Chocolate-covered Just About Anything

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

You can embellish just about any dry good with chocolate and rainbow or holiday-themed sprinkles, nonpareiles, colored sugar, cupcake decorations, you name it. We recently made chocolate-covered, rainbow-sprinkled pretzel sticks for a Chinese New Year celebration, and they looked like little firecrackers! So cute. We've also covered pretzel mini twists (well, pretzels of just about every shape and size), graham cracker sticks and squares and animal crackers, and embellished them or not to suit our mood.

Ingredients

• Chocolate chips (we like the semi-sweet chips we can get at Trader Joes - if you don't have a TJs near you, read the labels to make sure the chips meet your food allergy requirements)
  
• Something to cover (like pretzels, crackers, etc.)
  
• Something to embellish with, or not
  

Steps

• Place a piece of waxed or parchment paper on a cookie sheet or two (depending on how much you'll be chocolate-covering). If you run into a bind, you can double the amount on one cookie sheet by using a piece of waxed/parchment paper in between each layer.
  
• Set out the embellishments you'll be using on flat plates covered with wax paper. We like to put a piece of waxed paper on the plate, because it helps us to get the embellishment onto the dipped piece of whatever.  We use a little sling action to move the sprinkles etc. around. If you'd rather just roll the chocolate-covered item around on the plate, that works, too.
• Melt the chocolate chips using the double boiler or microwave method. The amount you choose to melt will depend on how many goodies you want to make, but keep in mind that there's a little bit of trial and error here to get the quantity right. You may end up with too much or too little melted chocolate.
• Dip your dipping choice into the chocolate.
• Dip the chocolate-dipped deliciousness into the embellishment, if you're using one.
• Set it on the waxed paper and move onto the next.
• Put the cookie sheet into the refrigerator for the chocolate to set up and harden.
• Enjoy at will.  

Double boiler method

• Set yourself up with a double boiler, stirring an amount of chocolate frequently-to-constantly to ensure even melting. Be careful not to get even a droplet of water into the chocolate or it will seize up and you'll have to start over again.

Microwave method

• Pour an amount of the chocolate chips into a microwave safe container. 
  
• Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave on reduced power for about 30 seconds. If the chips haven't melted at all, put them back in at the same power for more time, or a slightly higher power for the same time, then check them again. Stir the chips every time you open the mic because you don't want the chocolate to burn. It'll stink up your house, believe us.
  
• Once the chips have almost completely melted, take them out of the mic and give them a good stir. The heat from the melted chocolate will take care of the remaining chips.

Notes

• Untempered chocolate will "bloom" (turn greyish-whitish) if it sits out too long at room temperature. You can take care of this problem by tempering your chocolate (this can be a complicated process), by making it shortly before you plan to serve it, or by storing it in the refrigerator.
  
• Adding an embellishment will affect how sweet the snack turns out, so keep that in mind.
• Consider too the chocolate-dry good ration. We love the sweet/salty/pretzel taste, and have found that the mini-pretzels almost are too small for the amount of enrobing chocolate. Use your discretion and consider your audience.

Red Carpet Cake

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

This recipe couldn't be simpler and is a variation on one that we've made loads of times before. The original actually started out as a Weight Watchers cake, but once we saw that it suited our food allergy requirements, we immediately turned it into an Allergy Foodies cake, and we've rarely gone back to old-fashioned (but food allergy fangled) baking. This particular variation was a compilation of two or three recipes that we found online, so trust us when we say that no copyrights were harmed in the posting of this recipe.

The beautiful, deep red color fit perfectly for the Chinese New Year-themed party that we made them for, especially when they were topped off with Chinese characters wishing peace, fortune and a good year ahead.

Ingredients

• 1 box white cake mix (we like Duncan Hines because the mix itself is dairy-free/egg-free/nut-free)
  
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa (we used Hershey's)
  
• 1 can Sprite Zero (because there are no calories in it - if we're going to have cake around we want to eat it too! If you have another clear soda on hand - calorie-laden or not - it will work just fine)
  
• 1 to 2 teaspooons of vanilla extract
  
• A whole mess of red food coloring
  

Steps

• Empty the cake mix into a medium mixing bowl, add the cocoa powder and combine.
  
• Pour the Sprite Zero into the dry ingredients. When the carbonation has settled down a bit, begin mixing with an electric mixer.
  
• When the ingredients are mostly mixed, add the vanilla (to taste) and red food coloring. We began with about half of a 1 ounce bottle of McCormick food coloring, but the more we mixed, the lighter the batter became, and we added more. Now there's just a drop left in the bottle.
  
