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!

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

Good News – No longer allergic to milk!

March 27, 2008 at 3:26 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, Feedmeallergyfree, General: Day-to-day | Leave a Comment
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The good news…Taran has outgrown his milk allergy!! Hurray!

We also had some slight bad news. According to the skin prick tests, Taran looked like he had also outgrown his egg allergy. However, they did the lip test on him (by rubbing a bit of egg on his lips) and he reacted. It went all red and came up in hives confirming that he is still currently allergic to egg.

So what happened at the milk challenge?
Yesterday, we spent the day at our local hospital undergoing a milk food challenge. They had already conducted a lip test (see previous post) to which he’d had no reaction. They started off by taking a couple of observations – blood pressure, heart rate etc.

 They then gave him a small amount of milk to drink (5ml) and observed to see if he had any reaction. There was no reaction and after twenty minutes they took all the observations again. They repeated several times whilst increasing the amounts of milk that he had to drink – 10ml, then 30ml and then 150ml.

Thankfully, Taran had no reaction at all to the milk and his observations remained the same. They continued to observe him for a couple of hours after the tests to see if there were any changes.

So great news, no longer allergic to milk. We saw the consultant who told us that we could start to introduce milk into his diet straight away. Often children who undergo food challenges, don’t actually like the taste of the food they have to test. But thankfully Taran really enjoyed drinking the milk so this morning for breakfast he got stuck straight in and had cornflakes with normal milk!

Chocolate Cornflake Cakes – Yummy!!

November 27, 2007 at 7:16 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, General: Day-to-day | Leave a Comment

I invited some of my son’s toddler friends over to play this afternoon and then realised that I had no treats to offer to them!

So I decided to make up some chocolate cornflake cakes. They are so easy to make and only require store cupboard ingredients.

I made mine using:

- 100g bar of M&S Fairtrade organic dark chocolate
- Whole Earth Cornflakes (only contain 93% corn, sugar & salt)
- Golden syrup

I melted the chocolate in the microwave, making sure that I didn’t over melt it, then added 1 tbsp of golden syrup. I then added in as many cornflakes as I needed ensuring that they were all nicely coated in the chocolate.

Spoon them into cake cases, pop in the fridge and voila!!

Some people seem to think that children won’t like dark chocolate but all the kids loved them and they all ended up very chocolately :-) !

Bobotie Recipe (Egg Free)

August 23, 2007 at 1:51 pm | In Eating In, General: Day-to-day | Leave a Comment

What is Bobotie? Well, it is a South African dish consisting of spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping. And my Mum recently gave me a copy of an old recipe for Bobotie that she was given several years ago by a South African friend.

So I decided to make it without the egg topping and serve it with rice instead. It was quick and easy to make and a delicious alternative to chilli con carne.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp cooking oil
½ tbsp dairy-free spread
500 g mince meat (either lamb, beef or a combination of the two)
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup of grated carrot or apple
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp coriander
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp dried (or 1 tbsp fresh) mixed herbs
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Method: 
1. Stir fry the mince in the oil and the dairy-free spread until loose and crumbly, using a fork.
2. Add the chopped onion and stir fry until cooked. Add the garlic, carrot or apple and all the spices. Continue to cook for 10 minutes on a low heat to allow the flavours to develop.
3. Serve with rice.

Beetroot, Carrot & Potato Cakes

August 3, 2007 at 1:04 pm | In Eating In, General: Day-to-day | Leave a Comment

In last week’s Abel & Cole newsletter, there was a great recipe for beetroot, carrot & potato cakes.

The original recipe contains egg but I simply missed that out and just used the rest of the ingredients. And they turned out lovely. As the recipe involves grated beetroot and carrot and I think that that creates enough moisture to bind them together without needing the egg.

If you are interested in giving them a try, here’s the link to A&C’s recipe page – simply click on beetroot and you’ll find the recipe listed – http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/Default.aspx?tab=Recipes

Allergy Free Birthday Cake

July 10, 2007 at 7:41 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, Feedmeallergyfree | 3 Comments

Well, it was Taran’s birthday party on Saturday and he had a fantastic time. He really enjoyed being the centre of attention and definitely knew it was his party!!

And as promised here are the photos of his allergy free chocolate birthday cake that I made for his party. As you can probably tell, I’m not an expert cake maker but all the same I think I did a fairly good job. To make the cake, I simply used the chocolate cake recipe from my Feed me allergy free recipe book and doubled the quantites.

Below – plain chocolate cake

Chocolate Cake - before decoration

Below - a work in progress!!

Chocolate Cake - work in progress

And the finished cake!

Chocolate Cake - Finished

Sesame Allergy – beware of processed foods!

June 4, 2007 at 12:01 pm | In Allergy Related, Eating In, Feedmeallergyfree, In the news | 2 Comments

On Saturday, I received my June edition of the Foods Matter magazine.

There are a number of interesting articles in the magazine and one of them covers the International Foods Exhibition that took place in March. Apparently, in a seminar on “Flavour Trends”, speaker Carla Ogeia of Mintel, said that the use of sesame in processed food products was increasing greatly and would continue to do so for some time. This is obviously of concern to those allergic to sesame.

Taran is allergic to sesame but I must admit it is one of his allergies that I tend to forget about. All his food is homemade apart from things like the Organix snacks and Peter Rabbit rice pasta which are designed for babies/toddlers and so don’t contain any sesame. Therefore I don’t really have to worry about it. 

The Feed me allergy free recipe book is also free from sesame. But again I didn’t think to mention it on the front cover with all the other exclusions – something I must amend on the next addition!!  I suppose it’s because, even before Taran, I never really included sesame in my cooking apart from when I’ve occassionally made houmous and added tahini (sesame paste).

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting fact and one that I must remember if I do start to feed Taran any processed foods when he gets older.

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