Tag Archives: Baking

“Elementa(l)ry, my dear Watson”

(with profuse apologies to all Holmes fans out there, but I just couldn’t resist!)

As we head into our 5th month of E028, the positive impact of the elemental diet on M is plain to see. Family, friends and even casual acquaintances have commented on his improved health, behaviour, appearance and overall much happier demeanour. We have seen glimpses of the happy-go-lucky, confident and outgoing child he can be when constant pain is not plaguing him and we have celebrated that success with him. We’ve even embraced the somewhat daunting prospect of food trials despite the lack of useful advice we were originally given and have ploughed on regardless, surviving the highs and lows of this latest rollercoaster ride. Believe me, there have been plenty of both.

The highs have been encouraging;

We have successfully reintroduced rice, chicken and cucumber to his diet and he’s loving being able to eat something solid once again. I’ve adapted, tweaked and sometimes created from scratch recipes to give him a range of meals that make meal-times more exciting than just plain boiled rice, grilled chicken and a few slices of cucumber 3 times a day. We’ve even found a new favourite in rice noodles, something he would never eat when he was small and, thanks to the advice of 1 kind reader, I have even managed to lay my hands on a bag of the elusive rice pasta and he’s enjoying the variety to his diet. The bonus of finding some amazing allergy-friendly restaurants earlier this month was a real boost and will make a big difference to us all.

M has stayed positive and has very much been involved in making the decisions about what foods he trials next. We are working closely with our GOSH dietitian to choose our hit-list of foods in a balanced manner and I speak to her every 2 or 3 weeks to provide an update on our progress. Even better, she is constantly contactable via e-mail, which has given me huge peace of mind as I know I can ask her any questions I might have and she will always come back to me by either phone or email, even if it’s just to say she’s looking into it and will let me know. We’re once more on a small break, but are looking forward to attempting carrot, corn and apple over the coming few weeks.

And the lows have been exhausting.

I never realised just how exhausting the process of food challenges would be and that’s on all levels: physical, mental and emotional. Each new food starts with the excitement and hope that it will be a safe food for M and managing expectations has become key. It feels easy at the moment to be downhearted as we have had 4 fails – pineapple, pork, sweet potato and banana – and a question-mark over the 5th – salmon; but it’s critical we stay positive as there are an awful lot more foods for M to try, and every success brings with it many more options for meals. Unfortunately, every fail leads to disappointment and discouragement and we have to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and look forward to the next one as best we can.

The need to be constantly alert to the risks of cross-contamination during food prep, as well as ever-vigilant about rogue additions to lists of ingredients and being constantly alert to any signs of a reaction in M, requires a stamina I didn’t know I had. That is something I’m sometimes finding it hard to hang on to. Whilst we are almost desperate to successfully introduce another ingredient to our meagre list, it’s become clear that we have to do it at a pace that suits M’s pernickety digestive system, and that seems to be a very slow rate indeed.

However, despite the exhaustion and the blood, sweat and tears shed in the name of finding another safe food, the future is looking bright and M’s better health gives us all a reason to keep going, even when it seems tough. To have him in the best health we’ve known for 9 years means that our decision to go elemental really was…well…”elementary, my dear Watson.”

A tri-umph of rice-themed goodies!

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Recently I’ve been spending my time baking and cooking up a whirlwind as the days ahead have been looking busy. With a day for G and M at the holiday club run at Mike’s work, an appointment with M’s consultant and dietitian at GOSH to review his progress 4 months post-tube and a planned short stay in London to see the sights and to dip our toes into the world of being away from home with NG-tube in tow, a plethora of safe snacks and treats for M were much in need. I prepared rice pudding, rice-flour sugar cookies and rice krispie cakes to satisfy the appetite of my youngest and to reassure myself that we would have some things with us to feed him whilst the rest of us enjoyed some much-missed meals out. I also used the opportunity whilst trialling banana to add some to the mix and made some banana sugar cookies too.

The recipes can be found in the everything-free recipes section and are so easy to follow that next time round, my plan is to be sitting back with a cup of tea, whilst G and M get on with the task of creating their own delicious masterpieces!

Who knew you could make so much from rice, sugar, rice milk and canola oil? Any other suggestions for simple recipes will be very gratefully received!

“Muuummm, what’s for tea tonight?”

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Oh how this resonates..

If your family is anything like mine, that question usually comes just as you’re struggling through the door: with house keys in one hand, car key gripped firmly between your teeth, handbag on one arm, cello on your back, mobile phone pressed to your ear as you attempt to talk to the dietitian/consultant/other healthcare provider, who’s asking if now is a good time to talk and you can’t say no as you’ve been trying to contact them urgently for at least the last 3 days and who knows when they might call again; plus the school bag(s)/shopping bag(s)/extraneous bag(s)* (*delete as appropriate) you’ve picked up along the way are weighing down your other side and threatening to upset the delicate balance you’ve perfected in your struggle to cover the 100 yards or less from your car to the house. Meanwhile, your curious offspring are waltzing in behind you, or possibly squeezing past you, through the already impossibly small and too-narrow-to-negotiate-safely doorway, bearing no more than a half-empty water bottle and their coat, worn superhero style to leave their hands free to carry absolutely nothing else at all. And just as you think you’ve achieved it and managed to get everything safely inside, they open their mouth and ask that unavoidably fraught dinner-question and the peace shatters and your world tumbles down around your ears. Does any of that sound familiar or is it just my household?