• Pour the cake batter into your cooking vessel of choice and bake per the instructions on the box. When there's a range, we tend to bake to the lower end of the range.  Maybe our oven is fast, or maybe the absence of added eggs and oil changes the cooking time. All we know is if you don't want burned up baked goodies, check 'em early.
  

Notes 

• One of the recipes we used in coming up with the one above said to add a teaspoon of distilled white vinegar at the same time as the food coloring and vanilla. Since we're not trained pastry chefs, we didn't understand the value the vinegar was bringing to the table, so we omitted it. Maybe next time we'll give it a shot, just to see what it does, but from where we sit, you don't need it. If you try it, let us know how it turns out. Write to us at allergyfoodies(at)gmail(dot)com.
• Traditional Red Velvet Cake (not as traditionally southern as you might think, by the way) is made with loads of off-limits products. We could have experimented by converting a from-scratch recipe, using soymilk, Ener-G Egg Replacer or another egg replacement concoction, soy sour cream, etc. Clearly, we didn't go that route. Having neither the time nor the inclination to play mad scientist/pastry chef, we went for simple.
  

Devil's Food Fudge Cookies

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Ooowee! We like this cookie - it's fast and fabulous. If you don't have nut allergies, you can add the nuts that the original recipe (courtesy of Duncan Hines) calls for. If you're like us, avoid them like the plague. But, don't avoid this cookie. So, so good. You won't even believe it. And, they taste nothing like cake (which is a good thing).

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 box Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Devil's Food Cake Mix
  
• 2 large eggs (we used two eggs' worth of Ener-G Egg Replacer)
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet dairy-free chocolate chips
  
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (we used extra chocolate chips to make up for some of the volume of the nuts, but not an additional 1/2 cup more)
  

Steps

• Preheat oven to 350. Grease two baking sheets.
  
• Combine cake mix, eggs and oil in a large bowl. Stir until thoroughly blended.
  
• Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if you're using them). The mixture will be stiff.
  
• Shape dough into 36 1 1/4 inch balls. Place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
  
• Bake at 350 for 10 to 11 minutes. Cookies will look moist. Do not overbake.
  
• Cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, them remove to cooling racks. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

April 2008 Update

We made these recently, and frankly were horrified by the 1/2 cup of oil that the recipe calls for. So, we pulled a foodie and - OMG - modified the recipe all by ourselves! Instead of that 1/2 cup of oil, we used 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce (Did you know that the single serve applesauce cups you can get at the grocery store are 1/4 cup? Now you do.) We also added one to two tablespoons of water to the mix, to get the right consistency. Snaps to us - they were awesome and a little more figure friendly.

Black and White cookie frosting

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Black and White cookie aficionados know that a true Black and White cookie is different from a sugar cookie with black and white frosting. However, we have not yet had luck reproducing the texture of a Black and White cookie in a confection that is safe for our kids. So we make our standard, allergy-safe Sweet as Sugar cookies in a round shape and top them with this frosting. It's a little bit of a cheat, but hey, no harm, no foul.

We found this recipe for cocoa-infused royal icing from celebrity chef extraordinaire (and fellow petite person) Sara Moulton. Our cookies certainly looked like Black and White cookies, even if they weren't an exact replica.

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
  
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 4 to 6 tablespoons water
  
• 1/4 cup cocoa
  
• One batch Sweet as Sugar Cookies

Steps

For the white:

• Stir the powdered sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice and vanilla with 2 tablespoons of the water, adding additional water 1 teaspoon at a time until the icing reaches the correct consistency.
  

For the black:

• Remove half of the white frosting to another mixing bowl. Add the cocoa and mix. 
  
• To reach the correct consistency, add water 1 teaspoon at a time.
  

For the cookie:

• After the cookies have baked and cooled, spread half of the cookie with the white frosting and half with the black. 
  
• Depending on how runny you've made your icing, you may need to outline the white half moon and outline the black half moon. Later, when this amount of icing has hardened, you can go back and fill in the blanks.
  

Cookie Concealer, aka Royal Icing

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Let's face it. We all look a little better with some concealer on. A little patch here, a blemish there... Evening out the surface a bit never hurt anyone. And when the cover up is as tasty as this, not too sweet, not too bland, no one really minds the fact that you're simply improving upon nature. Again, this recipe comes from the johnandkristie.com web site. Kudos to them for a yummy posting.

This recipe makes enough to cover about 2 dozen medium cookies.

