Top 5 Reasons to Use A Mix:
1. So you don't forget to add the baking powder.
2. It’s 8 pm, and you bribed your training partners, promising post-workout snacks, to meet you for a 5 am speed session at the cold, still-dim track.
3. Your kid’s soccer team stinks. Though your kid scoring on her own goal, in every game, is not the only reason, bringing enough post-game chocolate chip pumpkin muffins for players, parents, and siblings, means everybody wins and nobody, except maybe that one intense dad, gives you the stink eye after the final horn blows.(Dude, these kids are in kindergarten.)
4. Let someone else figure out how to make gluten-free pancakes fluffy.
5. Some days you need to spend more time in the gym, less time in the kitchen. But your family does not need to know that.
Top 5 Favorite Mixes:
1. For your sanity: Duncan Hines Double Fudge Brownie Mix. This mix can be found at most grocery stores and is always a crowd-pleaser. Note: There are 27 ingredients we can't pronounce on the side of the box, but see numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 above.
2. For the soccer game: My daughter picked this Simple Mills gluten-free, low-sugar mix because she thought the box was pretty. I thought the muffins would turn out grainy and healthy-tasting, but went with it even though I worried that sucking at soccer and bringing sucky muffins would be a demoralizing combo. I added buttermilk, yogurt, and chocolate chips, and the team and families ate the entire batch. So glad I ate my words.
3. For the bribe: William-Sonoma Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Quick Bread Mix. Because waking up at 4:30 am earns you a sugary treat. They have a gluten-free version, now, too. There are a few (dozen) people who think these are “my” pecan muffins. Wink. Wink.
4. For the gluten-free pancakes: Pamela’s Baking &Pancake mix has a sweet almond flour flavor that needs no syrup. Unless, of course, you add pumpkin as we do here; syrup blunts some of the pumpkin’s earthiness.
5. For the hoodwink: Blackberry Farm Corn Bread mix. Trust in the South.
--Melissa
