Kinnikinnick Bagels and Bread Loaves

One of the biggest trials in being gluten free, seems to be bread.

When someone learns that you don't eat wheat, their mind automatically shoots to bread.

Not the zillion other products that gluten is hiding in, but the one obvious product. If only it were as simple as cutting out one product--being a Celiac would be akin to a low carb diet. 

Not quite folks.

Anyway, this one simple product, seems to also be the hardest product to get right without the wheat.

Too many gluten free breads are hard and dense, and closer to a piece of cardboard then a baked good.

Awhile back, {longer then I'd like to admit ;(} Kinnikinnick sent me a beautiful package, strait from Canada with some of their bread products. Inside the box, was two bagel flavors: plain and blueberry, and two loaves: multigrain and white.

I tested each of these products, and then tested again, and again, and...you get the point. It was some tasty stuff.

Wanna see? Here you go:

Up first, the bagels.

I love bagels. A toast warm bagel topped with strawberry cream cheese, sounds life heaven on a plate to me. Back in the day, when our local sourdough bread company made sourdough bagels-that was true heavenly bliss. I could live off of those bagels. But thats neither here nor there.

Since I could not slather my blueberry bagel in cream cheese, I turned to my closest alternative. Goat cheese chevre. And because I could, I topped in with some warm blueberry compote.

These blueberry bagels, let me tell you about these blueberry bagels. Soft, chewy, with just the righ amount of crispy exterior. A little sweetness, just the right amount of berries mixed in. I think I eat one of these bagels everyday for the rest of my life. I'm not sure how my pants would feel about that, but my tastebuds would sure be happy.

Next on the bagel train, was the plain variety. Is it gluten free? I don't know, I couldn't tell. The package says it is though, and my stomach didn't scream when I ate it, so it must be. Who woulda thought?!

With these plain bagels, I made a delicious breakfast sandwich. This sandwich is everything. I could live happily ever after with this sandwich.

This sandwich, and its images will also be forever ingrained in my mind as I learned of some tragic news while preparing it. While my fingers where snapping these photos, my mind was busy processing a family loss-and once I was done-I ate my feelings full of breakfast food.

and now you know.

{To make sandwich, toast both bagel halves, shmear with butter and top with cooked canadian bacon, a sunny side up egg, and a little spinach to call it healthy.}

Just like the blueberry bagel, it is the perfect texture inside and out. It takes on both sweet and savory flavors with ease, and toasts beautifully. A perfect golden brown, if you will.

You saw savory, lets see some sweet:

Fig butter, have you tried it? My word its good stuff. Its excellent on both the blueberry and plain bagels too :)

So that was the bagels business, now to the bread loaves.

With the multigrain, I made myself a good old fashioned Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich. This BLT may seem like a simple task, as the sandwich itself is easy peasy, but if you have ever made a large beautiful sandwich, only to have its toasted ends crumble underneath the pressure of delicious toppings; you know that its not as easy as it sounds.

I made this lovely sandwich, picked it up slowly-throwing caution to a possible breakage. But my lovelies, my tasty dinner did not fall apart. It stayed perfectly crisp and whole.

Winner-winner BLT dinner!

The Kinnikinnick bread has the perfect flavor, texture and ease of normal "glutenous" bread. 

I always prefer my bread toasted, before and after being gluten free; but I did use this bread once for a super quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich un-toasted. It tasted just as delicious and smooth as it did toasted, not something that I have found to come easy with other gf breads.

With the white bread, I attempted to make a strata.

Every year for Christmas growing up, my mother would make a cheesy strata the night before, for us to eat after opening presents Christmas morning.

It is the most delicious thing, filled with cheese, cheese, and white bread. The only time ever in our lives, when white bread took residence in our home. 

So, for the first time ever, I attempted a strata without the use of cheese. Just veggies, sausage and bread, mixed and baked full of egg. It was good, but not wonderful. Not a recipe worth sharing yet. But, the bread-the bread held up beautifully. It soaked in egg all night, baked in the morning, all without turning to pasty mush. I call that a win.

Kinnikinnick breads are a wonderful addition to the gluten free world, they are fluffy, moist and wonderfully delicious. I would really like to be eating a toasty piece of cinnamon toast right now, but as I don't have any at the moment-go out and enjoy a slice for me, ok?

And check out Kinnikinnick's other products, here.
and see some of my other uses of their other products here and here.

Enjoy!

*while the products review today were provided for testing, no monetary compensation was exchanged. All opinions our mine alone, without further influence.