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For this month's meeting we had a bread tasting event. Katz's Gluten-Free Bakery in Monroe, NY, was kind enough to send us some of their products to sample.

I chose the popular Challa Bread and their Whole Grain Bread. As a bonus [I didn't request it, didn't want to appear piggish after all], they sent us some Chocolate Rugelech! Cool!

I must apologize, I did not get a chance to take any pictures of our event. I know, I know - very uncharacteristic me.

The Challa Bread was popular. I had fun finding out the history of Challa bread. Several members particularly commented on the crust and how well they liked it. It's a great tasting bread with great texture. A good all around sandwich bread.

The Whole Grain Bread was liked, but not as much as the Challa. Everyone loved the taste, but texture was a bit chewy [at least for my tastes]. To be fair, the bread was not completely thawed, so we put it microwave a few seconds right before the tasting. I also noticed that Katz's website states...

We recommend toasting this bread to achieve a maximum level of taste and crispiness.

Sadly, we didn't have access to a toaster in the meeting room. While I was grilling some burgers for dinner, I decided to grill up a few slices of bread. This worked wonders.

I think everyone commented on the fact that either bread did not fall apart when applying the butter or jelly. So many GF breads tend to crumble in your hand while doing that - not Katz's!

The Chocolate Rugelech was a new experience for me and I think for the rest of the group. I admit, I had never even heard of Rugelech before, let alone taste it. Rural Wisconsin does not have a large Jewish population, so we tend to miss some of the world's cultural foods. German, Polish & Scandinavian cultures, we got covered. Yah, you betcha! . :-) Now that I think of it, a good GF beer would pair nicely with the Chocolate Rugelech.

I think the most common comment I heard was..."Interesting". I will say, they do have a taste that is not usually found are this part of WI. They are not overly sweet [which is what you usually find around here], there's a slight bitterness that takes you by surprise. These look like a mini-cinnimon rolls, so perhaps my brain was expecting something more along those lines. After my third or forth one, I found that I was sad because they were gone.

After I contacted Katz's, I happened to find their bread at Woodman's Grocery in Appleton - it's in the freezer section by the GF foods. I'm not sure if they are carried at all Woodman's locations or not.

A special thanks to David at Katz's for being so generous with their products. I tip my hat to any and all companies like Katz's that provide us foods to make us happy and feel "normal".

Until next time...

Al

Tags: Baked Goods