Allergy-Free Donuts

By Kelley Lindberg

A couple of weeks ago, I tried a recipe from Allergymoms.com’s Facebook page for cake donuts. The first time I tried the recipe, the donuts tore up when I tried to get them out of the pan, and the chocolate glaze was a granular mess. So Michelle Fogg, fearless leader of the Utah Food AllergyNetwork (UFAN), told me how to get the donuts out of the pan without falling apart. That made all the difference! So the recipe was basically sound (thank you, Allergymoms!,) but some of the instructions just needed a little tweaking. Then I experimented with some different glazes, different cake mixes, and different flavors. I finally came up with some good variations that were easy to make and met with rave reviews from the group I made them for (teens, tweens, and adults).

So here is my adapted recipe. The main differences from the original Allergymoms.com recipe is that you absolutely must FLOUR the greased pan, and let the donuts cool completely in the pan (instead of the one minute the original recipe called for), and instead of using melted chocolate chips to make the glaze, just add a teaspoon or two of cocoa powder to the powdered sugar glaze. And you’ll need more powdered sugar to glaze a dozen donuts than the 1 cup called for in the original, so make sure you have at least half a bag on hand.

As a bonus, I tried freezing the donuts (because I was taking them on a camping trip and they had to stay good for 2 days), and they freeze and thaw really well, even with the glaze on them.

I tried both Cherrybrook Kitchen and Duncan Hines cake mixes (several DH flavors are nut-free, egg-free, and milk-free, but read the label carefully because not all flavors are safe). I prefer Duncan Hines – the cake was lighter and softer, but held together well through the glazing process. I made them nut-free, milk-free, and egg-free, but I did NOT use the gluten-free variety of either brand so I can’t vouch for the gluten-free version (although I have used Duncan Hines gluten-free cake mix in the past to make other recipes, and it has worked great). If you use the Duncan Hines cake mix, just substitute a safe egg replacer for the eggs called for on the box. See “Replacing Eggs in Recipes” for egg replacement ideas.

Another trick: when the cake mix calls for water, I use rice milk instead. It makes the cake a little richer and more moist. This works great when making cupcakes, too.

Okay, here’s the corrected recipe, with variations:

Easy Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Peanut-Free, Tree-Nut-Free Donuts

(Original recipe credit to Allergymoms.com, adapted by Kelley J. P. Lindberg, FoodAllergyFeast.com)

1 box of safe cake mix (plus ingredients called for on the box)

Rice milk (optional – use instead of water in the cake mix)

3 c. safe powdered sugar

Few tablespoons water

Safe margarine or shortening for greasing pan

Few tablespoons of safe flour for flouring greased pan

For optional variations:

Safe chocolate chips

Safe cocoa (powder)

Maple syrup or other flavoring extracts

Safe sprinkles

Safe food coloring

Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box, with the following substitutions: try using rice milk instead of the water, and if using Duncan Hines cake mix, use an egg replacer to substitute for the eggs called for on the box. If you’re at high altitude (like in Utah), be sure you follow the high-altitude directions on the Duncan Hines mix (there aren’t any on the Cherrybrook Kitchen mix).

Grease and flour a non-stick donut baking pan. (Be sure you grease AND flour it – otherwise the donuts may tear up when you try to get them out of the pan.) Then pour the batter into the pan, filling each donut mold about 2/3 full.

Bake 10 – 15 minutes at 350 degrees until the top of the donut springs back when you touch it gently with a fingertip.

Let the donuts cool completely in the pan (10 minutes).

To glaze: In a cereal-sized bowl, mix about 1 1/2 c. safe powdered sugar with a small amount of water (start with a tablespoon or two, then add a teaspoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency, which should be thin enough to drizzle from a spoon, but not watery). Then dip one side of a cooled donut into the glaze, then set it on a rack (glazed side up) and immediately top with sprinkles (if using). If the glaze is too thick, it may be hard to dunk the donut and then get it back out of the glaze without tearing, so you may have to add a little water to thin it. Conversely, if the glaze seems too thin, just add a little more sugar. When you’ve used up that glaze, make more. Repeat until you’ve glazed all of your donuts.

Eat immediately (best!) or freeze in a single layer in an airtight container. To thaw, let sit at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Duncan Hines mix makes about 2 dozen donuts. Cherrybook Kitchen mix makes about one dozen donuts.

Variations:

Yellow cake donuts: Use a yellow cake mix, glaze with white powdered sugar glaze, then immediately top with sprinkles while the glaze is still warm. Alternatively, you can glaze the donuts with white glaze, then make another bowl of glaze, adding food coloring to this batch. Then use a spoon to drizzle the colored glaze in a zig-zag pattern over the glazed donuts.

Chocolate cake donuts: Use a chocolate cake mix and prepare according to the instructions, but add 1 c. safe chocolate chips to the batter. To make a chocolate glaze, add a teaspoon of safe cocoa powder (such as Hershey’s cocoa) to the white powdered sugar, then mix with a small amount of water. Taste the glaze – add more cocoa if necessary to achieve your desired taste. Top donuts with sprinkles or Enjoy Life Foods mini chocolate chips if desired.

Maple-Spice cake donuts: Use a Duncan Hines spice cake mix. To make a maple-flavored glaze, add 3-4 tablespoons of maple syrup to the powdered sugar first, then add a small amount of water to thin the mixture to glaze consistency. You may add more maple syrup to taste (if it gets too thin, just add more sugar!).

Blueberry cake donuts: Start with a yellow cake mix. Drain 1 can of blueberries and rinse well (or use 1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh blueberries). Add to cake batter and bake as usual. When glazing, dip in white glaze first. Then color a second bowl of glaze with blue food coloring and drizzle the blue glaze over the glazed donuts in a zig-zag pattern. The blueberries will make these donuts more moist and sticky, so they may be a little gooier when eaten.

Chocolate chip cake donuts: Use a yellow cake mix, and add 1 c. safe chocolate chips to the batter. Glaze with white glaze, then add a small amount of cocoa powder to the remaining glaze, and drizzle the chocolate glaze over the glazed donuts in a zig-zag pattern.

Allergy-Free Gingerbread Houses and Cookies

By Kelley Lindberg

My niece's creation from a Christmas past.

It’s that time of year when gingerbread houses and gingerbread men (and their assorted wives, children, neighbors, dogs, and lawn furnishings) make their appearance. Traditional gingerbread recipes are full of common allergens, so I updated my list from last year of allergy-safe recipes for those days when you have entirely way too much creative energy and time on your hands. (Yeah, right. We can all hope.)

