Allergy free chocolate – novelty & advent calendars

November 2, 2009 at 12:18 pm | In Allergy Related | Leave a Comment
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Now that we are in November, it feels like Christmas is just around the corner.

So if you’ve already started to think about allergy free chocolate, the No Nuts Just Chocolate sells some really nice allergy free chocolate including:

  • dairy milk chocolate santa - nut-free, egg-free, £7.85
  • bag of 6 dark chocolate santas – dairy/lactose-free, nut-free, egg-free, £6.85
  • advent calendar – dairy/lactose-free, nut-free, egg-free, £8.85

Chocolate Santa

Dragon Egg-Free Birthday Cake

July 7, 2009 at 9:05 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In | Leave a Comment
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Well, it was my son’s 4th birthday on Saturday so time for another homemade birthday cake!!

Several weeks ago, I stupidly asked him what type of cake he wanted – a dragon cake came the answer.

 Fine, I thought…then I started looking round and discovered that there are no dragons anywhere in any shops!! I thought I’d easily be able to get a dragon shaped cake tin or at least some sort of dragon decoration to put on a plain square cake. But no, nothing!

A couple of days before his birthday, a sense of panic set in before my sister came to the rescue. She casually mentioned on the phone one day that she in fact had a dragon shaped jelly mould. Hurrah, surely that could be of some use…?

 We had a couple of disasters along the way but in the end we cracked it. We went for a square chocolate sponge, with chocolate butter icing in the middle and on the top, with a green dragon poking out of his cave!

dragon_cake

dragon_cake

The green dragon was made using vegetarian geletine, condensed milk and green food dye.

The chocolate sponge was made using the usual birthday cake recipe (x2):

Ingredients:
110g/4oz dark 70% cocoa chocolate, broken into pieces
85g/3oz butter (or dairy free spread)
150ml/5fl oz golden syrup
110g/4oz self-raising flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
50ml/2fl oz milk (or soya milk)
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F and line a 20cm/8 inch baking tin.
2. Place the chocolate, dairy-free spread and golden syrup in a pan. Gently melt together, stirring continuously.
3. In a bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Pour the melted chocolate mixture and milk into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix together until the mixture is smooth.
5. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and place on the middle shelf for 10-15 mins or until the mixture is just set in the middle.
6. Allow to cool and then turn out the cake.

I then used the usual cheat’s decorating method, using bought icing, sprinkles and icing pens!

Kids Cookery Kits – Allergy Free

March 10, 2009 at 1:11 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, Interesting Products | Leave a Comment
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Just come across this great site – http://www.craftychefs.co.uk/ - which has some fantastic cookery kits for kids which are dairy, egg and nut free.

You can also buy prebaked cakes and biscuits (egg, dairy & nut free) which are all ready for decorating at home.

Definitely a website worth checking out if your children like to help out in the kitchen!

Peanut Allergy Hope

February 23, 2009 at 1:06 pm | In Allergy Related, In the news | 1 Comment

It was half term last week so it came as no surprise to me that I missed the latest news about peanut allergy. A couple of people mentioned it in passing and I thought I’d better look it up!

Here is a link to The Times article for anyone else that missed it! It may give hope to other parents of children with a peanut allergy.

Organic Fromage Frais – Lemon Free!

February 4, 2009 at 9:18 pm | In Allergy Related, Eczema, Interesting Products | Leave a Comment
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Plum Baby have recently launched baby organic fromage frais.

plum baby fromage frais

plum baby fromage frais

Now obviously these aren’t for those little ones on a diary-free diet but thought I’d mention here as

a) we’ve tried them and they were a big hit and

b) because, so far, they are the only organic baby dairy products we’ve found that don’t contain lemon juice.

All things citrus seem to make my daughters excema worse so we are avoiding it at the moment. But, as with lots of things, when you start looking at labels citrus seems to be in more products that you initially think! Yoghurt and fromage frais included!

I must add though that only two out of the three of the flavours are lemon-free (but that just means that I got to try them out too!!). And talking of flavours, they’ve got some quite unusual combos – Strawberry & Chamomile (lemon free), Raspberry & Rosehip (lemon free), and Peach & Sweet Fennel (not lemon free).

Green & Blacks 70% – No longer dairy free

January 29, 2009 at 9:51 pm | In Allergy Related | Leave a Comment
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I received my copy of Foods Matter magazine this morning and saw they had a snippet about Green & Blacks 70% dark chocolate no longer being dairy free.

So I quickly went onto the Green & Blacks website to have a look at their ingredients list and yes it does now list Organic Whole Milk Powder.

However, next to it there is an asterick directing you to their FAQ’s which state:

Q.  Why has the allergen warning changed:

A. The new communication will highlight milk as an ingredient in its previously labelled ‘vegan’ dark organic chocolate bars. As both the milk chocolate and dark chocolate bars are made using the same production line there is a risk of cross contact. A recent audit revealed that traces of milk residues can still be found on manufacturing equipment despite intensive cleaning.

Q. Has the recipe for dark chocolate change?

A. No, the recipe has remained the same since 1998.

This is obviously really disappointing news for allergy sufferers as they can’t take the risk of cross contamination. But at least it clears up the confusion over a change in the ingredients list.

Website Recommendation

January 26, 2009 at 7:23 pm | In Allergy Related, Interesting Products | Leave a Comment
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First of all, an apology for not posting for ages!! Life got a bit busy for a while and didn’t get a chance to keep up with any of the Feed me allergy free stuff.

