You might have noticed that I’ve taken a small break from blogging over the last couple of weeks and if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that Mike and I have spent some time away in New York as an early birthday celebration. There is so much to share from our week away, but you’ll have to wait patiently for those posts to come as I still have lots to tell you about the rest of our time at this year’s FreeFrom Food Awards. As well as the wonderful “Meaty and Fishy Ready Meals” category, we were lucky enough to judge a further 4 categories too and those revealed some more great freefrom options for those with allergies to choose from.

The Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning sessions were spent tasting some fantastic teatime treats and allergy-friendly breads. Just as I experienced last year, the teatime treats offered a good selection of biscuits and cakes, and whereas last year there was a huge number of biscotti to taste, this year was all about shortbread. Now I absolutely love shortbread, it is my favourite Christmas dessert, especially when enjoyed with lashings of rich brandy butter and I was excited to taste the freefrom options that were entered in the awards. Unfortunately, as great as some of them were, none was both gluten- and dairy-free, which is always a disappointment when I’m looking for something new to add to G’s diet. By the time we reached the end of the shortbread and other similar cookies, I have to confess I was looking for something refreshingly different and new.

The following, however, were absolutely amazing and whilst not all of them were gluten- and dairy-free, there was a good variety of treats that would be a great freefrom offering for any special occasion or teatime. The first came from Sponge Cakes Ltd, who make mail order gluten-free cakes. We were lucky enough to try both the Victoria sponge and the Apple crumble sponge and my run-away favourite was the apple crumble one. Both had a great texture, looked tempting and tasted delicious with the only downside being that they were just gluten-free and so not suitable for G. However, since returning from our trip, a quick perusal of their website has shown that they do in fact make a gluten- and dairy-free cake as well, which we may well have to try at some point in the future.

My next favourite was a delicious treacle tart from Mummy Bakes, which was impressively gluten-, dairy- and egg-free. Sadly I failed to snap a shot of this treat during the afternoon, probably because I was waxing lyrical about the taste of the tart itself. I am not usually a treacle tart fan; in fact, I usually steer clear of this sweet treat as just being too sweet for me to enjoy. However, there was an amazing lemon flavour that cut perfectly through the treacle and balanced it so that it had just the right sweetness for an indulgent pudding.

The next product scored highly with me because it was delightfully simple in its ingredients and looks like being an addition we can introduce to M. When we visited the Allergy and Free From Show in the summer, I discovered some delicious chocolate and rice crispbreads from Le Pain des Fleurs, which sadly just missed the mark because M is unable to have cocoa. Safe snacks are always hard to find, so I was thrilled to see another crispbread from this company entered into the awards. The coconut rice crispbread may not have been a favourite with everyone, but the prospect of finding another snack for M was truly exciting for me. It seems somewhat ironic that last year I stumbled across the amazing Borough 22 doughnuts, which the owner, Ryan, has kindly adapted to be 100% safe for M, during the Teatime category and this year the coconut crispbreads seem to have ticked the box again. We will need to trial them as M is currently only able to tolerate coconut oil and not cream or milk, but I’m hoping that the low percentage of coconut in them (just 15%), will make them a viable option for my young foodie.

As for the breads on Wednesday morning, there were some great products and it was fantastic to see several entries from the big supermarkets as well as the more specialised brands we’ve come to known. The Bfree pitta breads were great and impressively had the perfect pocket to cram with your filling of choice, and I also loved the Tesco petit pain rolls and sandwich thins, either of which would be ideal for G’s lunchbox. However, my absolute favourite was the impressive Tesco Ancient Grain Cob, which looked amazing and tasted just as good. In my opinion it would be difficult to distinguish this bread as gluten- and dairy-free when compared to its “normal” counterparts and I’ll be looking out for a loaf in my local store to buy for G to try.