 

If you’re in the mood to bake up some festive architecture or the ginger-folk that live there, here are a few places to jumpstart your allergy-free baking frenzy:

• Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies from Kids with Food Allergies (free from the Big 8)
• Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies from Eating with Food Allergies (free from the Big 8)
• Gluten-free Gingerbread House Frosting from Kids with Food Allergies (free from the Big 8)
• You can order a baking mix for Jules Gluten-Free Graham Cracker-Gingersnap baking mix (free from the Big 8). You can also order a Gingerbread House Making Kit from Jules, which includes the baking mix, cookie cutters, and cardboard base, and instructions.
• Don’t need to be gluten-free? Here’s a recipe for StorybookGingerbread Men using regular flour, but free from the other Big 7, from allrecipes.com. 

If you don’t have time for baking, but still feel compelled to glue candy to a house (and who doesn’t?), here are a couple of fantastic no-bake options:

• The Candy Cottage snap-together plastic gingerbread house lets you add your favorite icing and candy without the time-consuming baking. Nice! You can even wash off the decorations and use it again next year. Many thanks to Michelle Fogg (UFAN’s fearless president) for finding this one last year.
• Sensitive Sweets' Allergy-free Gingerbread House Kit uses pre-baked gingerbread pieces, and you can order it with or without allergy-free candy from Surf Sweets. The kit is free from nuts, gluten, soy, egg, and dairy. Cool, hunh? 

Looking for safe candy to use for decorations? Depending on your allergens (check all labels for ingredients), try Necco wafers, Chex cereal or Frosted mini-wheats for roofing, Smarties (I like to stack them, wrappers and all, to look like firewood or logs on a gingerbread train car), Dum-Dums, Spangler’s candy canes, Bob’s Sweet Stripes Soft Mint Candies (red & white peppermints), Bakers & Chefs Starlight Mints, Skittles, Starburst, your favorite safe fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups, Haribo gummy bears, Jolly Ranchers, Hot Tamales, Mike & Ikes, Dots, Life Savers, rock candy, candy sticks (those swirly candy sticks that they used to sell in general stores – maybe the ones at Cracker Barrel are safe?), or sticks of safe chewing gum.

Enjoy your new Home Sweet Gingerbread Home!

Egg-Free, Milk-Free, Nut-Free Jell-O Cookies

By Kelley Lindberg


Looking for something new to put into your kid’s lunchbox? I tried making Jell-O cookies to take to a multi-family camping trip this weekend, and they seemed to be a big hit with the kids! (And the adults.)

The original recipe can be found on KraftRecipes.com here: Jello-O Pastel Cookies. However, I had to replace the egg with an egg substitute (I used Ener-G egg replacemer), and the butter with safe margarine. The official Kraft recipe calls for mixing a 3-ounce box of Jell-O into the batter, then sprinkling another 3-ounce box of Jell-O powder on top of the cookies before baking. But the recipe I was following (from a friend) said to add an entire 6-ounce box of Jell-O to the flour mixture, and it said nothing about sprinkling any on top. Adding the whole box to the batter instead of sprinkling half on top made the cookies a much brighter color (and it was less fussy). So do it either way!

I’m assuming that you could use your favorite gluten-free flour mix instead of the wheat flour. If you try it that way, let us know how it works.

Jell-O Cookies (Egg-Free, Milk-Free, Nut-Free)

(Original recipe from Kraft Foods. Allergy-friendly version by Kelley J. P. Lindberg)

3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups softened safe margarine
1 cup sugar
1 6-oz box of Jell-O gelatin, any flavor
1 egg or equivalent egg substitute*
1 tsp safe vanilla

*To replace one egg, I used 1 1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer mixed with 2 Tbs warm water. Or you can use 1 tsp baking powder mixed with 1 Tbs water and 1 Tbs white vinegar. Or you could try using 1/4 cup applesauce.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. (The original recipe says 400 degrees, but mine worked great at 350.) Mix flour and baking powder. Beat butter in large bowl with mixer until creamy. Add sugar and Jell-O. Beat until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in egg substitute and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place them 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet. (I like to line my cookie sheets with parchment paper so that the cookies slide right off.) You can flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass if you want, or leave them as balls and they will retain a slightly rounded shape.

Bake 8-10 minutes (slightly longer in high altitudes), until edges are just barely beginning to turn light brown. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 4 dozen.

Allergy-Free Rosca de Reyes (Three Kings’ Cake)

by Kelley Lindberg


Once again, I found myself up to my elbows in bread dough and candied fruit yesterday. My son’s Spanish teacher, who is from Spain, wanted to serve the class Rosca de Reyes (Three Kings’ Cake) today, January 6, as she teaches them about the huge Epiphany cultural celebration in Spain. The Epiphany is a Christian feast day that celebrates the arrival of the three Wise Men (the Biblical Magi) after Jesus’ birth. In some cultures, such as in Spain, the Epiphany can be as big (or even bigger) holiday than Christmas Day. There is a parade in Madrid that rivals our Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, but instead of Santa, the Madrid version brings the three Wise Men on floats. Children get presents on January 6 in many cultures, too.

While some local Mexican bakeries probably offer Rosca de Reyes, I volunteered to make them because there are a few kids in the teacher’s classes with food allergies (my son included), and I don’t want them to miss out on this cultural experience. I did some research to find out how to make a safe Three Kings’ Cake for my son’s teacher, and discovered that the Rosca de Reyes that is served in Spain on the Epiphany is basically the same thing as the Three King’s Cake served in New Orleans on Mardi Gras. It’s a simple bread shaped into a ring (to represent a crown), lightly glazed and decorated with candied fruit and sugar. There are as many recipes as there are chefs, naturally, but last year I practiced making several different cakes for a couple of weeks until I developed a recipe that was simple and free from egg, milk, and nuts.

Another fun tradition with the Rosca de Reyes is that the baker always tucks a small plastic baby Jesus, or a coin, into the baked (and cooled) cake. Depending on the region’s traditions, whoever finds the coin or doll will either: 1) have good luck, or 2) have to bring the cake to the next celebration.

The simplest recipe I finally created uses frozen bread dough. Kroger’s frozen white bread dough (available locally at Smith’s) is free from milk, eggs, and nuts, so that is what I used. Rhodes dough had a milk warning, so I didn’t use that one. If you need a gluten-free recipe, just substitute your favorite gluten-free bread dough. All Rosca de Reyes (or Three Kings’ Cake) recipes call for candied fruit – the best is home-made candied fruit (like orange rinds), but I don’t have the patience to make my own, so I used the candied cherries you find at Christmas-time that people use to make fruit cake. But not everyone likes that kind of candied fruit. So a better option might be to use maraschino cherries – everyone loves those! And they’re easier to find any time of year. You can also use raisins or dried cranberries.

Start a new tradition in your family this year, and serve a Rosca de Reyes for the Epiphany this week, or make a Three Kings’ Cake for Mardi Gras (which will be Feb. 12 this year). It is surprisingly easy, the kids can have fun decorating the “crown,” and you’ll find a new way to connect with cultures near and far who celebrate these fun holidays.

(I ended up making cakes for all 5 of the teacher’s Spanish classes. Because each cake had to serve about 25 kids, I used two loaves to form each cake, so the photos show larger cakes than a single loaf will make.)

