Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am thorougly disgusted with Betty Crocker for this product (Gluten-free Bisquick), which is a shame, because I do applaud them for their excellent cake, cookie, and brownie mixes. I'm not upset with them for for coming out with a gluten-free baking mix, but for: #1) marketing it as though it's an equivalent to Bisquick and #2) for pricing it so ridiculously high. Ingredients for regular Bisquick: Enriched flour, Partiallly hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, leavening, dextrose, salt. Ingredients for gluten-free Bisquick: Rice Flour, Sugar, Leavening (baking soda, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), Modified Potato Starch, Salt, Xanthan Gum Notice anything missing from the ingredients of gluten-free Bisquick? Yup, that's right--there's no shortening (or oil). That was the whole point of the original Bisquick--a baking mix that ALREADY HAD THE SHORTENING MIXED IN. That avoids the longest and messiest step of baking things like biscuits That is why people buy baking mixes--for that specific convenience. Betty Crocker has decided to leave out the shortening (or oil) altogether, even though shortening (or oil) is always naturally gluten-free. So they can't pretend it's a safety-for-celiacs factor. It's a cost-savings to them, pure and simple. Here's the breakdown of what you're paying $5 a pound for: rice flour (99 cents a pound at my local Asian store), sugar ($2.88 for a 5 pound bag at Walmart) , potato starch (also 99 cents a pound at the Asian store), baking powder ($3.19 a pound at Emergency Essentials), salt ($2 for 26 ounces of Morton's), xanthan gum ($10.45 for 4 ounce on Amazon). Yes, xanthan gum is expensive--but very, very little is needed; a 16-ounce box of gluten-free Bisquick would contain about a teaspoon of xanthan gum--maybe 20 cents' worth of xanthan gum. Betty Crocker is charging over 5 times what it would cost you to make their "mix" at home, while eliminating the major convenience factor (and cost to themselves, but not to you) of their regular baking mix. I don't mind their making a fair profit, especially if the product really WERE the equivalent of regular Bisquick. But they're gouging us, and being misleading about the product. MAKE YOUR OWN, EASILY, AND FOR LESS THAN 20% OF WHAT THEY CHARGE! Since there's no oil in gluten-free Bisquick, you can easily stir up an equivalent, make 5 pounds (or more!) at a time, with very little effort, and it will keep for several months. Or, if you want a REAL Bisquick substitutes, betterbatter.org has a recipe on the site for a cup-for-cup substitute for Bisquick that DOES use shortening and non-fat dry milk powder. Or you can use buttermilk powder, or even Vance's dairy-free powder. It makes 10 cups at a time, stores well, and you don't have to use their gluten-free flour--you can use any gluten-free flour replacement you want (like rice flour and potato starch from your local Asian store, mixed with an appropriate amount of xanthan gum, about 1/2 teaspoon for every two cups). To find the recipe, do a google search of "betterbatter Bisquick Substitute Master Mix." Boo on Betty Crocker. Edit 6/2/13: Aldi's now carries their own brand ("Baker's Corner") gluten-free pancake mix. $2.99 for a 1-pound box. That's about half the price of gf Bisquick, and the ingredients are very similar. Pancakes made with the mix tasted the same as those made with gf Bisquick. EDIT, 7/29/14: And because it doesn't have the shortening of regular Bisquick, YOU CAN'T SUBSTITUTE IT CUP-FOR-CUP IN REGULAR BISQUICK RECIPES.