Product Review: Cinnamon Bread Mix by The Really Great Food Company

Boy oh boy - where do I begin? From the complicated directions for bread machine or oven method to the disastrous final product, this was one difficult mix to work with.

The bread machine method only mentions instructions for a Breadman Plus - not any other breadmaker. My model is a bit newer and has a gluten free bread setting, so I took a guess and used that one. The only thing that is clear on the box is that it needs to bake for 50 minutes. Other than that, you are on your own if you are using a bread machine.

The oven method directions are worse - if you have plenty of time to beat, knead, allow rising, build up the sides of a baking pan with foil, etc, then maybe you can hack this one, but for me, this was too complicated.

The cinnamon scent was truly overpowering when the bread was baking. I was baking a loaf of banana bread at the same time in my oven while the cinnamon bread was baking, and I never smelled the banana bread. The cinnamon was so strong, that even three hours later, it smells like it is still baking. That's pretty dang strong.

Lastly was the flavor. This was just terrible. I expected a thick bread with cinnamon flavor, but what I tasted was cardboard with a bit of spice. You would think that the flavor would have come through, as strong as the scent was, but honestly, the flavor itself was weak. Not to mention that even with a 53 minute cook cycle (the box suggests 50 minutes with the Breadman Plus) this was not fully cooked and I had to add 15 minutes of additional "bake only" time to my bread machine. Even that still left some pockets of uncooked bread, but it was better than where we started.

Suffice it to say, I will NOT be getting this product again. What a disappointment, especially from a company called Really Great Food.