Rosca de Reyes (Three Kings’ Cake)
1 loaf frozen bread dough (or make your own dough for regular white bread)
1/4 c. candied fruit, raisins, dried cranberries, or maraschino cherries cut in half (or a mix of your favorites)
2 T corn syrup (like Karo syrup)
1 – 2 tsp hot water
1/4 c. granulated sugar
Food coloring (optional)
Small plastic baby or coin

Heat your oven to 175 degrees, then turn it off. Place the frozen bread dough in a greased loaf pan, and cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray. Put the pan in the oven and let it rise for several hours, until it has risen about an inch higher than the top of the bread pan.

Grease a large cookie sheet, or put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. (Parchment paper is the best!)

Dump out the dough onto the parchment paper or greased cookie sheet, and gently stretch out the loaf until it is 12 – 15 inches long. You don’t want to handle it too much, but you need a long-ish rope. Then form the dough into a circle. Pinch the ends together well so that it doesn’t come apart while baking.

To make a glaze, put the corn syrup in a small bowl or cup, then add a small amount (1 tsp or so) of hot water and stir it. It just needs to be thinned a little so that it will be easier to brush onto the top of the cake. Then use a pastry brush to brush the glaze over the dough.

Place the candied fruit, raisins, or cherries along the top of the crown. Press them down into the dough a little so that they stick to it, but are still showing – otherwise they might fall off during the baking. This is where the kids can get creative – the candied fruit are the jewels in the crown!

Finally, you can use either white sugar or colored sugar to finish decorating the crown. Mardi Gras cakes usually have green, purple, and yellow sugar. The Spanish version served on the Epiphany uses white sugar. If you’d like colored sugar, use a small glass jar to shake the sugar with food coloring, or purchase colored sugar at the store. When you put the sugar on the cake, don’t be shy – it isn’t really sprinkled on, it’s dumped on, usually in bands around the cake! Google some images of Rosca de Reyes or Kings Cake and you’ll find hundreds.

As soon as you’ve finished decorating the cake, bake it for 20 -25 minutes at 375 degrees. (If you’re at sea level, you might start checking it after 15 minutes. I’m at 4500 feet, so things always take longer to bake up here.) It should be just turning golden, like bread, but don’t let the bottom burn. When done, place it on a wire rack to cool.

After the cake cools, carefully lift up one edge of the cake and slip the plastic baby or coin (I like to wrap the coin in aluminum foil) under the edge so that it is hidden. Warn your guests/family about the prize in the cake so that you don’t have to make any unplanned trips to the dentist.

Allergy-Free Gingerbread Houses and Cookies

by Kelley Lindberg


It’s rapidly becoming the time of year when gingerbread houses and gingerbread men (and their assorted wives, children, neighbors, dogs, and lawn furnishings) make their appearance. Traditional gingerbread recipes are full of common allergens, so I updated my list from last year of allergy-safe recipes for those days when you have entirely way too much creative energy and time on your hands. (Yeah, right. We can all hope.)

Allergy-Free Gingerbread House Kit from Sensitve Sweets

If you’re in the mood to go all Habitat for Gingerbread Humanity on your family, here are a few places to jumpstart your allergy-free baking frenzy:

• Gingerbread Cookies from Kids with Food Allergies
• Gingerbread Cookies from Eating with Food Allergies
• Gingerbread Cookies from Allergy Free Mom
• Gingerbread House Frosting from Kids with Food Allergies
• Links to several site with instructions for Gluten-free Gingerbread Houses at About.com
• Need inspiration? Check out the story of how Izzi B’s Allergen-Free Cupcakes entered a gingerbread house contest, on Julie Anne Rhodes’s website.
• Kim M. just posted a comment that Sam's Club has a gingerbread train station kit that is free from milk, egg, and nuts, for about $10. I wanted to add it here, for those who don't check the comments. Thanks Kim! That's exciting!

And if you don’t have time for baking, but still feel compelled to glue candy to a house (and who doesn’t?), here are a couple of fantastic no-bake options:

• The Candy Cottage has a snap-together plastic gingerbread house that lets you add your favorite icing and candy without the time-consuming baking. Nice! You can even wash off the decorations and use it again next year. Many thanks to Michelle Fogg (UFAN’s fearless president) for finding this one.
• Sensitive Sweets has an Allergy-free Gingerbread House Kit that uses pre-baked gingerbread pieces, and you can order it with or without allergy-free candy from Surf Sweets. The kit is free from nuts, gluten, soy, egg, and dairy. Cool, hunh?

Looking for safe candy to use for decorations? Depending on your allergens (check all labels for ingredients), try Necco wafers, Chex cereal or Frosted mini-wheats for roofing, Smarties (I like to stack them, wrappers and all, to look like firewood or logs on a gingerbread train car), Dum-Dums, Spangler’s candy canes, Bob’s Sweet Stripes Soft Mint Candies (red & white peppermints), Bakers & Chefs Starlight Mints, Skittles, Starburst, your favorite safe fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups, Haribo gummy bears, Jolly Ranchers, Hot Tamales, Mike & Ikes, Dots, Life Savers, rock candy, candy sticks (those swirly candy sticks that they used to sell in general stores – maybe the ones at Cracker Barrel are safe?), or sticks of safe chewing gum.

 

Enjoy your new Home Sweet Gingerbread Home!

Three Kings’ Cake Recipe

by Kelley Lindberg


Mardi Gras is rapidly approaching – it will be Tuesday, February 21 this year. Have you already designed your costume and mask, stocked up on beads, and perused the parade schedule? No? Then, like me, you probably don’t live in New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, or Spain. Pity. It sounds fun.

Mardi Gras (French for “Fat Tuesday”) is the day before Ash Wednesday (which is the day before Lent begins). But the whole Mardi Gras season, also called Carnival season, actually begins on the Epiphany (January 6) and leads up to Mardi Gras. (The Epiphany, sometimes called Three Kings’ Day, is the day the Magi appeared after Jesus’ birth.) Since Lent is a season of ritual fasting and religious obligations (and traditionally, Catholics elect to “give up” something they like during Lent as a sacrifice symbolizing their faith), the Mardi Gras season leading up to Lent is a time for celebrations, rich foods, and fun – kind of a “last hurrah” before things get serious. (Okay, this is a gross simplification of the whole thing, but it gives the gist, right?)

Mardi Gras has about a million traditions, from who gets to ride on parade floats, to what you have to do to get a necklace of plastic beads. One less-risqué tradition is the Three Kings’ Cake – a sweetened bread formed into a circle and decorated with candied fruit and sugar to make it look like a crown.

In New Orleans, it’s traditional to have a Three Kings’ Cake anytime during the Mardi Gras season, but especially on Fat Tuesday itself. In other areas, such as in Spain, it’s traditional to serve the Three Kings’ Cake on the Epiphany (January 6).

