Publication & Product Reviews:  The Good, the Bad, and the Echh.

Photo By Amy Gedgaudas

Here we attempt to offer you millions of unbiased publication and product reviews. While no compensation has been received in exchange for these reviews, in most cases the products have been supplied for free by the manufacturer – that’s how we’re able to offer you so many.

We have all sorts of folks on our review squad, from different parts of the world, too. Since some of our reviewers are vegan gluten-eaters and some of our reviewers are xgfx, at the bottom of every review we’ll designate the eating habits of each author to let you know their perspective. We wanted to show you an example of a review from both sides of this angle.

Gone Pie Vegan Bakery – “A Tale From Two Sides”

Tested: Vanilla & Chocolate Macaroons, Sesame-Peanut & Chocolate Chip Cookies, & Coconut Brownies


Gone Pie Vegan Bakery is an online bakery which now offers many of their products for home delivery after serving their baked goods in Manhattan for many years. They offer a full line of gluten-free products as well as glutenous ones (and many are soy-free as well) – all are 100% vegan all the time. Gone Pie’s gluten-free goodies aren’t filled with large amounts of starches, rather they’re filled with more whole grain goodnesses for better health. Shipping is included in the cost of their products and they offer monthly specials so you can get your steal on.

Both Carrie and myself received goodies from Gone Pie to taste and review so we’re bringing you a review from the perspective of a vegan and one from a gluten-free vegan. Our review squadron is entirely vegan, but not entirely gluten-free. This way you’ll get lots of voices and reviews from every angle – we’re leaving no stone unturned and we hope you find this most helpful. Individual tastes vary and we’re here to celebrate those differences – so read each review with this in mind and enjoy!

Carrie: Heads up, I am not gluten-free at the moment, so this review will be voiced from the more picky opinion of someone who can just go and grab a baked good full of gluten at a moment’s notice. This, however, may come back to bite me in the butt, as I am currently seeing my doctors for some digestive issues for which some research shows that a gluten-free and *gasp* chickpea-free diet may help. Let’s just hope my plan to reduce the stress which may have caused it will be enough to throw it back into remission. Now enough about me, you came here for the review, so without further ado…

Jessy: I’ve been xgfx since July of 2009 and because I haven’t had gluten in a long while I’m not the best when it comes to comparing glutenous to gluten-free goodies any longer. I simply can’t remember the textures, mouth-feel, and flavors of those glutenous foods I used to consume. Just keep that in mind, my friends…

Vanilla Macaroons:

Carrie: These are really good. You can’t go wrong with a pile of coconut held together with a minor amount of binders. You can’t really taste the vanilla, but the coconut flavors are enough to keep me happy.

Jessy: Believe it or not, I’ve never been the biggest macaroon fan, but Gone Pie’s vanilla macaroons were totally different. They’re more moist than ones I’ve tried before and perfectly sweetened – I really enjoyed the texture, too. I am definitely a fan!

**organic coconut, organic coconut milk, organic agave nectar, organic coconut flour, almond flour, tapioca flour, organic coconut oil, grain-free vanilla, sea salt. ($16.00 for 6 macaroons)

Chocolate Macaroons:

Carrie: The chocolate macaroons, however, have a very strange flavor. It tastes ike slightly burnt carob or brown rice syrup, but the only difference in ingredients from the plain macaroon was the cocoa powder. It is possible that there was just too much cocoa powder in the macaroons causing the burnt flavor, but even if the cocoa tasted better, If I anted a chocolate element to my macaroons, I would have preferred a plain macaroon dipped in melted chocolate. I suppose I’m a bit of a macaroon purist.

Jessy: While I thought the chocolate macaroons where delicious for what they were, I prefer the vanilla macaroons simply because there isn’t any cocoa powder to distract from all the awesomeness that’s already there.

**organic coconut, organic coconut milk, organic agave nectar, cocoa powder, organic coconut flour, almond flour, tapioca flour, organic coconut oil, grain-free vanilla, sea salt. ($16.00 for 6 macaroons)

Coconut Brownies:

Carrie: The cocoa flavor on these was much better than the chocolate macaroons. The fruitiness came through very well. The texture was not really all that similar to a gluteny brownie; it was dense, but not too dense, but it was ever slightly too grainy for my preference, which I have noticed is a running theme in gluten-free cakes. If I had no choice but to avoid gluten, this would be a welcome treat, but it still wouldn’t fill the silky smooth fudgy brownie void due to that textural abnormality. At room temperature, I found that the frosting detracted from the experience. I much preferred the unadorned version, as brownies aren’t supposed to be frosted. The frosting on its own was okay. I am not a fan of brown rice syrup, but it wasn’t a complete negative here. It combined with the fruitiness of the chocolate and coconut milk to be fairly reminiscent of malt. The slightly burnt carob-y flavor came back, so I think it may be a problem with the cocoa itself. When chilled, the combination worked better. The burnt flavor in the frosting translated into a more caramel flavor, and the moisture from the frosting helped break up the solid mass of cold brownie. The frosting also masked some of the graininess from the brownie and introduced some of the much needed fudginess.

