Product Review: Tastefully Simple Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Pound Cake Mix

Product: Tastefully Simple Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Pound Cake Mix – $10.99

It’s no secret by now…I have a sweet tooth.  I also, fortunately, love to bake!  But sometimes, the art of gluten-free baking is more trouble than it’s worth.  Like…a simple pound cake can mean, in order to get the right texture and density…a whole lot of different flours being mixed together with the hope that it just…tastes…good.

Well, thanks to Tastefully Simple…a pound cake no longer has to be a daunting task.  In fact…it isn’t daunting at all.  The mixing part is done for you.  All you need to do is add one stick of melted butter and 2/3 cup water.  Mix it together until it is smooth…put it in a loaf pan and put it in an oven at 350°F for around 50 minutes.

Word to the wise…pay attention to your oven heat and the time it’s in there.  I’m just sayin’…

More on that later.

Now, baking should always be this simple.  That’s one of the biggest draws of Tastefully Simple.  Two ingredients get added to the mix.  You whip it together and you bake it.  Simple.  Basic.  And…perfection.

I could smell this amazing pound cake baking.  The vanilla bean made my apartment smell so warm and inviting.  I kept breathing in the aroma as I was busying myself with other tasks…such as updating Facebook, doing some of my stretches for my recovering sprained ankle, cleaning up around the living room…

The time was ticking down…and when the microwave beeped…I was ready to see what awaited me in the oven.

Except…my oven is really old…and even though it was set for 350°F…it cooked at 375-380°F.  When I opened the oven, the amazing aroma of a vanilla bean pound cake flooded the walls of my apartment.  But the outside was quite dark.  Not burnt.  Not to that point, but I silently cussed out my old oven for getting so hot.  This is my lesson I learn…either set it lower when baking and check constantly on that temperature to make sure it isn’t rising above what it should be baking at…or…check on the baked goods throughout the baking process.  Don’t get so wrapped up in other things.

That being said…while the outside crust got slightly darker than I would have liked…it wasn’t burnt and it wasn’t ruined.  I let the Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Pound Cake sit in the pan for about 15 minutes before running a knife along the edge of the loaf pan and turning it out.  I put it on a wire rack to cool the rest of the way before wrapping it up in foil to have for dessert the following night.  I was actually really excited about this.  It has been three years since I’ve been able to have pound cake.  And if the Gluten-Free Beer Bread from Tastefully Simple was any indication of the quality of their products…I was really excited to be trying this out.  I LOVE POUND CAKE!!  And I love anything vanilla.  So this was the best of both worlds.

After a long day at the office and a quick dinner…my roommate and I decided it was time to slice into the Tastefully Simple Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Pound Cake.  The pouch the mix comes in says that it serves 8, but I am totally getting about 12 slices out of this cake.  Honestly.  I had picked up some fresh organic blueberries at the store and had some TruWhip in the freezer, which I put in the fridge while I was at work to thaw.  Pound cake for dessert was a go.  I sliced into the loaf, laying each slice down on the plate.  I topped it off with a healthy dollop on TruWhip, then tossed a handful of the organic blueberries on top.  Dessert was as simple to put together as the pound cake was to bake.  I settled in with my slice and cut into it with my fork.

It was moist and and soft, yet didn’t have that graininess and that potential to crumble like so many gluten-free baked goods.  Even with a darker crust on the cake, it was still packed with amazing vanilla flavor and it was still moist and soft and amazing.  It was everything that a pound cake should be…but it’s gluten-free and no one would even know it.  I loved the specks of vanilla bean that you find throughout the slices of pound cake.  It was so good that it brought tears to my eyes, since it had been forever since I had actually been able to eat one.  This…was so easy to make…and was so full of flavor and amazing texture.

Ingredient-wise, the mix that is sent to you contains: sugar, rice flour, non-fat milk, egg. potato starch, maltodextrin, tapioca flour, less than 2% of emusifier, baking powder, salt, vanilla bean seeds, xanthan gum, artificial flavors.

Nutritionally speaking, a serving, which is 1/8 of the cake, provides you with 220 calories and 2.5 grams of fat.  You will also be taking in 90 mg cholesterol, 230 mg sodium, and 28 grams of sugar.  It is a cake.  So don’t freak out, okay?  In addition, you will be provided with less than 1 gram of fiber and 5 grams of protein.  So…you will feel full, but it won’t keep you full.  Of course, those stats are simply for the dry mix.  You still have to figure in the stick of butter that you add.  Another reason I managed to portion this cake out to 12 smaller servings.  Trust me…you won’t even notice.

Tastefully Simple…you totally win once again.  The Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Pound Cake Mix bakes up the most perfect, delicious, so-good-you-won’t-guess-it’s-gluten-free, pound cake that I’ve ever tasted.  Ever.  It’s fantastic.  And I’m totally in love with Tastefully Simple.  I have my friend, Rebecca Fifield, to thank for sending me this product.  If you are interested in trying it, please check out her page… https://www.tastefullysimple.com/web/bfifield.  She will be more than happy to get you the products you want to try!  And, trust me, this is worth it.