This year, my son’s Spanish teacher, who is from Spain, wanted to serve the class Three Kings’ Cake (Rosca de Reyes) on January 6, as she taught them about this huge cultural celebration in Spain. There is a parade in Madrid that rivals our Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, but instead of Santa, the Madrid version brings the three Wise Men on floats. Children get presents on January 6 in many cultures, too.

I did some research to find out how to make a safe Three Kings’ Cake for my son’s teacher, and discovered that the Rosca de Reyes that is served in Spain on the Epiphany is basically the same things as the Three King’s Cake served in New Orleans on Mardi Gras. There are as many recipes as there are chefs, naturally, but I practiced making several different cakes for a couple of weeks until I developed a recipe that was simple and free from egg, milk, and nuts.

Another fun tradition with the Three Kings’ Cake is that the baker always tucks a small plastic baby Jesus, or a coin, into the baked cake. Depending on the region’s traditions, whoever finds the coin or doll will either: 1) have good luck, or 2) have to bring the cake to the next celebration.

The simplest recipe I finally created uses frozen bread dough. Smith’s (Kroger) has a white bread dough that is free from milk, eggs, and nuts, so that is what I used. Rhodes dough had a milk warning, so I didn’t use that one. If you need a gluten-free recipe, just substitute your favorite gluten-free bread dough. All Three Kings’ Cake recipes call for candied fruit – the best is home-made candied fruit (like orange rinds), but I don’t have the patience to make my own, so I used the candied cherries you find at Christmas-time, that people use to make fruit cake. But not everyone likes that kind of candied fruit. So a better option might be to use maraschino cherries – everyone loves those! And they’re easier to find any time of year.

Start a new tradition in your family this year, and serve a Three Kings’ Cake for Mardi Gras. It is surprisingly easy, the kids can have fun decorating the “crown,” and you’ll find a new way to connect with cultures near and far who celebrate this fun holiday.

(I ended up making cakes for all 5 of the teacher’s Spanish classes. Because each cake had to serve about 25 kids, I used two loaves to form each cake, so the photos show larger cakes than a single loaf will make.)

Rosca de Reyes (Three Kings’ Cake)

• 1 loaf frozen bread dough (or make your own dough for regular white bread)
• 1/4 c. candied fruit, raisins, dried cranberries, or maraschino cherries cut in half (or a mix of your favorites)
• 2 T corn syrup (like Karo syrup)
• 1 – 2 tsp hot water
• 1/4 c. granulated sugar
• Food coloring (optional)
• Small plastic baby or coin

1. Heat your oven to 175 degrees, then turn it off. Place the frozen bread dough in a greased loaf pan, and cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray. Put the pan in the oven and let it rise for several hours, until it has risen about an inch higher than the top of the bread pan.
2. Grease a large cookie sheet, or put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. (Parchment paper is the best!)
3. Dump out the dough onto wax paper or a pastry stone, and stretch out the loaf until it is 12 – 15 inches long. You don’t want to handle it too much, but you need a long-ish rope. Then put the bread on your prepared cookie sheet and form it into a circle. Pinch the ends together well so that it doesn’t come apart while baking.
4. To make a glaze, put the corn syrup in a small bowl or cup, then add a small amount (1 tsp or so) of hot water and stir it. It just needs to be thinned a little so that it will be easier to brush onto the top of the cake. Then use a pastry brush to brush the glaze over the dough.
5. Place the candied fruit, raisins, or cherries along the top of the crown. Press them into the dough a little so that they stick to it, but are still showing. This is where the kids can get creative – the candied fruit are the jewels in the crown!
6. Finally, you can use either white sugar or colored sugar to finish decorating the crown. Mardi Gras cakes usually have green, purple, and yellow sugar. The Spanish version served on the Epiphany uses white sugar. If you’d like colored sugar, use a small glass jar to shake the sugar with food coloring, or purchase colored sugar at the store. When you put the sugar on the cake, don’t be shy – it isn’t really sprinkled on, it’s dumped on, usually in bands around the cake! Google some images of Rosca de Reyes or Kings Cake and you’ll find hundreds.
7. As soon as you’ve finished decorating the cake, bake it for 25 - 30 minutes at 375 degrees. It should be just turning golden, like bread, but don’t let the bottom burn.
8. After the cake cools, carefully lift up one edge of the cake and slip the plastic baby or coin (I like to wrap the coin in aluminum foil) under the edge so that it is hidden. Warn your guests/family about the prize in the cake so that you don’t have to make any unplanned trips to the dentist.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Gingerbread Men, Women, Houses, and Other Gingery Sorts of Things

by Kelley Lindberg


It’s rapidly becoming the time of year when gingerbread houses and gingerbread men (and their assorted wives, children, neighbors, dogs, and lawn furnishings) make their appearance. Traditional gingerbread recipes are full of common allergens, so I did a little sleuthing to find some allergy-safe recipes for those days when you have entirely way too much creative energy and time on your hands. (Yeah, right. We can all hope.)

So if you’re in the mood to go all Habitat for Gingerbread Humanity on your family, here are a few places to jumpstart your allergy-free baking frenzy:

• Gingerbread Cookies from Kids with Food Allergies
• Gingerbread Cookies from Eating with Food Allergies
• Gingerbread Cookies from Allergy Free Mom
• Gingerbread House Frosting from Kids with Food Allergies
• Links to several sites with instructions for Gluten-free Gingerbread Houses at About.com
• Need inspiration? Check out the story of how Izzi B’s Allergen-Free Cupcakes entered a gingerbread house contest, on Julie Anne Rhodes’s website.

And, if you are infected with the gingerbread house fever, but you REALLY don’t have the time or patience to bake all the components yourself (and let’s be honest here, doesn’t this really describe most of us?), A and J Bakery has an “Allergen Friendly House Kit” that is free from peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, gluten, soy, egg, dairy, and sesame seeds. Cool, hunh?

Happy Gingerbreading!

Allergy-Free Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes!

by Kelley Lindberg


My son, the human whirlwind, just celebrated his birthday again. How he keeps getting so big while I stay so young is beyond me (although watching 17 kids race around Classic Fun Center skating, going wild on the bouncies, and shooting each other with laser tag aged me a few decades, I think). Anyway, he had a blast with all his best buddies.

Because my son and his best friend have food allergies, we’ve always had to make their birthday cakes and cupcakes. No adorable store-bought cakes for us, unfortunately. So over the years, some other moms and I have found some safe cake recipes, and I’ve often used Cherrybrook Kitchen’s yummy safe cake mixes. So out of necessity, I’ve learned how to make birthday cakes shaped like a skateboard, a jet plane, a space shuttle, a swimming pool, Pikachu, a Power Ranger, and Lego bricks. (Thank goodness for the internet and creative people – I can usually find simple instructions for making fun cakes online!) This year, he wanted cupcakes decorated to look like Pokéballs. (For those of you without pre-teen boys, those are balls that contain Pokémon critters when they aren’t battling each other or having adventures.)

