Macaroni and Cheese – Comparison

I’m pretty sure that most of you have eaten Kraft Dinner for days on end in your younger days. It’s probably one of the most iconic, easiest dishes that everyone’s learned when they first start cooking, but now there’s more packaged variations of this cheesy, creamy dish.

And guess what? Irresistables made a gluten-free version of macaroni and cheese!

Like I mentioned earlier here, if you seriously suspect that you’re gluten-intolerant, you may want to consider going to a doctor’s to get it professionally checked out.

But, if you’re like me and you’re curious about gluten-free pasta products, this one’s interesting since it’s actually two products in one!

The first thing I noticed about Irresistables’ gluten-free Macaroni & Cheese is that it’s much smaller at 168g per box compared to KD’s 225g.

The second thing I noticed was that the gluten-free version seems to have 0.5g of fat more than KD for the same serving size (56g) when their ingredients are virtually the same in respect to fat content. In fact, KD lists butter and actual cheese in their ingredient deck!

But, then I noticed something about their instructions…

KD lists their official cooking instructions as using 1 tbsp (15mL) of margarine and 1/3 cup (75mL) of skim milk and THEN writes their “classic cheese sauce” with 3 tbsp (45mL) of butter or margarine and 1/4 cup (50mL) of regular milk.

Irresistables just lists 1/4 cup (50mL) of skim milk and only 1 tbsp (15mL) of butter.

It looks like KD’s nutrition facts table was based off the recipe using margarine and skim milk! I should use that version!

HA HA HA

1/4 cup of 2% milk for each, 1tbsp of butter for Irresistables and 3 TBSP OF BUTTER for KD.

By following instructions for each package down to the minute, it’s easier to make comparisons since it’s technically supposed to reflect what the manufacturers actual product.

Details like cooking different products on the same size burner to get even heat distribution helps to make better comparisons, too!

In other words, if you make a crappy KD from the box, you have only yourself to blame. Or the other ingredients like milk and butter. But how often do they mess up when you keep them in the fridge?

Once, I was helping test a few different macaroni and cheese products and one particular brand (who shall remain nameless but comes in a bright yellow box) carried pink powdered cheese sauce. Yeah, pink. It turned yellow after mixing it in with margarine and milk, but… pink cheese?

Thankfully, neither KD or Irresistables had pink cheese powder and both came out looking rather tasty.

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Kraft Dinner

Appearance – 3.5/5

The noodles are straight, thin and about 2cm long with only a few breaks from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Their lengths are a little uneven, but it’s so few that it’s barely noticeable except to critics like me.

The cheese sauce turns a deep yellowy-orange hue and very evenly coats every single noodle’s surface after you mix it up. What results is a shiny, polished look to the dish.

But, the sauce gets fully absorbed by the pasta noodles, so it does congeal and looks a bit dry after a few minutes.

Aroma – 4/5

I was actually really surprised that KD has such a pleasant smell. I could actually smell the butter, the dairy notes and the distinctive but faint cheddar cheese right off the bat!

After a few sniffs, I could start to pick up a strange note that I associate with artificial cheese like with Cheetos and Doritos.

Taste – 4/5

Yes, I’m being generous with my grading this time. It will never hold up against a real macaroni and cheese casserole with real bechamel sauce with real cheddar cheese, gouda and a bit of mozzarella grated in.

But, damn it, there’s something about KD’s flavour balance between sweetness, buttery-ness, saltiness and cheesiness that’s kept it at the top of the macaroni and cheese mountain.

Texture – 3.5/5

At 7 minutes of cooking in boiling water, the noodles were chewy, tender, smooth and nicely al dente. Whoever does their pasta does it extremely well.

The sauce was smooth and had a very good mouthfeel because of the sheer amount of butter I added in, but there wasn’t any kind of cheesy or gooey texture and it got thin after a little while.

Overall – 15/20

The pasta’s smooth and perfectly al dente after 7 minutes of cooking and the sauce tastes exactly what it advertises (powdered cheddar cheese with buttery and silky mouthfeel), but you’re left wanting some more sauce and some actual cheesy textures to it.

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Irresistables Gluten Free Macaroni & Cheese

Appearance – 3.5/5

Instead of straight noodles, Irresistables used traditional, small elbow macaroni instead. The shape makes it look more solid and pasta-like instead of looking like bits of noodly appendages.

The sauce doesn’t quite stick as well as KD, which led to some uneven coverage around each macaroni. The thing put me off a bit was how the sauce had a slight fluorescent tint to its orange hue. That’s just not appetizing!

Aroma – 3/5

This macaroni and cheese did have some cheesy, buttery notes in it, but it wasn’t as strong as KD’s. Especially the butter notes. But, it only had a third of the added butter, so…

Taste – 4/5

Like the aroma, the overall flavours were milder but it still wasn’t as sweet as KD. It was actually a bit saltier in terms of balance, but that made it taste cheesier and way more savoury.

Texture – 3.5/5

First of all, the instructions on the side say 6 minutes. It takes at least 8 minutes to cook, trust me! But, rice flour pasta does tend to be a little gritty when al dente and it turns into a goopy mess if you overcook it. Luckily, I managed to strain it before it started turning into mush.