For M at the moment, my answer is fairly standard, although he adds his own unique twist by asking if dinner will be “chicken with rice and cucumber” or perhaps “rice and chicken with a side of cucumber”? For a while, when he was still 100% elemental, he would even ask if he could have “air-sticks” – “like bread sticks you see, but without the bread” – showing that the ability to laugh his way through this experience is his greatest strength in beating this disease. I have become a self-confessed expert in cooking with 3 principle ingredients – rice, chicken and cucumber – and the bonus extras of herbs, rapeseed oil and sugar. Rice has been broadened to include its derivatives and the inclusion of rice milk, rice cream and rice pops (as long as they’re gluten-free) has added to my ever-increasing repertoire of 3-ingredient recipes.

Rice-flour sugar cookies

In the past few weeks, as well as my fall-back favourites of roast or grilled chicken with plain boiled rice, I have also perfected deep-fried savoury rice balls, chicken nuggets, chicken and cucumber curry, fried rice, chicken stir-fry, rice-flour sugar cookies and rice pudding. My Mum has also made M a chicken breast stuffed with rice and cucumber, courtesy of the inspiration and some nifty hints suggested by our hairdresser and which was an instant hit with our young diner. It’s surprising just how many different recipes you can create with just a few ingredients and there’s even a few more that I’m hoping to try out in the coming weeks. What started out as a daunting challenge to entice M’s appetite and encourage him to once again eat whilst navigating the tricky world of identifying his food allergies, has become yet another success story in our household.

My victory with such a limited range of ingredients has been all the sweeter given the recent UK news story of the letter sent to the Daily Telegraph newspaper by over 100 top chefs and restauranteurs condemning recent EU legislation requiring restaurants to provide information about which of the top 14 allergens the dishes on their menus contain. It was never a requirement that they did not cook with these ingredients, but rather that they should be able to inform diners of what the food prepared contains, with the knowledge and pride in their ingredients that I would expect from any talented chef. Whilst widely welcomed by those of us in the allergy-world as a step towards helping us make informed decisions about eating out, these chefs warned that such requirements would harm “…the spontaneity, creativity and innovation restaurants and others in the industry have enjoyed up until now.”

Like so many others in my situation, I wrote a response on the Telegraph website, pointing out that this legislation will help me to protect my children and give them experiences that will ensure their continued health and enjoyment, I do not deny that it’s up to me (and they as they grow older) to ask about allergens, but there’s no point asking these questions if the restaurants, waiting staff or chefs cannot provide the information needed and the lack of understanding about cross-contamination risks is sadly common across the food industry.

Our experience last summer in Disney proved that this type of requirement does not need to be restrictive as excellent allergen information was readily available and nearly everywhere we ate produced meals for G and M that rivalled those being served to any other customer there with a “normal” diet. The chefs were knowledgable, came to our table to discuss their allergy needs and made the effort to find out what my challenging duo would like to eat – excellent service all done with a smile.

The big challenge was always to cook M-friendly food and these days that task has become even more testing. In my opinion, these rules will have little impact on spontaneity or ingenuity – try cooking or baking when you need to avoid wheat/gluten, egg, dairy, soya and potato to name but a few. Ingenuity comes when you try to prepare a meal that makes your child feel that they’re not missing out and that’s something I feel I’ve proved is possible, even for an amateur cook like me.

Piece of cake

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These photos are of the supplies I needed to create this year’s birthday cake masterpiece for Master M as, after all, this had to be a birthday cake like no other I’ve ever baked before. In the same way that I had discussed my plans for the food we would serve at their Cluedo party with M, we sat together to talk about the various options for his birthday cake. I could bake a “normal” cake for him to give to his friends, I could use polystyrene dummy cakes to create an authentic-looking, but totally M-friendly cake or we could try something completely different. A friend had suggested using small bottles of 7-up to create a tiered cake and then giving every party guest a bottle to take home, which I thought an inspired idea as it’s one of the few things M has been able to enjoy since his NG-tube was passed, but M disagreed. He preferred the idea of the polystyrene “fake” cakes and we headed off to the shops over half-term to source the cakes, decide how many tiers he wanted and get all the art supplies I might need.

Every year I try to create birthday cakes that either echo the themes of the parties themselves, be that mini-golf, magic or minions; or that are innovative and something the children have never seen before, such as last year’s pinata cake for G. This year’s Cluedo theme offered me a wealth of ideas and I just needed to decide how to put them into action. I settled on a black base layer and ever-grateful to avoid the nightmare of icing a free-from cake, attacked our 3 tiers with a sturdy brush and bottle of black paint. “Cakes” fully covered, I liberally sprinkled some silver glitter over them all before the paint dried, positioned the silver 9 on the top and added an emerald green ribbon trim for that touch of old-fashioned glamour and to fit with M’s role as party host, “Captain Emerald”. I stuck the tiers together using PVA glue and then inserted some wooden skewers, just to make sure there was no chance the cake would fall apart before the day itself.