A couple of months ago, a friend discovered that Duncan Hines now makes a few cake mixes without milk or eggs in them – just wheat. So I decided to give them a try. My son wanted the lemon cake and the red velvet cake flavors, so that’s what we bought.

Each mix calls for 3 eggs, so instead of the eggs, I substituted Ener-G egg replacer, and I had to add 1/4 cup flour to each because of the high altitude here, but they turned out great! The red velvet cake was a bit crumbly, but both cakes mixes turned out well, and I was able to frost them with Pillsbury Creamy Supreme frosting (contains soy) without any trouble. I used colored sprinkles for the colored half of the Pokéballs, Wilton’s Black Decorator Icing for the black lines (contains soy and wheat), and Smarties for the buttons. Voila! Mucho “cool mom” points.

So if you’re looking for an easy way to make your next birthday cake or cupcake, you might give those Duncan Hines cake mixes a try. These are the Duncan Hines cake flavors {http://www.duncanhines.com/products/cakes} that their web site says contain only wheat (but check labels carefully – ingredients can change at any time):

• Butter Recipe Golden Cake Mix
• Classic Yellow Cake Mix
• Spice Premium Cake Mix
• Butter Recipe Fudge Cake Mix
• Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
• Devil’s Food Cake Mix
• German Chocolate Cake Mix
• Red Velvet Cake Mix
• Swiss Chocolate Cake Mix
• Lemon Supreme Cake Mix
• Pineapple Supreme Cake Mix (contains soy and wheat)

Happy baking!

 

Aluminum Is in Baking Powder?

by Kelley Lindberg


Just when I think I’ve got a handle on things… life pops up a little “gotcha” sign, just to remind me not to get complacent.

I’ve been allergic to aluminum and possibly a few other metals for about eight years now. I can’t wear antiperspirant because the element that makes antiperspirants work is an aluminum salt, and it started making me break out in an uncomfortable, itchy rash. I can’t wear a watch that has metal buckles or straps – same itchy rash. I also have to be really careful about the makeup I wear (mascara, eye shadow, eye liner, nail polish, etc.), since most brands use aluminum to add color, shine, and sparkle. In my case, aluminum-laden nail polish eats away my nails, and aluminum-tainted mascara makes my eyes burn and turn red. Not usually the look I’m going for.

I’ve eliminated aluminum in my food preparation, too. I avoid aluminum foil, I threw out all my aluminum pans years ago, and I read medicines to make sure they don’t contain aluminum.

So when my friend brought over some flour tortillas this week, she stumped me by saying, “I got this brand for you because it contains aluminum-free baking powder.”

“Aluminum-free what?” I asked. The look on my face must have been interesting. “There’s aluminum in baking powder? Why on earth would they put aluminum in baking powder?”

So I opened up my cabinet, took out my can of Clabber Girl Baking Powder, and sure enough, there it was: sodium aluminum sulfate.

It just goes to show… Sometimes you’re in such a habit of buying a particular brand, you never think to check the label. And here I thought I was on top of the whole label-reading thing. Humbling, isn’t it?

I probably bake something using baking powder about once a month – more so around the holidays. I don’t know if it’s been affecting me, but I do have my share of health issues, so it’s possible. But between my allergy and the studies that show a link between Alzheimer’s patients and increased levels of aluminum in their brains, I don’t want to ingest any more of that metal than absolutely necessary.

So I went to the grocery store yesterday and found Rumford brand aluminum-free baking powder – interestingly, it’s also made by Clabber Girl. And as a bonus, Clabber Girl uses a peanut-free facility to manufacture all of their baking powders, and they’re all kosher, too. You can read Clabber Girl’s peanut-free policy on their website (http://www.clabbergirl.com/).

My old can of baking powder is in the trash now, and my new can of Rumford aluminum-free baking powder is sitting on my shelf.

Whew. Just in time for those Thanksgiving pies…

Easy as Pie

by Kelley Lindberg


I spent all day yesterday in the kitchen. It’s harvest time, so that means my counters are overflowing with tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and raspberries from my own garden, and peaches from a neighbor’s. So I spent the day making salsa, making spaghetti sauce to freeze for low-effort dinners this winter, and grating zucchini to freeze for making zucchini bread and throwing into soups and casseroles.

Then I tackled a couple of Peach Melba pies. I made my pie crust from scratch, and once again puzzled over the expression “easy as pie.”

Who made that up? A sadistic cook wishing to lure people into expensive cooking classes?

Okay, so I admit that there are only 4 ingredients in a pie crust, and one of them is water. It doesn’t look that hard on paper. (Much of life can be summed up that way, can’t it?) But since I only make pies from scratch about once a year, I always manage to forget that the execution takes a lot more effort and finesse than you’d think.

It’s not complicated – cut 3/4 cup of shortening into 2 cups of flour and 1 tsp of salt, make a well in the center of the crumbly mixture, add 4 T of ice water, and mix.

See? Deceptively easy. But this is my grandmother’s recipe, and there’s always a catch. “Don’t over-handle it” she says. I know that if you handle the crust too much, it will stop being flaky and start being chewy. So I try to minimize my handling, whatever that means. Then I roll it out on a floured piece of wax paper. Again, not so easy. The dough has an annoying tendency to stick to my non-stick rolling pin. Then it wants to either stick to the wax paper or not stick to the wax paper, depending on what I want it to do at that particular moment. And it’s just the right texture to tear instead of stretch as I lay it into the pan.

Sigh.

Oh well. Eventually I got it into the pan and trimmed the edges. Then came the peaches. I peeled and cut up about 3 cups of peaches for each pie, which seemed to take forever, then added a cup of raspberries to each batch. Added in some sugar, a touch of salt, and a touch of flour to thicken it. Then I made more pie crust for the top layers – it didn’t get easier with practice, but finally I had the two pies intact and in the oven.

I used a cookbook to tell me how long to cook the pies. But since we’re at high altitude, it always takes longer to bake things, so it becomes a guessing game, rather than a science. I guessed wrong. Not bad, but enough so that the bottom crust wasn’t quite done when I cut into it after dinner.

Oh well. The good news is that it actually tasted pretty good. And spending the day in the kitchen gives me a kind of strange, domestic sense of accomplishment, putting me in tune with generations of female ancestors who spent every day there, instead of just a few days in the fall.

I spend most of my time making baked goods from scratch these days because it’s the easiest way to avoid food allergens. But I do appreciate when I can use commercial short-cuts, like Pillsbury’s pie crusts. But I have to admit, it just doesn’t taste quite as good as Grandmother’s pie crust. Even if it was more work.

My grandmother knew what she was doing.

