake or brownies, with a chocolate sauce made from Enjoy Life or Divvies chocolate chips.

Earth Balance Mindful Mayo
: Dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free mayo seemed like just a dream until this product came along. If you’re missing mayo on your sandwiches, this is the answer.

Bob’s Red Mill Chia Seeds: I was thrilled to discover that chia seeds can be used (similar to flax seeds) to make an egg-replacer gel. Yippee! More options!

What’s your favorite new product from the past year?

1 comment:

Ricki said...

Hi Colette,

It was so great to meet with you and chat yesterday at Nourished! I'm in love with the avocado-chickpea bread recipe and can't wait to see your book. I Have no doubt it will be a huge success! :)

Ricki