Earth Balance has just come out with a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free spread. This is excellent news for those of you with multiple allergies. I have not seen any other dairy-free spreads that are also soy-free (but I don’t generally go out looking for them).
According to the package (and the website), you can use it to spread, saute, fry, bake, and cook. We put it to the test.
Toast. I like toast. But I don’t like putting anything on my toast that causes it to break. The Earth Balance spread nicely across my toast, without any problems. It tasted pretty good, too.
Taste, hmmm. A buttery spread is a bit different to taste test than a cookie or cereal, because you don’t generally eat the stuff plain.
But that’s where Andy comes into the picture.
He will eat it plain.
It’s a little disturbing, actually.
However, for this, it worked out rather nicely. Andy ate a bite of the Earth Balance soy-free buttery spread. “Well, it’s not real butter. Nothing’s as good as real butter.” (He sounds like an ad for the dairy council, doesn’t he?) However, he said it had a good buttery flavor, and was something he would definitely use. To him, it tasted more buttery than the lite olive oil version of Smart Balance (the only thing we had other than real butter in which to compare).
Alright – it tastes good and I can spread it on toast. But can I do anything else with it?
The answer is “yes!”
I used it to fry eggs and hashbrowns the other morning, and it worked superbly. And for baking???
Yesterday, I made brownies (if you are dairy-free, soy-free, you could use some Enjoy Life chocolate chips and make my brownie recipe). Any excuse to make brownies, right? It was easy enough to put the right amount of Earth Balance into the pot when using my digital kitchen scale.
At first, I was quite stunned at how poorly the spread was melting.
Then I realized I had turned on the wrong burner. Oops.
In fact, the Earth Balance melted a little faster than butter does. How fast? I don’t know – timing the melting of butter is not one of my favorite hobbies. 🙂
Well, the brownies were scrumptious, the flavor and texture just as awesome as usual. If Andy hadn’t had fasting work for the fire department this morning, I doubt there would have been enough brownies to take to lunch with Judith today (who really enjoyed them, too).
We think the Earth Balance Soy-Free Buttery Spread is a solid product. It tastes good and does what it says it will do. It’s also pretty good for you – it’s all-natural, has zero grams of trans fats, and is a good source of Omega 3s. Hooray for another great product that is aware of the food allergic and intolerant communities!
On a side note, if you haven’t left a comment for the Cookbook Giveaway, then you’d better hurry. The contest ends at 6:00 p.m. Central on Friday, May 29th.
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