The holiday season can bring a bit of extra stress for families dealing with food allergies. SO much celebrating goes on around the meal table or the snack napkin! Particularly if you are dealing with children who have food allergies, being prepared at all times is a must. Today's post is going to focus on some ideas for holiday sweets and treats. They can be frozen and kept ready for you top pop into your food bag at a moments notice for cover dish dinners, an evening at a friend's house, holiday parties or family celebrations.
* Gluten free cakes, brownies, muffins, and sweet breads are idea for freezing. For a special holiday touch I like to frost and decorate them. This obviously isn't something you want to do all the time, but pulling out all the stops at this season of the year can help allergic children feel included when everyone else is downing red and green Oreos and the like. Therefore,...once a year... I let down the "healthy mama" guard and go for it!
Here is the frosting recipe I use:
1 cup shortening (GF)
some GF vanilla ( approximately 1 teaspoon)
2 cups powdered sugar ( use 1 cup Agave Nectar or honey if corn is an issue...we prefer agave)
1 teaspoon salt
( a few spoons of water is sometimes necessary if using the powdered sugar)
Blend together until smooth, adding water if necessary. For a red color I like to puree some defrosted frozen red berries and blend them into the mix. Blueberries add a lovely purple color. Some unsweetened cocoa powder can be added for a chocolate flavor.
Other decorating ideas:
*Crush up some Yummy Earth Lollipops to use as colorful sprinkles
*Find other GF candies such as Annie's Gummy Bunnies, or organic jelly beans and gummy candies to use as decorations
*Crumble up some GF cookies and use as a topping on frosted cakes
*Crush organic candy canes to use as toppings
A small cookie cutter can be used to create a cute pattern of whatever topping you choose. Simply press the cookie cutter into the frosting and fill the space with your topping before carefully removing the cookie cutter.
Frostings and toppings also come in handy for decorating GF cookies. Nothing is sadder than watching a child not be able to eat the cookies he has helped everyone else decorate! My plan this year is to keep a few containers of the toppings listed above on hand for times when little ones are decorating cookies in group and family settings.
A few more ideas for special treats....
Milkshakes: Around this time of year, Chick-Fil-A Peppermint Chocolate Chip Milkshakes are everyone's favorite "grandparent treat" around our house. How do we handle this with our GF/dairy free/nut free/no artificial colors child? Put some soy ice cream in the blender with a little red berry puree and some Enjoy Life chocolate chips. It is red with chocolate chips just like everyone else's shake and is slurped down just as fast, too!
Chipwiches/Ice cream sandwiches: Two GF cookies with frosting in between... a nice twist on the same old cookies when everyone else is having a special treat. An extremely yummy combination is chocolate chip cookies with candy canes mixed in the frosting!! This also works well with soy ice cream in between the cookies !
Wow! Just reading over all of this makes me want to go brush my teeth! Perhaps in another post I will tackle main dishes or something a little more healthy :). What ideas do you have for making delicious holiday sweet treats for those with food allergies?
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