But now I’m back, I wanted to quickly mention a website that I’ve just stumbled across – Pure Flavour. It looks a great site if you are following a wheat/gluten free and dairy free diet – especially the cakes which look delicious!! Unfortunately, no good for us though as they aren’t egg free.

Restaurant Recommendation – Giraffe

July 16, 2008 at 7:42 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating Out | Leave a Comment
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Yesterday, I headed into London with a friend and both our sets of children – were we mad?! We actually had a really lovely day, enjoying lunch out on the Marylebone High Street and then playing in Regents Park.

On the Marylebone High Street, we headed straight for Giraffe – a family friendly restaurant chain – and it turned out to be a great success! First of all the older kids (at a grand old age of 3 yrs!) were given crayons and a colouring mat whilst we were helped with positioning of double buggies etc.

The menu was really great. Not only was the children’s menu really good – both kids went for grilled chicken and veggies (brocolli, carrots and sweetcorn) for main – but the adult menu was also really impressive. They had a good selection of burger type dishes but also some delicious sounding salads. I chose one of the salads which involved marinated feta, spinach leaves, sprouting beans and lots of other goodies – it also said toasted seeds which I asked to be left out. Not a problem! And it’s not that I don’t like seeds but Taran is still allergic to sesame so I like to be careful.

The kids menu does a meal deal of drink, main and dessert. Two of the desserts involved ice-cream and the third was mango sorbet. I’ve been caught out many a time mentioning ice-cream only to find that it contains egg and so Taran can’t have it. This time I decided to order the sorbet and call it ice-cream!! Taran was quite happy with this until he spotted chocolate sauce on his friend’s dessert!! So I simply asked the waitress if it was possible to get some chocolate sauce on his dessert too. Again, not a problem and she brought over a pot of chocolate sauce. Yum!!!

So all in all a great meal out which both the adults and children enjoyed (and of course the babies but they only got to eat mush!!)

Dinosaur Birthday Cake – Egg & Dairy Free

July 16, 2008 at 7:16 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, Feedmeallergyfree | Leave a Comment
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dinosaur cake

dinosaur cake

At the weekend, Taran had a party to celebrate his 3rd birthday and and once again, I decided to attempt a homemade birthday cake.

This year’s theme was a dinosaur and I’ve jotted down the recipe I used below. This recipe is egg free and can also be dairy free by simply using soya milk instead of cow’s milk and dairy free spread instead of butter. As the dinosaur mould was rather large I just doubled the quantities and it turned out just right!

Ingredients:
110g/4oz dark 70% cocoa chocolate, broken into pieces
85g/3oz butter (or dairy free spread)
150ml/5fl oz golden syrup
110g/4oz self-raising flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
50ml/2fl oz milk (or soya milk)
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F and line a 20cm/8 inch baking tin.
2. Place the chocolate, dairy-free spread and golden syrup in a pan. Gently melt together, stirring continuously.
3. In a bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Pour the melted chocolate mixture and milk into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix together until the mixture is smooth.
5. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and place on the middle shelf for 10-15 mins or until the mixture is just set in the middle.
6. Allow to cool and then turn out the cake.

I then cheated a bit and bought some ready made icing and icing pens to decorate!

Free to Enjoy Products

June 4, 2008 at 6:28 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, General: Day-to-day | Leave a Comment
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A few weeks ago, I received a package of goodies in the post from Free to Enjoy.

General Info
According to their press release, Free to Enjoy has launched a range of wheat and gluten free products which allows those with food constraints to enjoy real treats, the same as everyone else.

Their product range consists of the following and I’ve been lucky enough to receive one of each for sampling!

  • Jaffa Cakes
  • Mini Cheddar Crackers
  • Indulgent Biscuit selection pack
  • Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal
  • Honey Nut Flakes breakfast cereal.

My first impressions are very good. In terms of products, they all sound very appealing and the packaging makes them look very tempting indeed.

Free From What?
The Free to Enjoy range is wheat and gluten free.

Again according to the press release, the Jaffa Cakes contain lupine flour which is suitable for coeliacs. As I’ve not come across lupine flour before, I thought I’d look it up.

On the InformAll Database*, it states the following about lupin:
“Lupin is peanut’s closest relative amongst foods and it has been estimated that approximately 50% of individuals with peanut allergy can react to lupin….”

Obviously, the Free to Enjoy range is meant to be wheat and gluten free and are not trying to be free from all allergens. A couple of the products actively include nuts and most of the non-nut products have a statement along the lines of “Due to the methods, this product may contain traces of nuts and sesame seeds.”

However, I thought that this was worth pointing out to people just in case. On the other hand, the Mini Cheddar Crackers do state “no gluten, wheat, sesame seeds or nut ingredients and it has been made in a wheat, gluten, sesame seed and nut free environment.”

Taste Test

Jaffa Cakes – overall verdict: delicious!
They look and very nearly taste like the real thing! I would say they are slightly more solid and less spongy than the real thing. They are mini sized and I can imagine become very moreish!

Indulgent Biscuit Deelights – overall verdict: top marks!
This comes across as a very nice box of biscuits – it contains a good variety and is a good option if you’ve got people over for coffee.

Mini Cheddar Crackers – overall verdict: very tasty!
Again, these were very tasty and came very close to the originals!

As you can probably tell, I really enjoyed testing the Free to Enjoy range and would recommend them to anyone looking for such products on a wheat free diet.

*InformAll Database – a searchable database with information on allergenic foods which has been developed with funding from the European Union. Found at http://foodallergens.ifr.ac.uk/default.html

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