Replacing Wheat and Gluten in Recipes

by Kelley Lindberg


What a treat I have for you today! Shelley, a gluten-free expert and frequent participant on the UFAN email forum, has graciously agreed to be my guest blogger today. She is continuing my series of allergen-replacements for recipes by writing today’s article on gluten-free cooking. You will LOVE what she has to say… Thank you, Shelley! Be sure to check out Shelley’s blog, at http://www.enjoythelittlethings.wordpress.com/

*****

To be honest, when my oldest son was first diagnosed with a wheat allergy (along with several other severe allergies), I had never heard of gluten. At the time, I was just a few weeks away from giving birth to my second child, who I was told was likely to have the same allergies as my son and my best bet was to avoid the top allergens while nursing her. I was totally overwhelmed.

Lucky for me, my mom was scheduled to come and visit and she just happened to have a degree in food science and nutrition. She knew exactly what gluten was and started reading everything she could get her hands on. I don’t know how we did it back then, before blogs and Google and everything we take for granted. She showed up at the airport with two huge suitcases (remember when you could take those on airplanes?) full of gluten-free cookbooks and bags and bags of gluten-free flours.

For the next 2 weeks we spent every day in the kitchen, trying every recipe in The Gluten-free Gourmet and making up our own. It took a lot of patience and a good sense of humor because more of our creations ended up in the garbage than in our tummies – but I learned a lot.

Flash forward four kids later, my youngest was done nursing and I was ready to start eating “normal” again, only to find out the hard way that the gluten issues weren’t entirely my kids’ problem. I immediately began having problems and my doctors realized for the first time in my life that gluten was my problem as well.

So here we are 11 years later, and with a house full of gluten-free eaters, I have some tips to share:

Tip #1 - Xanthan gum or guar gum
Gluten-free cooking just doesn’t happen without them. They are the glue that gluten-free flours are missing. Without them, the only thing your gluten-free baked goods will be good for is bread crumbs. A good rule of thumb is 1 tsp of xanthan or guar gum per cup of gluten-free flour in your recipe. If you are using eggs, you may not need as much, and if you are replacing eggs, you may need a bit more.

Tip #2 - Know your alternatives.
One of the cool things about gluten-free cooking is all the alternatives we have to regular old flour. With a little effort and creativity, gluten-free living really opens the doors to a healthier lifestyle than you probably had before.

**A word of warning - when trying any of these flours for the first time, use it in a pancake or something simple and watch for reactions. I try to rotate the flours I use and there are a few that just don’t work for us – but work great for many of my friends. Buy the small bag the first time and if you like it, go back and buy it in bulk!**

Gluten-free flours need cool dark storage; most store best in the freezer. I store many of the whole grains in sealed buckets and put the freshly ground flour in my freezer if I am not going through it fast enough.

Quinoa (pronounced Keen wa) – This is an ancient grain, really high in protein and high in amino acids. It adds structure to gluten-free breads. I use this a lot.

Amaranth – The seeds of this plant are also unusually high in protein and amino acids, adding flavor and structure to the dough.

Sorghum – A really popular grain, kind of sweet without much of an aftertaste.

Teff – High in dietary fiber, protein, calcium and iron, this is a nutritional powerhouse. It has a slightly sweet nutty flavor that adds a lot to gluten-free baking.

Buckwheat – Not a grain; it’s a fruit and has nothing in common with wheat other than the name. This is my favorite grain. It’s hearty, has a familiar taste, and adds lot of nutrition to your breads.

Millet – A fabulous source of the B vitamins, it does have a stronger flavor but combines well with other flours in baking. I use this quite often.

Brown Rice – I use this flour often, too – especially in cupcakes and other treats that I serve to unsuspecting wheat-eaters. It has a familiar taste and the whole grains offer fiber and vitamins. Using this flour entirely on its own results in a gummy-grainy texture, so always mix with another flour or starch to prevent this. You can also use white rice flour; it acts more like a starch and has little nutritional value, but certainly can be incorporated into gluten-free bread making if you choose.

Corn – Corn flour is much finer than corn meal, but it still tends to be a bit heavy to bake with so always combine it with other flours. Makes fabulous corn breads with a little potato starch or quinoa flour!

There are all sorts of bean flours. I am only going to mention the most common:

Garbanzo bean flour – High in protein, and it’s easy to use. Be warned it has a stronger taste so it works best mixed with other flours and can go rancid if not kept cool.

Fava bean flour – I don’t usually see this alone (although you can order it). Often it’s marketed as Garfava flour, a mixture of garbonzo and fava beans. It has a lot of protein and adds great structure to bread, but like Garbanzo bean flour, it has a stronger taste and turns rancid in less than ideal conditions.

Soy flour – I almost forgot to mention it. We don’t use it at our house as soy is a major allergen for us (and many others), but it is also high in protein and has a strong flavor like the bean flours, so go easy.

Starches – Not really known for their nutritional value, starches come in handy when you need some help binding ingredients and making your bread light enough to rise. There are some great commercially available breads out there that rely almost exclusively on starches. I struggle to use a lot of these because the last thing my kids need is empty calories – we need nutritional powerhouses in every bite. But on vacation and in a crunch they sure make life easier. Starches all are fabulous thickeners as well – use like corn starch in soups, sauces, and gravy.

Potato Starch – This is totally different than potato flour. It’s light and has a really “normal” taste. It does tend to get gummy if you use too much, but a 1/2 to 1 cup in a recipe can really lighten things up.

Corn Starch – Acts a lot like potato starch. It’s a great binder and smells great when cooked. Too much makes your bread gummy in the middle, but a bit here and there can make a big difference.

Tapioca Starch – Often called tapioca flour. A little bit of this goes a long ways. I find the best prices at local Asian markets that sell it in tiny packages. While you could never make an entire loaf from tapioca starch, I find I can’t bake without a cup or so in my recipe. It really helps hold things together, gives a nice flavor and lightens up a recipe.

Sweet rice flour – Can be used in place of sugar in some recipes. Be careful, a little goes a long way – but that is a good thing.

Arrowroot flour – I love this stuff but have a hard time finding it in our current home town. It is great to bake with and makes a fabulous thickener that doesn’t change the flavor. If you are fortunate to get a good deal on it, don’t pass it up!

Bonus tip- Flax seed (ground) – Okay, I know it’s not a flour, but adding a few tablespoons to a batch of bread or muffins adds a fabulous nutty flavor and a punch of omega 3s. It’s also a great egg-replacer. (See Replacing Eggs in Recipes.)

Tip #3 - Gluten-free dough is actually more like a batter.
This was hard to get used to after years of making wheat products - but as a rule, gluten-free breads generally turn out better if the dough is more like a cake batter. It just needs more moisture.

Tip #4 - Start small.
This was probably the best thing I learned from my mom. When we would make a batch of muffins or cookies the first time we would only cook a few of them. That way, if it just didn’t turn out, we could add more water, flour, xanthan gum, or whatever and have a chance of saving the batch. The other thing she taught me is to not be afraid to throw it out and start over if it really isn’t working. Really, on a tight budget, you will spend more time and money making a bigger mess out of your dough than you will by just getting rid of it and starting with a different recipe.

