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One of the first specifically GF replacement products I tried were Pamela’s Peanut Butter Cookies that I bought in Seattle at Whole Foods. By then I hadn’t had anything closely resembling bread or cookies in about 3 months, as such replacement products by and large simply don’t exist in Japan. I was so desperate for sweet carbs aside from mochi that I didn’t realize quite how good they were, until I recently tried a competing pre-packaged GF cookie product by Tree of Life. Now, I can tell you with certainty that Pamela’s has the packaged GF cookie market won (at least as far as nationally available products go).

GF replacement products are usually expensive enough that when it comes to non-essentials, like sweet treats, I confine myself to sales and weekly specials. I had bought some Tree of Life shortbread cookies and found them okay, so when the peanut butter ones came on sale I figured they ought to be good, -wrong… Of the typical problems GF baked goods face, these have it all: dry, gritty sandy and so crumbly I think only half the cookies in the package were intact. Of course this could have been why they were on sale. While a certain amount of sandy texture is the nature of shortbread, it is totally unacceptable in peanut butter cookies, especially when such a good alternative exists.

Pamela’s PB cookies are moist and chewy and have none of the gritty sandy-ness that often plagues GF replacement foods. To Tree of Life, I can only say “Try, try again…”