Gluten-Free: Banana Bread by Sahra Kant

As I’m sure my fellow gluten-free peeps know, it is difficult to use a boxed baking product without going at least 80% off box to make it taste any good. Usually I have to add spices -- gluten-free vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, syrups and so forth. Even so, the texture is usually still wrong even if I get the taste correct (which as a confident & capable cook, I usually do).

Last week I was in the supermarket and saw Simply Organic’s Banana Bread Mix on sale for $5.49 down from $5.99. I had two over-ripe bananas sitting on my banana hook, so I thought, “Why not? I’ve been making meals but I haven’t baked in a while, and I have a loaf tray...


Despite having forgotten how much effort goes into preparing an item to be baked, this proved to be a very good decision. What a fabulous product! From the start of pouring the mix, it smelled so good. Adding the mashed bananas, water, and eggs made it smell like... well, it smelled like banana bread. Real banana bread. Oh, the anticipation!

I was obviously very excited to see the finished product 60-70 minutes later and was not disappointed. It was perfect! This banana bread looks like banana bread, smells like banana bread, feels like banana bread and tastes like banana bread. If you didn’t know it was gluten-free, you wouldn’t know it was gluten-free. Apart from my own newfound love, rave reviews were received from my daughter, mother, and not gluten-free partner and father. (Those last two are a sign of true greatness in a boxed mix; given their ability to eat actual bread, they are usually only possible to please with a mix when I doctor it beyond recognition from its original state.)

My only apologies go to my parents with whom I was a little stingy and the vegetarian friends who came over when I could have offered a slice but didn’t because it’s mine all mine (and Liberty’s).

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the price on this mix on Simply Organic’s own website is $4.99, more than I paid on sale at my local Shaw’s. That’s a better price -- but as usual the price checking win goes to Amazon, who offer a pack of three boxes for $12.90 (works out to $4.30 a box) as a one-off and at the low low price of $10.96 (works out to $3.65) with Subscribe & Save.

The prepared mix, ready to go in the loaf pan.  Smells fabulous!

Cooling on a baking rack.  It was tough to wait...

Ready to eat, on my favorite serving tray!  YUM.

I recommend serving with strawberries and heavy whipped cream, which is quite possibly the first time I’ve basically agreed with a serving suggestion on the box as well.

If you’ve tried other gluten-free Simply Organic products, please let me know what you thought of them! I’d love to know if their other gluten-free boxed mixes are just as delicious before buying them. Thanks!

- Submitted by Sahra Kant