Last week, I blogged with much excitement about Wegmans' launch of ready-to-eat gluten free bakery items. Back in early December, they launched two types of gluten-free cookies, gluten-free frosted brownies, and gluten-free cupcakes -- now available at all their locations. They are all made using Wegmans' gluten free boxed mixes, which have been available in their stores for a while now.
At the time of the post, I had not personally tried the new ready-to-eat items, but that evening, I happened to be near a Wegmans, so I went in and bought one of everything. Over the next few nights, my husband, two sons, and I taste-tested each of the new items. Here's what we thought:
Gluten-Free Cupcakes -- These come four to a pack, with two vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing and two chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. Unlike the photo Wegmans had sent me, the gluten-free cupcakes in the store near us did not contain colorful "confetti" style sprinkles on top. That was actually GREAT with me, as I prefer not to give my kids things with artificial color or flavor, if I can help it. Perhaps they decided not to include these on the cupcakes after all...it now enables them to advertise the whole line of gluten-free ready-to-eat items as not containing anything artificial (the cookies and brownies had always been advertised that way). The cupcake box looked different, too, being a brown cardboard box instead of a white box as shown in my last post. I tell you this so you know what to look for when searching for them at your own Wegmans.
In terms of taste, we preferred the vanilla cupcakes to the chocolate. The flavor was better (the chocolate cupcakes didn't have a very rich taste), and the vanilla cupcakes were a bit more moist (the chocolate ones seemed a bit dry and even a little gummy). Don't get me wrong, all in all both cupacakes were quite good...and it probably just depends on the particular batch and how fresh they are when you buy them (although the ones I purchased still had at least several days until the "best by" date). What I'd really like Wegmans to do is have vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. For those of you who are interested, here is the label from the back of the cupcake box.
Gluten-Free Frosted Pan Brownies -- These were our favorite...and we all agreed that, in fact, they are probaby the best gluten free brownies we've ever had. Moist, rich, and with wonderful frosting (and I'm one who doesn't even typically like frosting on my brownies!). But they were divine! One important note: the photo in my last post, which Wegmans had provided to me, showed nuts in the brownies. The ones we purchased did not contain nuts. My guess is they perhaps decided to make them nut-free to appeal to more people (those who can't have nuts or don't like nuts). If you go to a Wegmans to purchase these, you can always look at the label to see if they include nuts or not. Sorry...I forgot to take a picture of the label on this box before we devoured the brownies and threw out the box!
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip and Snickerdoodle Cookies -- These were both almost as good as the brownies. Each cookie comes individually wrapped in cellophane within the brown cardboard outer box. Again, the box looks a bit different from the package pictured in my last post. The cellophane packaging has two advantages: it makes the cookies easy to take out of the box and pop in a purse or backpack for a snack when on-the-go AND it keeps the cookies VERY fresh. Wow...were they fresh. They tasted like they'd just been baked, and this was four days after I'd purchased them in the store. The gluten-free Snickerdoodles had a wonderful cinnamon-sugar taste -- and the slightly chewy texture that I love. With the gluten-free Chocolate Chip cookies, you could taste both the wonderful chocolate from the chips, as well as a delicious vanilla flavor.
All in all, both cookies were winners in our house. The ingredient label for the chocolate chip cookies is pictured here.
We will definitely be buying more of these goodies in the future to have as treats, especially for things like birthday parties, after-game celebrations, and to take to other people's homes when invited...so that our son (and everyone else) can enjoy these safe and wonderful gluten-free goodies. Of course, you can try to make them all yourself, too, with Wegmans' many gluten-free baking mixes. But these four ready-to-eat gluten-free bakery treats are great when you may not have the time.
All items should be near or across from the bagels in Wegmans' bakery aisle. At our store, they had a whole little display of the gluten-free items. All items mentioned above are $6.49 per box.