It’s the height of pumpkin season at Trader Joe’s and we know how they love to stuff pumpkin spices in everything and in this case Trader Joe’s has put your favorite pumpkin spices in Gluten Free bagels! Trader Joe’s has released these for several years in a row now and they stay very popular.
I’d seen these bagels on several other websites and was wondering why it wasn’t in the bagel section of my local Trader Joe’s. Over the past couple of weeks, I kept going over and looking at the bagels and going, hmmm… not in my Trader Joe’s. Little did I know there was a whole Gluten Free bread section on the other end of the bread aisle…. I don’t do much Gluten Free food, but I know how many of you out there love it. Based on the amount of buzz these bagels were causing, I’m glad I found it.
It’s high season at Trader Joe’s for the seasonal pumpkin spice flavored foods. Ice Cream, cookies, soup, yogurt, bagels… You name it if Trader Joe’s can put pumpkin and/or pumpkin spice in it, they will. This is no exception. I just reviewed the regular, wheat bagels which I didn’t like at all.
So after that review, I didn’t have any expectations that these would be any good. Sometimes I think Trader Joe’s just likes to slap some pumpkin spice into something for a quick win. After a while, we get sick of it all, and then comes Christmas with its unique blend of spices and seasonal products.
As you can probably tell from my reviews, I’m not gluten free. But Trader Joe’s never one to ignore a trend has jumped in with both feet. You really can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a couple of gluten free products in the Trader Joe’s store. It’s why they have such a loyal following.
As you can see from the picture of the bagel before I cut it in half, it’s got an odd look to it, like it was poured into a mold and it retained that poured look. Looks out of place with other bagels that usually have a shiny shell to them, which is from being briefly dipped in boiling water. Obviously, you can’t do that with gluten free dough because it would probably ruin them.
I proceeded to cut the bagel and was surprised to see how much it looked like regular bread. I could smell the pumpkin spice aroma. I bit into the bagel and it had a nice texture and I could immediately taste the pumpkin spice as I chewed. It’s not overpowering like in some of their products, but it’s a strong presence.
I popped one in the toaster and it toasted up just fine like a regular bagel and then I decided to go completely decadent and put the Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice cream cheese on it. Talk about pumpkin spice overload! I actually preferred the regular cream cheese to the pumpkin spice one, but that’s just me. These are made with brown rice flour and pumpkins.
Each bagel has 290 calories, which in my mind is quite high for a bagel. Then you notice that each Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Spice Bagel has 11 grams of added sugar. This is really unacceptable. That’s the equivalent of 3 teaspoons of sugar in each bagel.
Plus, there is no pumpkin in these bagels, just the spice mix. Pumpkin would be a great gluten free ingredient to add to bagels.
My Final Verdict
Would I buy these again? Probably not, I just prefer regular bagels (with gluten) and if I wanted some pumpkin spice, I would put the cream cheese on them. Plus Trader Joe’s makes a regular gluten filled bagel with pumpkin spice in them. I wouldn’t be ashamed if I put these out. They are just OK, but not great. Trader Joe’s has refined the gluten free baking process so they are almost as good as regular wheat based bagels. All you gluten free people should rejoice to have a choice like this even though it’s filled with sugar.
I am going to rate these 6 Bells out of 10. If they got rid of all the sugar, they might go up a point or two.
INGREDIENTS
water, brown rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, cane sugar, pumpkin puree, cultured brown rice flour, expeller pressed canola oil. sweet brown rice flour, dough conditioner (brown rice flour, calcium sulfate, enzyme). contains 2% or less of xanthan gum, egg white powder, and molasses. yeast, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, potato flour, monocalcium phosphate), sea salt, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, ground clove, natural flavor. turmeric oleoresin (color)
I completely disagree that the pumpkin cream cheese is “pumpkin spice overload”. I love Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice products but for years turned my nose up at the pumpkin cream cheese assuming it would be awful. I was so wrong. I bought both the cream cheese and the gf pumpkin bagels this year (2021) and can’t get enough of them! The cream cheese is delicious just on it’s own and would be good on anything including Trader Joe’s pumpkin brioche bread. However, it’s especially good on these gf bagels. I’ve never had a pumpkin bagel before so I was also surprised at how good these are. I’ve found that toasting them in the oven with the cutside down at 350 for about 12 minutes and then turning them over and toasting another 1-2 minutes on the cutside makes them crunchy enough that they taste like a regular bagel. These two combined are a heavenly experience and I strongly recommend them to anyone who loves pumpkin spice!