Tip#5 - Most of your old recipes will adapt well.
I spent years trying all these elaborate recipes I found in special cookbooks and on the internet. But the ones we like the best are the old stand-bys from our pre-gluten-free days. Once you find a mix of flours that work for you, add some xanthan or guar gum and a little extra moisture, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to cook gluten-free.

Tip #5 - You Are Not Alone.
That is the coolest thing about living in our generation. With the internet, we are all practically next-door neighbors. Maybe we can’t run and borrow a cup of buckwheat flour, but we can certainly share recipes and tips and struggles. Since our diagnosis 11 years ago we have lived in 3 states and 6 different towns and I have never been the only one. In fact, I am usually the first call for many as they find their children developing allergies. Today I can walk into most eating establishments and ask for a gluten-free menu, and the aisles of most markets have at least a handful of items marked gluten-free.

Some of my favorite sites include:

http://www.glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/ (recipe section and check out the comments on many recipes, people post their adaptations for many allergies)

Google-groups and support groups are like life-lines when you are getting started, so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help. You’ll be surprised how many others have stood in your shoes – and you can always call on me – I’m happy and thrilled to help. I still remember how hard it was, worrying every day what I would feed my growing children, and working to educate teachers and family members and friends on a continual basis. But I am here to say that it works out, it is worth it, and my first-born, failure-to-thrive baby is now almost my height, a state-ranked competitive swimmer, and anything but malnourished.

Shelley

Replacing Dairy in Recipes

by Kelley Lindberg


Last week, I offered some suggestions for replacing nuts and peanuts in recipes. The week before that, I discussed replacing eggs in recipes. This week, let’s talk about dairy!

Milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream… lots of recipes use dairy products. Whether you can replace them with a safe substitute depends in part on the recipe, but I’ve had some good luck with some of these replacement ideas:

In baked goods, I use rice milk (Rice Dream) instead of regular milk. No one can tell the difference, and it bakes identically in everything I’ve tried. You can also try soy milk.

I’ve also used rice milk in a few soups that call for milk, and it seems to work okay. The only thing rice milk doesn’t do is set up – so you can’t use it to replace real milk if you’re making pudding or a pie, for example.

There are a few dairy-free margarines that I like. Smart Balance Light and Blue Bonnet Light are completely dairy-free (the other varieties of Smart Balance and Blue Bonnet all have milk, so be sure you get the Light version only). Both spreads are great for using on the table to butter bread or flavor vegetables, for example. However, neither one is great for baking. Spectrum margarine is dairy- and soy-free and okay to use on the table, but not for baking.

For a margarine that works extremely well in baking, use Nucoa margarine (it comes in sticks). You can also use safe shortening or vegetable oil instead of butter in baking recipes. Or use Spectrum shortening if you need to avoid soy, too. You can also replace half of the oil or margarine called for in a recipe with applesauce, to reduce the fat. The baked product won’t rise quite as high as the original recipe if you use applesauce, but it will still be yummy.

To replace sour cream or yogurt in a recipe, try a soy yogurt or Tofutti soy sour cream (your best bet is health food stores or Whole Foods or Good Earth Markets). Just check the ingredients carefully on soy yogurts – some have milk ingredients. I haven’t found any soy yogurt in a plain flavor – just vanilla, which is somewhat sweet for most recipes – so you might prefer looking for that Tofutti sour cream instead.

Rich’s makes a couple of versions of a non-dairy topping that you can whip yourself or buy in a tub like Cool Whip. Rich’s also makes a non-dairy creamer that’s a liquid designed to use in coffee, but you can probably use it to replace milk in other aspects. (All are made with soy.) Rich’s products can be elusive to find, however, so ask your local grocers if they carry it. A friend of mine buys the version you whip, and she adds Jell-O pudding mix as she’s whipping it to make it set up a little thicker. If she adds a whole box of Jell-O pudding mix, it becomes a sort of mousse. (Make sure you get the regular Jell-O pudding mix, and not the sugar-free kind, because the sugar-free kind has milk.)

Looking for milk-free chocolate chips? Try the Kroger “Value” brand (the store brand for Kroger and Smiths) which is both milk-free and nut-free. Enjoy Life Foods also makes chocolate chips free from the top 8 allergens, and you can find them at Whole Foods Markets. Can't find those? Lots of online grocers sell allergen-free chocolate chips, so just search online for what you need.

Pie crusts? Believe it or not, most of the premade graham cracker crusts at the store are milk-free, egg-free, and nut-free, and so are Pillsbury’s refrigerated pie crusts (the kind you unroll). Just double-check ingredients to be sure.

As for cheeses, there are soy cheeses that are milk-free, but the taste is usually different enough from regular cheese that most people can tell. I’ve found it’s perfectly alright to just leave the cheese out of some recipes. For instance, our group of friends often has tacos, burgers, chili, or other foods, and we just skip the cheese. It may seem a little “un-American” at first, but when we’re all sitting around eating and gabbing, nobody notices and nobody cares.

These ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to replacing dairy ingredients in recipes. Please feel free to share your own dairy-replacement ideas or recipes! I’ll tackle gluten-free ideas for recipes sometime in May, so stay tuned…

Mandarin Orange Upside-Down Cake

I’ve gotten used to cooking for a certain set of food allergies and issues within my normal circle of friends. No milk, eggs, nuts, seafood, sesame seeds, raw tomatoes, or raw peaches, and some of the adults in the group have some other food preference issues we work around. After ten years, it’s become second nature to cook around those restrictions.

Friday night, I got to explore a completely different set of restrictions, and it was a stretch, but it was also fun.

I was getting together with five other friends for dinner at one’s house. We usually eat at restaurants, which lets everyone order their own food with their own particular restrictions. This time, it was a potluck. Here were my new parameters: No gluten, dairy, chocolate, nuts, fruit (except for citrus – lemons, limes, grapefruit, or orange are okay), and as little refined sugar as possible.

Being the adventurous (and masochistic) type, I volunteered for dessert. I considered dessert ideas for several days, making a phone call or email here and there to double-check problem foods. Finally, I hit on making a pineapple upside-down cake, except without the pineapple (a problem food), and using mandarin oranges instead. Never mind that I’ve never made a pineapple upside-down cake before, never cooked gluten-free, and didn’t know if mandarin oranges would work instead of pineapple. See what I mean by masochistic?

Because I’m completely unfamiliar with gluten-free baking and I didn’t have time to do a lot of experimenting with gluten-free flours (I’ll get around to it someday, but not this week!), I went looking for a Cherrybrook Kitchen gluten-free yellow cake mix. The stores I usually haunt didn’t have it, but I discovered a new Betty Crocker gluten-free yellow cake mix! I was surprised and delighted to discover a mainstream brand is finally joining the fight against food allergies/diseases!