Aside from the slight grittiness, the pasta was soft and chewy just like wheat pasta and it didn’t dissolve at all once I started to chew on it. The sauce was also a bit thicker than KD with a slightly cheesier mouthfeel, but it didn’t stick to the pasta and still lacked a real cheesy texture!

Overall – 14/20

It’s a very tasty product that almost makes you believe that it’s not something gluten-free. The cheese sauce tastes cheesier than Kraft Dinner, but its bright orange colour makes it look more artificial than it should.

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Kraft Dinner. It’s a Canadian thing. Everyone has their own version of this comfort food here. What’s yours?

Many thanks to Ann for the suggestion!

B.elle

Irresistables Gluten-Free Cake Mix – White

Gluten-intolerance has a slight misconception that going on a gluten-free diet will cure irritability, indigestion and raise your energy levels suddenly.

It’s true, but it’s only true for people who are actually gluten-intolerant or celiacs. How can you find out that you are a celiac? People say that if you suffer all of those symptoms, try a gluten-free diet for a couple weeks and see how you feel. If you feel better, keep it up.

But, the problem with that plan is that switching diets like that might have simply forced you to eat healthier. After all, wheat gluten’s found in a lot of high-fat, high-carb, high-calorie food like pasta, cake and cookies.

So, the most definitive way is to ask your doctor to decide if you want to be professionally looked at. Simple as that.

For the ones who are SURE that they’re celiacs but still want a tasty treat (or for the curious foodies), gluten-free mixes are becoming more and more common!

Irresistables is Metro’s high-tier brand, so I was pretty surprised that they’d just give their gluten-free cake mix a “White” flavour. What in the hell is “white” supposed to taste like?

If you take a quick look at the ingredient list, they don’t list any flavourings at all. Like vanilla. So, they can’t call it Vanilla since it doesn’t have any at all! Most likely, adding vanilla extract inside the cake made an inferior product so they decided to leave it to the customer to add as much or as little as they wanted.

… But who wouldn’t add vanilla to their plain cake, anyway? It’s optional here, but I put it in!

The instructions on the side list a bunch of pan sizes and corresponding bake times, which is INCREDIBLY helpful since I’m one of those amateur bakers who can’t begin to try to estimate the differences in bake time and freak out when I don’t have the right pans.

Luckily, I DID find a pan that they listed!

Here’s my 9″x13″ square pan greased with lard.

The instructions are fairly simple… Although I noticed that I didn’t have enough butter in the house, so I substituted what I was missing with vegetable oil.

That’s about as fluffy as I could get it. If you use all butter, it’ll be a lot more solid but you should still be able to see the ribboning effect along the edges of the bowl like I did here.

Now, that’s what the batter looks like before you add any liquid aside from the eggs. To me, it looks more like cookie dough than anything!

After the batter was mixed with milk, it turned into a nice looking batter…

… But, you’d still need to spread it out in the pan with a spatula until it’s nice and even. Sorta like this…

Once it’s spent some time in the oven according to the instructions on the side, it should look nice and golden brown on the top and pulled away from the sides a little.

Cooled, it looks like this…

… and cut, it looks like this…

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Appearance – 4/5

It looks remarkably like a normal vanilla cake. Golden brown top, slightly crumbly, white insides, and moist-looking. The edges were slightly burnt, but it wasn’t inedible.

The only thing that looks different from a normal cake is how it didn’t rise as much and it looks a bit denser.

Aroma – 4/5

It smelled so good! But, it was just too mild. It carried the faint scents of vanilla, baked batter (you know what I mean by that!), and mild caramelized scents from the edges.

Taste – 4/5

Obviously, it was sweet and tasted of vanilla since I added vanilla extract to it. There wasn’t a lot of bread flavours since it’s not made out of wheat flour, but there was still a light caramelization on the outside that gave it deeper baked flavour.

Texture – 3.5/5

The texture pleasantly surprised me since it gave a nice, thick mouthfeel as the cake started to melt in my mouth, yet it was still fluffy and slightly chewy like a normal wheat-based cake. Unlike other gluten-free cakes, this one didn’t dissolve too quickly and the edges were dense but not terribly tough to eat.

However, there was a constant but very slight gritty texture that probably comes from the sugar not being fine enough in the mix. Normally, the sugar and butter would be creamed together first to help it all blend together, but this method was a little different.

At the same time, it as a bit weird how it stuck to my teeth a little bit with every bite. It was definitely strange, compared to normal cakes.

Overall – 15.5/20

If I didn’t know that this was a gluten-free cake, I would have thought that it was a lower-end normal cake mix instead of being higher-end. There are some textural problems like grittiness and slight sticking to teeth, but they’re the same problems that come with using potato and rice flours.

The bottom line is that I would definitely buy this gluten-free cake mix again if I wanted a gluten-free cake.

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Do you know other gluten-free recipes or products? Feel free to share them in the comment section!

B.elle

Guess What?!

DOUBLE POST TOMORROW!

I’ll be posting not once,  but TWICE tomorrow on two health/diet-related products!

Yves’ Veggie Cuisine’s Veggie Salami Slices that are completely vegan and no trans fat, and Irresistibles’ Gluten Free Cake Mix in White flavour (What does it mean by “white”?!)

Find out tomorrow!

B.elle