Mission Statement - Our objective at Ballybrado is to spread the joy of food and living in harmony with nature, and taking a responsible role in society by producing wholesome and tasty food in a sustainable manner." - by Ballybrado.com
If you eat porridge and/or use oat flakes frequently for your baking etc. you'll know that it's very hard to get good oats. Usually the ones I buy aren't cleared properly (have lots of rinds) and the flakes itself are very hard. This was a different experience alltogether.
My Hubby had a childhood memory brought back to him - when he was few years old, him and his siblings used to go and play on the farm, amongst the growing rye etc. They would pick up the seeds, crush them in their hands and eat, just like that. Yesterday he put his hand in the pack of oat flakes, picked up a few and ate... just like that :) He said it's the same taste, a taste of summer in Poland, when he was just a little boy... oooh, how sweet :)
Besides oatflakes I've also recieved muesli - so popular today. Personally I'm not a huge fan of muesli mixes, as they have too many raisins for my liking, even though when it says that it's a mix of few things all I can see on my plate are oat flakes and raisins!
Organic Standard Flake Oats
What's included: oat flakes
Comes in a 750 g package, rrp: € 2.55
Nice, medium sized oat flakes. 'Clear' scent of fresh oats - meaning there's no 'stale' smell present (which I used to find in some other brands, like it was kept in a wet conditions without any fresh air). Clean, no hard 'skins' present. Great for normal, traditional cooking on the stove and rapid one in the microwave as well (or like my Hubby - eat it raw ;) ). Simply delicious - in any form.
Tried in
traditional porridge. Flapjacks next on the list! :)
Organic Junior Muesli
What's included: Sunflower seeds, Spelt flakes, Raisins, Golden linseeds, Puffed spelt, Corn flakes, Oat flakes, Strawberries, Coconut, Chocolate crunchy.
Comes in a 500 g package, rrp: € 4.95
The mix is well balanced, not too much of only one ingredient. Muesli is crunchy, but not too hard. Addition of chocolate crunches and dry strawberries makes it sweet so you don't need to add sugar or honey to make it sweet. The fact that the mix is only from organic ingredients gives it a huge plus, I'm so aware of (and against) all those GM grains and products these days and I avoid them at any cost.
Tried with warm milk - nice, doesn't become sloppy after a minute, no need of extra sugar.
Tried with plain, Greek yogurt - very good (my prefered way of eating muesli) no sugar needed.
P.S. Don't know why it's called 'Junior Muesli' cos I could eat it all by myself ;)
The parcel I recieved was quite big and it contained 3 more packs of baking mixes.
As you all know 9 out of 10 times I bake/cook from scratch but that one time (when it's hectic, I just don't feel like it etc.) I would use mixes of all sorts. In generall I'm a supporter of good baking mixes, for those who may not be brilliant in the kitchen (or just don't want to bake from scratch on that given day), but still want to enjoy home made, freshly baked bread or cake.
Little Bakers cake mix
What's included: cake mix (spelt flour, corn starch, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest) you have to add 3 eggs and 150 g margarine/unsalted butter
Comes in a 350 g package, rrp: € 2.85
The batter comes together nicely and yes - I've made it with my 2 year old :) She was helping me mix it and she was counting the eggs. I've poured 2/3 of the batter to the baking tin and added a cocoa powder to the rest. Poured the cocoa batter on the top and baked it like that. The result was good, but in my humble opinion this cake mix is to use it with 'something', to add something extra to it. For example make cupcakes with fresh fruit, add cocoa or chocolate to the mix, add raisins or nuts of some kind, make a frosting on the ready baked cake etc. The plain cake, just as it was in the package might turn out too plain. All in all - a very good mix and organic!
Brown bread mix - Multi seeds soda bread
What's included: bread mix (spelt, oat flakes, seeds of sunflower, pumpkin, seasame, chia, baking soda, cream of tartar, seas salt) you have to add 350 ml milk or 450 ml buttermilk
Comes in a 454 g package, rrp: € 3.03
This is a kind of bread you can find in health stores. It has lots(!) of seeds. The making of the bread wasn't difficult, batter rather than a dough (as it's quite wet and liquid) was easy to work with and there's no need for kneading. The result is good - quite dense bread, but very nice taste and smells delicious. Good with sweet things like honey or jam, as well as cold meats and cheeses.
Spelt bread mix for a Buttery Toast
What's included: bread mix (white spelt flour, instant dry yeast, raw cane castor sugar, sea salt) you have to add 50 g butter and 400 ml milk
Comes in a 500 g package, rrp: € 3.62
This is my definite favourite out of the above 3 products. I was a little bit worried when I've started making it, as the batter was really runny and I thought this can't be right, but in the end all worked great. I was also suprised by the long time I had to bake it for, but again - it came out of the oven as it should have. The bread is moist, nice even holes, very buttery indeed and makes great toasts. For that price and the fact that it's organic, it wins for me with other similar products and it's definietly better than a store bought toast bread!
All in all, at the end of the day, it's about the quality of the flour and Ballybrado flour IS very good, not to mention - organic.
All the above products are available in most health food stores in Ireland and in approx. 30 Supervalu stores nationwide. At the moment Ballybrado products aren't available on-line.
For more information about Ballybrado and their products please go to
www.ballybrado.com
*I received a free sample of all the above products to review from the Ballybrado Ltd. All thoughts and opinions stated in this post are 100% mine.