The cake turned out beautifully, although it took about twice as long to bake as the instructions said. Here’s what I did:

Put 4 T of melted dairy-free margarine in the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan. Sprinkle with ½ c. brown sugar. Drain a can of mandarin orange slices, reserving the liquid, then arrange the slices in a round pattern on the bottom of the pan.

Next, make the cake batter according to the box’s recipe, although I substituted the reserved liquid from the oranges for the water that the recipe called for, and I replaced half of the gluten-free vanilla extract with orange extract, and I added the zest from half an orange. (Okay, I know, I’m one of those people who always have to mess with recipes. I’m sorry.)

Pour the batter over the oranges, and bake at 350 for … hmm… it was probably close to an hour, even though the instructions had said about 30 minutes. About half-way through, the top of the cake was starting to look way too brown, so I covered the outer edge of it with a long strip of foil, like you do on pies to keep the crust from getting too brown. When a toothpick finally came clean in the center of the cake, I removed it from the oven and let it cool for about ten minutes. Then I turned it out onto a cutting board, and it was perfect!

Frankly, I was shocked.

Although I like to experiment with baking, I throw away a LOT of disasters. A LOT. Like two-thirds of everything I try. I was so convinced that this would flop, I actually had also bought some dairy-free Italian Ice from my neighborhood Zeppe’s (great place, very aware of allergies!) and baked some gluten-free cookies from a Cherrybrook Kitchen mix.

So I ended up with not just one dessert, but three. I took them all, and they were all a hit, even with the non-allergic women, who couldn’t believe the cake and cookies were gluten-free.

Wow. I don’t know what I did to deserve such good luck on my first gluten-free baking adventure. Of course, given my baking karma, that probably ensured that the next ten things I try will fail in horribly creative ways. But that’s okay. The one friend with the most restrictions was thrilled to actually get to eat a dessert at a party, so that made it worth the worry.

It seems like it should work well with a regular cake mix, too, so I’m going to give it another try this weekend, using a nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free mix with regular flour. If you try it, let me know.

Here’s to more adventures in baking!

Egg Replacers

Come see me this Saturday (May 9, 2009, 9 am – 5 pm) at the UFAN booth at the Mother’s Day Garden Fair. It’s being held at Conservation Garden Park, 8215 South 1300 West, in West Jordan, UT. Click here for more info.

In my baking, I’m always on the lookout for great ways to replace eggs so that my son can share his baked treats with his egg- and milk-allergic best friend. This weekend, I finally tried a new egg replacer product that I’ve been hearing about on the UFAN email list for months. It’s called Ener-G Egg Replacer, it's tapioca based, and I found it at Smith’s.

On the back of the Ener-G box, there are several great recipes, including an incredibly simple and allergen-friendly recipe for sponge cake.

On Friday night, I was hosting a graduation party for a friend who just received his master’s degree at Weber State U (and he just happens to be the dad of my son’s egg- and milk-allergic best friend).

So decided to test the sponge cake recipe and turn it into a jelly roll. It worked great! I followed the recipe on the box, then baked it in a 10” x 15” pan. Next I spread the cake with strawberry jelly and rolled it up. Finally, I frosted the cake with white icing, draped a Fruit-by-the-Foot fruit snack over it like a ribbon, and voila – a diploma cake!

I haven’t tried the Ener-G Egg Replacer in anything else yet, but the cake worked out nicely, so I’m definitely going to use it in my other recipes to see how it works. They have a website with recipes and more products here.

Here are my other tried-and-true egg replacers:

For each egg called for in the recipe, substitute:

• 1 tsp baking powder, 1 T water or apple juice, and 1 T white vinegar – This foams up rapidly (like a science fair volcano), so it’s fun to do with kids and it works great in baked recipes like breads and cakes. This actually works better than the applesauce or banana options, because the foaming action makes breads rise a little better, I think. It’s also cheap and easy, using ingredients you already have on hand. (No dashing to the store!)

• 3 T apple sauce – This works well in cookies.

• 1/2 mashed banana – This works well in cookies (if you want the banana taste). A friend just told me she used mashed banana instead of eggs in pancakes she made using Bisquick’s mix, and she loved it.
  
  
• 1 T ground flax seed mixed with 3 T warm water – Actually, I’ve never tried this, because people with nut allergies have a higher chance of also being allergic to flax. But I know others on the UFAN mailing list have used ground flax seed with great results, so if you know you’re not allergic to flax, go ahead and give it a try.

'Tis the Season To Be Baking

Pumpkin bread, chocolate zucchini bread, cookies, pie, coffee cake… I’ve been in the kitchen a lot the last few days, and I’m not done yet.

If I had more time, I’d bake more stuff, too. I actually like baking. I’m not wild about cooking in general – that “What’s for dinner?” question drives me up a tree, and I’m usually the one asking it. But I enjoy baking, as long as it’s an easy recipe. Anything that requires more than 6 steps, calls for any ingredients that have to be purchased from an indigenous farmer selling them from the back of a yak, or that involves a double-boiler or spring-form pan gets knocked off my “try this someday” list in a hurry. I just don’t have that kind of patience.

But I do like coming up with new recipes for baking without eggs, milk, or nuts, especially at the holidays.

On Friday, I took several mini-loaves of pumpkin bread to school to give to my son’s teacher, the principal, the school secretaries, the “lunch lady,” and the school maintenance man. To each loaf, I attached a recipe card that showed the bread was without eggs, milk, or nuts. I wasn’t “making a point.” I was thanking them.

All of those people make the school safe for my son and the other kids with allergies – and I make it a priority to remember the maintenance man and the lunch lady, who I think most parents forget in the flurry of teacher-gifts. These folks go out of their way to keep an allergy table safe at the school. They enforce the “no snacks in the classroom” policy. They pin up photos of the allergic kids in the lunch kitchen so everyone remembers to be careful. They contact us when a food issue is coming up at school to make sure our kids will be okay.

I am SO grateful for these people.

So I baked pumpkin bread and took it to all the adults at the school that have a hand in keeping my son safe. And I made it without the most common allergens that kids in our school suffer from. Everyone seemed thrilled to receive the bread, and my son got a hug and a big thank you from each of them.

Now I’m baking just for my own family. We’ll make cookies today, because Santa will be expecting them tonight, you know, and we aren’t sure if he’s allergic to milk, eggs, or nuts, so we’ll make them safe just to be sure. And tomorrow morning, my coffee cake will be on the breakfast table (barring any disasters, like dropped bowls of dough, mis-read recipes, broken stoves, or forgotten timers and burnt results – all of which have historical precedents).

So keep your fingers crossed for me that my cookies don’t burn, my coffee cake doesn’t flop, and my pies don’t bubble over, and I’ll keep mine crossed for you that all of your holiday endeavors turn out beautifully, too.

And don’t forget to watch Santa’s progress around the world today and tonight on the Norad radar tracking system: www.noradsanta.org!

Happy Holidays!