Ingredients

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  
• 6 to 8 teaspoons soy milk - vanilla soy milk works just fine
  
• 4 teaspoons light corn syrup
  
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (omit or substitute with vanilla extract to keep this nut free - we omitted it because our soy milk has a vanilla flavor to it)
  
• Food coloring
  

Steps

• In a medium bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and soy milk until smooth. 
  
• Beat in corn syrup and extract (if using) until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
  
• Add food coloring to desired intensity. 
  
• Dip cookies into icing, instead of trying to spread the icing onto the cookie, and allow to dry overnight.
  

Brownies and Applesauce

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Are we dating ourselves by borrowing that classic line from the Brady Bunch? You know the one, when Peter imitates Humphrey Bogart and says "pork chopsh and appleshaushe" in a very Humphrey Bogart-ish voice. No? Well, then, let's just move on.

The brownies in the recipe we offered up some time ago are still really good, but they take a lot more effort than this recipe does. And sometimes you just don't feel like pulling all of those ingredients out of the pantry...

Ingredients

• 1 box allergy-safe brownie mix (we used Pillsbury, which said it may contain milk ingredients, but we're still calling this dairy-free because the ingredients listing looked dairy-free to us)
  
• canola oil
  
• unsweetened applesauce
  

Steps

• Follow the steps and ingredient proportions on the box.
  
• In lieu of the eggs that the box calls for, use unsweetened applesauce. For each egg, substitute 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce.
  
• Bake according to the box instructions. We tried this in our test kitchen and found that the brownies had to cook longer than the box said (not a lot like double the time, but an extra six or eight minutes on top of the recommended 35, and then we let them sit in the hot oven for a few minutes with the heat turned off).
  

Note: We were so excited we couldn't wait to cut into them. That produced brownie crumble. We then let them cool down for a bit and they stuck together much better.

 

Sweet as Sugar Cookies

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

We had a heck of a time finding a sugar cookie recipe that could be rolled out for use with cookie cutters, didn't bake up too hard but also didn't fall apart as soon as you took a bite. Oh, and it had to taste good, too.  Lucky for us, we found this on the johnandkristie.com web site. One batch bakes up into about 3 dozen medium cookies. Your mileage will vary (depending of course on the size of your cookie cutter).

Ingredients

• 1 cup margarine (we used Earth Balance)
  
• 1 cup white sugar
  
• 2 whole egg replacements (Ener-G) (yup, they used Ener-G Egg Replacer, which is what we would have used had they used eggs)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1/4 cup tofu cream cheese (Tofutti) (and again, they used what we would have substituted into the recipe - we must have access to the same stores)
  

Steps

• In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. 
  
• Stir in the egg replacement and vanilla.
  
• Gradually add the flour, baking powder and tofu cream cheese. You may have to use your hands at this point to finish the mixing. 
  
• Form the dough into a long loaf and wrap in cellophane. Refrigerate for a couple of hours.
  
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets or use a non-stick foil or parchment paper.
  
• On a lightly floured surface (or on more non-stick foil taped to your countertop) roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer to baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch between each cookie.
  
• Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bottoms and edges just start to get light brown. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wire rack. Store in an airtight container.
  

Great-with-a-cup-of Coffee Crumb Cake

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

We love this cake which we think tastes better than the Entenmann's version. We've made it a dozen times and our unsuspecting testers had no idea they were eating allergy-safe crumb cake. In fact, it's so good we've had to stop making it so often.  If you haven't had store-bought crumb cake in a while you would have a hard time distinguishing between the original and our version.

The crumb topping comes from an archived copy of Eating Well Magazine. 

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 Box of Yellow Cake Mix (We use Duncan Hines)
  
• 1 Can Sprite Zero
  

Crumb Topping

• 1 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
  
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
  
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
  
• 1 tablespoon chilled butter cut into small pieces (we use Earth Balance)
  
• 1 1/2 tablespoon lightly beaten egg (we use 2 eggs worth of Ener-G Egg Replacer)
  
• 1 1/2 tablespoon light corn syrup
  

Steps

• Using an electric mixer, mix cake mix with soda for 2 minutes. 
  
• Pour into prepared baking pan. (we use 9 x 13).
  
• Follow baking instructions on box.
  
• Set the timer for half the total bake time for your pan type and size.
  
• Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine flour, sugars, cinnamon and salt. Work in oil and butter with your fingers until coarse crumbs form. 
  
• Using a fork, stir eggs (replacer) and corn syrup into flour mixture until moistened. 
  
• When the timer beeps, check your cake for firmness. Your cake needs to be firm enough to hold the weight of the crumb mixture without it sinking. When ready, sprinkle crumb mixture over the cake and continue baking for the remainder of the baking time.