Trader Joe’s Mini French Baguettes Review – Ask anyone in my family and they will tell you I am a bread nut. I love a good loaf of crusty freshly baked bread. Living in Europe for a couple of years made me appreciate it even more when I moved back to the United States. There is nothing better than a freshly baked baguette in Paris. Get some good salami and cheese and I am in heaven.
Luckily, now we can find all kinds of good bread here in the Seattle area without a problem. Unfortunately, Trader Joe’s selection of decent bread has dwindled in the past few years. Many, many years ago the bread selection at Traders was just OK. Decent sandwich bread but not really good uncut baguettes or boules.
Then things got really good around here a few years back but now we seem to have slipped on the selection of breads again. I don’t know if that’s a regional thing or not. I hear from family in other parts of the country that Trader Joe’s bread selection (of uncut loaves) is not very good either. Maybe it’s the competition from local bakeries or whatever but I hate having to run to another store for good bread.
I saw these Mini French Baguettes in the freezer section the other day for the first time. You get six mini baguettes in the bag. I picked up the bag and looked at it like how they going to get these little tiny baguettes to expand in size when I realized that was not going to happen.
I took these home hoping for some great experience because they are a “Product of France” so how could it be bad? They aren’t bad, let’s get that straight right away, but I’m not sure what problem they are trying to solve here. Really good French breadsticks? The French don’t eat these mini baguettes, or at least they weren’t there the last time I was in France.
These are essentially French breadsticks. Just because they look like baguettes doesn’t make them so. Each of them is about six inches long. You bake them from frozen directly on a rack in your oven. Forget about the times on the package. I think it said six minutes until they are lightly browned.
I ended up baking them for 10+ minutes just to brown them up and I have a really nice oven so I know their directions are messed up. I made three of them and I ate one and my kids each ate one. We all agree that they were good enough but nothing more than a glorified bread stick. I thought at least I could use them for some type of mini sandwich or something but they are no fatter than my thumb or a quarter.
Final Verdict
The price is pretty good if you just want six really good breadsticks. The kids really loved them so I might buy them again. They are super easy to make and they taste pretty good straight out of the oven. I will give this 7 Bells just because they are mini!
INGREDIENTS
wheat flour, water, contains 2% or less of salt, yeast, wheat gluten, deactivated yeast, wheat germ, malted wheat flour, and enzymes.
After 10 min at 400 and no browning, I baked them at 450 for 10 min. They came out perfectly brown and crispy with a soft inside. I then made a small salami and butter sandwich which was reminiscent of one I had had in France years ago. The product is good but the directions leave something to be desired