Disclaimer - I was sent a selection of Clearspring organic purees for an honest review. The views expressed are entirely my own.About Clearspring
From their website:-
Clearspring have been trading in the UK for over 20 years, last year (2013) Clearspring celebrated their twentieth birthday. Marketing "Authentic, wholesome, easy-to-prepare and great tasting Japanese and fine foods for optimum nutrition" Clearspring has a wide range of products to suit everyone.
- All their products are 100% vegan with no artificial additives, MSG, colourings, preservatives or refined sugars and they subscribe to extremely high standards.
- Clearspring have won many awards, being Commended in the Free From Food Awards in 2014.
- All Clearspring products are Dairy Free and refined Sugar Free.They also have a Gluten Free range and a Nut Free Range
Perfect for Us
We at The Recipe Resource struggle with complex food allergies, and are always on the look-out for new products with single or few ingredients. Clearspring purees are perfect in this respect - but what *really* got us excited, beyond the obvious single ingredient, ease of use in cooking/baking, perfect weaning food options was their new range of pouched purees!
Clearspring "On the Go" Fruit PouchesMy eight+ year old twins have just gone into Year 4, and no longer is it deemed acceptable to take fruit puree pouches in that have come from the baby food aisle of the supermarket. I have used such brands for years, but however good the contents are you are not going to persuade either of my two that they acceptable in their lunch anymore. Also, since both have swallowing issues and many allergies it can be tricky meeting their nutritional requirements each day, and with a few wobbly teeth to boot its impossible biting in to fruit however soft! So I'm thrilled about these pouches - as are they.
Clearspring Puree Range
Without a doubt Clearspring offer the best variety of purees I have ever seen. They offer are a variety of blends as well as pear on its own. Often, in strict exclusion diets pear is one of the first foods you are asked to try, as it is one of the least allergenic foods. (see
this chart for a Food Allergen Scale.
Any banana puree can also be used as a raising agent, so the pear and banana puree is ideal for adding to muffins to help them rise - often a problem is you are excluding, and substituting egg. (See this chart for other
egg alternatives.)
I used the pear and banana puree to make some fruit muffins:-
The basic banana muffin
recipe is here and I made
pear muffins here and added cocoa powder. This time I made the banana muffins with the puree, banana helps them rise and the pear was a lovely additional flavour. The texture was really velvety smooth too.
Lastly I wanted to make some fruit puree lollies but my lolly moulds split recently. Instead I used the strawberry and apple puree to make a lolly mixture, using
this recipe but obviously the puree instead of the frozen fruit. It was delicious but would definitely be better as
lollies in proper moulds, like these!