Jessy: If you’re looking for a rich, dense cake-like brownie with lots of tasty ooey gooey fudge on top and delightful coconutty flavor then these are for you. I’ll go ahead and warn you though, these are not for the faint of heart. I am a big fan of all brownies, but I found myself only taking a very small square at a time to nibble on because these were oh-so rich. I could taste the dates used to create these brownies, but it wasn’t overly distracting and I found the flavor worked really well. I served these at a dinner party where I was the only gluten-free vegan and they received rave reviews from everyone.

**brownie: organic brown sugar, gluten-free flour blend (sorghum flour, organic rice flour, garfava four, potato flour, tapioca flour, organic buckwheat flour, organic coconut flour), dates, organic coconut milk, gluten-free chocolate chips, chocolate liquor, organic coconut, canola oil, organic tahini, organic non-dairy/unsweetened cocoa powder, organic coconut oil, non-aluminated baking powder, spices.
**frosting: organic rice and/or coconut milk, gluten-free vegan bittersweet chocolate, organic maple syrup, organic rice syrup, non-dairy chocolate liquor, organic non-dairy/unsweetened cocoa, arrowroot. ($21.00 for an 8×6 pan)

Sesame-Peanut Cookie:

Carrie: Exactly what you’d expect from a peanut butter cookie. Dense, healthy-tasting, peanutty, chewy, soft and flexible. The only thing missing was the slight saltiness. The sesame seeds on top added a nice textural component, but the flavor was a bit blah and muddy, which would have been helped by a small addition of salt.

Jessy: These were my absolute favorite. I feel kinda silly that I didn’t think to combine sesame and peanut butter together before, because ohhhh yeah, it’s great! The sesame-peanut cookies were soft and chewy and ever-so delightful. I was also surprised there was xanthan gum used – normally I can tell when it’s present, but in these fantastical numbers I could not. I can see myself ordering more sesame-peanut cookies super soon!

**organic peanut butter, gluten-free flour blend (organic rice flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, garfava four, organic sorghum flour, organic buckwheat flour, organic coconut flour), organic rice syrup, organic tahini, organic maple syrup, organic brown sugar, organic sunbutter, organic sesame seeds, organic coconut oil, baking soda, xanthan gum. ($28.00 for 8 large cookies)

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie:

Carrie: This is a soft cookie. The package came through the mail, so the texture is obviously not fresh-from-the oven bakery case crisp, but if there was any crispness to begin with, it was lost in transit. That’s not a complete negative though, soft cookies have their place. Even though the graininess (which was noted from the brownies) reappeared, it wasn’t that big of a deal. There was no burnt carob-y cocoa flavor. All in all, it was a very enjoyable cookie, and as someone who might not need to avoid gluten currently nor in the future, I would definitely buy this if I had a craving. Of the five items tasted, this was the clear winner, and my husband who has a fully-functioning digestive system completely agrees.

Jessy: This was my second favorite out of all the treats. May it be noted that I adore cookies the mostest – they’re my favorite form of baked goods and I can be rather picky. The chocolate chip to cookie ratio was spot on, the cookie was soft, and I really liked the rice flour. It gave the chocolate chip cookies a slighty grainy texture, but not in a bad way – it actually reminded me of the Tollhouse cookies my grandmother used to bake. I dipped the remainder of my cookie in almond milk and found myself flooded with fond memories.

**Enjoy Life non-dairy/semi-sweet chocolate, blend of gluten-free flours (organic rice flour, tapioca flour, potato flour, garfava four, sorghum flour, organic buckwheat flour, organic coconut flour), organic maple syrup, organic coconut milk, canola oil, organic brown rice syrup, organic brown sugar, cocoa powder, organic coconut oil, xanthan gum, baking soda, sea salt. ($28.00 for 8 large cookies)

Carrie’s Pros:

  • Vanilla Macaroons are excellent.
  • Chocolate Chip Cookies are soft & most enjoyable.

Jessy’s Pros:

  • Damn good cookies.
  • Vanilla macaroons changed my mind about macaroons.
  • Shipping included in the price.

Carrie’s Cons:

  • Chocolate Macaroons & Coconut Brownies yielded a slight burnt carob/brown rice syrup flavor.
  • Coconut Brownies could use more fudginess.

Jessy’s Cons:

  • Chocolate macaroons were tasty, but the vanilla macaroons outshined them.
  • Coconut brownies were very rich and I was a bit sad because I could only eat tiny amounts at a time.
  • Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food! By Kittee Berns

  • Latest

  •  

  • Categories

  •  

  • Archives

  •