Another peaceful Sunday afternoon could only mean one thing – another chance to try my hand at a new recipe.  Since our last visit to GOSH, M’s diet has become even more restricted and I desperately needed a new treat to add to his lunch-box and hopefully bring a smile back to his face.  Whilst the children were outside enjoying some long-awaited sunshine and Mike was working on our bathroom renovation plans, I sat at the kitchen table, pouring over my vast array of cookbooks.  This may come as something of a surprise, but I only have one that is dedicated to allergy-friendly cooking, instead I prefer to take my inspiration from regular recipes, which are adapted to suit M’s food needs.

Courtesy of theguardian.com

I had already looked through my store cupboard to see what interesting ingredients might be waiting for me to use them and stumbled across a pack of Moo-free dairy-, and soya-free chocolate drops.  For those who have yet to discover the delights of Moo-free chocolate, this amazing product has been a real revolution for our household.  Not only do they produce chocolate buttons, but themed chocolate bars for Christmas and even Easter eggs that are suitable for both dairy- and soya-allergy sufferers.  I added their Cranberry and Hazelnut chocolate to M’s Rainforest flapjacks recipe, which became an instant hit in our household last summer.

Chocolate drops could only mean one thing – chocolate chip cookies.  I had a quick hunt through the books and found a recipe that seemed to be easy enough to convert for a M-friendly batch.  It came from a fundraising cookbook called “Squeeze your Lemon”, which Father Christmas kindly left in my stocking a few years ago.  I hadn’t before attempted a recipe from here, so was excited to see just how well the cookies would turn out.

The recipe itself was easy to follow, though the end result was a little sweet for my tastes.  G and M sampled them warm from the oven and, after mere seconds of deliberation, awarded them – and me – a more than satisfactory 9 out of 10.  The only complaints were that they were too crumbly, which is probably due to the rice flour used, and that they were too puffy! M insists that they would have been near-perfect if only I had made them a little smaller and flatter.  Either way, the recipe worked well and a cookie has found its way into 2 small lunch-boxes every day this week.  A definite bake to add to my ever-increasing repertoire, which makes it a success in my book.