You know you are a hard core food allergy parent when you can go out on Date Night and then begin food allergy safe baking at 10pm without blinking eye. My son needed muffins for his team by 7:15am last Saturday and there I was baking dairy free and nut free muffins! In the spirit of ease, I chose a recipe I’ve been using for years, but now that he is no longer allergic to egg, I did use the one egg instead of an egg replacement. To make this old standard recipe special and “dressed up”, I filled them with fabulous raspberry jam. Big hit!
Several track team members who were the beneficiaries of the muffins have stopped me over the last few days to comment on how tasty the muffins were! Music to my eyes, validation to late night baking. More often than not, I like to use a simple base recipe and then embellish it according to my whims, fruits is in season or theme. For example, I love to make my flourless chocolate cake with figs when they are in season, otherwise a raspberry sauce is standard.
I baked our old adapted version of the Apple Cinnamon Muffins recipe from The New Carry Out Cuisine Cookbook. “New” in the cookbook title is referring to the mid 1980’s! Yes, it is clear I am 50 years old. The secret’s out! After the muffins cooled, I then took my trusty chopstick and poked a hole in the center about 1.5 inch deep. I think chopsticks are one of the greatest inventions known to mankind. You only need two chopsticks to eat, then you can poke food with them, use them in the toaster (if they do not have metal on them) to retrieve short pieces of toast, make jump ring off of them, just a plethora of uses. After all the muffins were poked, I snipped 1/4″ off the corner of a small Ziploc bag, inserted a long pastry decorating tip (Bismark tip) into the bag in which I filled with 1/3 cup of jam. I purchased the tip at a cake decorating store, but I believe stores such as Micheal’s crafts stores carry these cake decorating tips. Finally, I very gently squeezed the jam into the hole until it filled up.
Do you have a favorite basic food allergy savvy recipe that is a tried and true winner which can be embellished to into something different? Such as, a basic muffin, cookie or cake recipe. Or even an entrée that takes on new life forms according to seasonal foods, like pasta with lemon versus pasta with roasted veggies (a winter favorite in my household)?
Please add a link to your food allergy friendly recipe below and I’ll include it in the body of this blog!
One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
You got me to laugh in the first sentence- I am always the one up at 9:30/10 at night cooking and baking while everyone is in bed! It just seems like normal life to me now.
Thanks for the chuckle!
It’s sooooo true! The funnier part is that I can bake some of these recipes half sleep that I’ve baked them that many times. I actually think it is safe to say that I have baked thousands of muffins and cupcakes in the last 12 years. Crazy, but safe!
Well, you know I have many of these recipes! 🙂 Probably, sticking with the theme of muffins, my basic recipe that I can jazz up is my recipe for Cereal Muffins (http://naturalandfree.blogspot.com/2012/06/cereal-muffins-soy-fish-and-nut-free.html). Going outside your theme slightly and going with cake, my favorite cake to adjust the flavors on is Wacky Cake (http://naturalandfree.blogspot.com/2012/04/wacky-cake-fish-soy-milk-nut-and-egg.html). The muffins are soy, fish and nut-free (they could be dairy-free, too, I just don’t have that variation listed). The cake is fish, soy, milk, nut and egg-free. (I know it sounds weird that I put they are both fish-free, because that’s a given, but I mark all my recipes as that where it qualifies so there is no doubt. I don’t like assumptions. 🙂 ) By the way, your muffins look DELISH! 🙂
Julie, I was hoping you had some fun basic recipes! I’m off to check out that wacky cake recipe. I vaguely remember my mom having wacky cake recipe that used soda pop I think? Thanks for sharing!
These are making me VERY hungry!! We’re ok with dairy, so I just switch the soy-based ingredients for dairy ones? I think my boys will like them too! Gotta get one of those long pokey things! I’ve filled cupcakes before, but I usually put half of the mix in, put the jam in, then the rest.. it always makes it fussy. Love this method!
Connie, I slammed these out. I let them cool over night and then around 6:30am it took me mere minutes to fill them. I want to try sour cherry jam next.