In December 2012, I received an e-mail from a small company called Baked Better regarding their new, organic, gluten free bread! What makes this bread mix so cool is the only thing you have to add is water! I’d like to share the bulk of the e-mail with you:
We love the Gluten Free & Tasty Blog. We admire your goal to help others with gluten intolerance live a gluten free lifestyle, and think it’s so helpful that you are reviewing products so they know what works, tastes great and won’t be a waste of money.
We’re a young Brooklyn, NY-based company that makes organic (and vegan) bread mixes.Our goal is to help folks love to bake again by making it easy for them to do. All you need to do is add water…no bread maker necessary. And we’ve made our products with only the best ingredients–what we’d be happy feeding to our family and friends. We’re writing because we just developed a new gluten free recipe in response to customer demand and our awareness of the growing population that either must or wants to live gluten free. After reading blogs and hearing from our celiac friends, we know that bread recipes are always one of the most sought after and one of the foods people most fear giving up.
We’d love to share a bag of Fort Greene Gluten Free with you. We think it’s delicious. It is easy to make and has light buckwheat, brown rice, teff and rolled oats as its base. [W]e think your audience may like to know about a high-quality gluten free bread mix that’s easy to make at home and fun to get creative with!
I looked over their website and asked some questions regarding ppm and certification. This is what I learned:
To answer your question, the ingredients are all either gluten free certified or produced in single product facilities. Our mixes are packaged in a gluten free certified facility that is a completely different facility from where our wheat mixes are produced, and this GF certified facility also did their own review of our ingredients. We are not yet gluten free certified ourselves, but will begin the process soon.
This left me with some confusion, because it seems that they are and, yet, aren’t certified gluten free. When they are certified, they will do so at the 20ppm level. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous level for me, so I declined a sample, but told them that I would write about their product all the same, since I know there are gluten-intolerant people who believe that they have no problem with the 20ppm level, as well as those who went gluten-free for non-Celiac health reasons and do not need to worry about ppm (at all or as much).
The bread, called Fort Greene, after one of Brooklyn, NY’s most historic neighborhoods, does include some pretty good ingredients: brown rice flour, light buckwheat flour, teff flour, rolled oats, ground flaxseed meal, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, guar gum, dry yeast.
Teff in particular (an ancient grain native to Ethiopia) is full of protein, and is also reported to have high levels of calcium, thiamin, and easy-to-absorb iron. It is also high in fiber. Flaxseed meal is also great for fiber. Flax seeds are healthy, but the seeds are difficult to chew; grinding or milling them allows people to take in more of their nutritional value. (Golden flaxseeds, if you can find them, are even better!)
Screenshot from BB Website to show you what to look for:
If any of my readers sample their GF bread, I would love to hear what you think! They do have 3 other mixes available, but they contain wheat. All their mixes are preservative-free, sugar-free, and non-GMO.
I believe all four mixes are also vegan, but if you’re vegan, please confirm that for yourself. If you’re in Brooklyn, their website lists several physical locations where you can find their bread. Happy eating!
Update 8 October 2020: Their website is gone and their FB page hasn’t been updated since 2016.