Next came the fun part of adding the decorations. I had previously printed out silhouettes to use for the characters and images for each of the murder weapons and had a number of them left-over after I had prepared the cards for the party itself. Choosing carefully, I glued the weapons to the bottom layer and a selection of characters to the middle layer, making sure I included the image of G’s character, “Countess Pearl”. My final step was to stick Captain Emerald’s silhouette to a piece of black card that I had already covered generously with more silver glitter and added this, leaning against the top-tier of the cake, before leaving it all to dry.

M’s cake sorted, I moved on to the preparation of a cake for G. Much as I had enjoyed exploring the “crafts” side of my personality, this was the moment I’d been waiting for since Christmas. Not so much the baking of a cake, though I love decorating birthday cakes to wow my children, but more because I finally got to use the best Christmas present I had received and one that was completely unexpected. I’ve been drooling over the KitchenAid food mixers for years, imagining one gracing my kitchen counters and last year started saving towards buying one of my own. To my delight, and absolute surprise, my wonderful Mum invested in a Ice-blue model as my Christmas/birthday present and it’s been sitting in the kitchen, taunting me daily with its absolute beauty, whilst I’ve waited for a chance to take it for a test-run. All I can say is thank goodness I needed to whip up 24 G-friendly cupcakes as well as the birthday cake itself as I flew through the first task and loved every moment spent doing it!

My birthday cake challenge was easier this year as although G has allergies of her own, I was able to use eggs, an ingredient I haven’t baked with in over 3 years. I used a simple gluten- and dairy-free recipe and then split the mixture between 5 bowls. Inspired by both the colourful characters in the Cluedo game and a recent episode of Great British Comic Relief Bake-Off, I added 5 different food colourings – 1 to each bowl – and then marbled the cake mix in the baking tins. As I waited for the cakes to bake, I turned to my trusty laptop to search out some ideas for how to decorate G’s Cluedo cake and settled on recreating the board itself out of icing. Working late into the early hours of Sunday morning to finish this final part of the party preparations and when I finally fell into my bed at around 3am, I was delighted with the end results.

The big reveal of my “showstopper” cakes was a huge success. Both G and M were thrilled with their cakes and liked the fact that even though they were completely different, they both fit our Cluedo theme perfectly. The cakes had pride of place at the centre of our Dessert buffet table and were a real talking point for children and parents alike. A job well done, though I’m not rushing to make 2 cakes for the same occasion again any time soon – my nerves just can’t take it!

Here’s to 2015

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That’s another year done, more adventures experienced and new lessons learned. We’re starting 2015 with a positive outlook – the switch to NG-tube and elemental feeding has already started to see some health improvements for M and we finally have a plan for moving forward that will be looking for the root cause for some of his health problems. Both children are happy and settled at school and G is looking ahead to moving into secondary school in September. We’ve met and made friends with several of the lovely FABED families and have been able to help raise funds and awareness for this charity and the condition it supports. I’m not sure what 2015 holds for us all, but, if nothing else, I’ve learned to hold tightly to my hat as it’s certain to be a bumpy ride!

Wishing you all a happy, ssuccessful and peaceful 2015. May your wishes and dreams be fulfilled.

Courtesy of connectsociety.org

Courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

Courtesy of minionslovebananas.com

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Just some of the children’s creations

This is definitely a t-shirt us #EGID parents need!

Stir-up Sunday

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Courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

Did you know that the last Sunday before Advent is known as “Stir-up Sunday”? That it’s thought that this tradition was introduced to Victorian Britain by Prince Albert? Did you realise that the Common Book of Prayer is the source for the nickname as the Collect for the Day starts “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord“? And I love the idea that hearing those words whilst in church on that Sunday, meant that cooks, wives and servants would be reminded that it was time to get started on preparing the Christmas pudding.

The reason I know all this is that this year Stir-up Sunday fell on November 23rd and I went on-line to track down its origins, whilst G and M helped my Mum create a culinary masterpiece worthy of a M-friendly Christmas. My Mum was given this recipe a couple of years ago and it proved relatively easy to convert to suit our allergy requirements. The children have enjoyed making it and this year was no exception, even though we know there’s a good chance that M won’t be able to eat it by the time Christmas arrives. The recipe was also a great opportunity for M to practice his reading skills and he did a sterling job in making sure that all the ingredients were present and correct.

With all the ingredients in the bowl, the whole family took their turn to stir the mixture and make a wish. M took a little convincing not to share his wish with the world, but the pudding was made and is now waiting for Christmas day. I’m assured by those in the family who enjoy Christmas pudding, of which I am most definitely not one, that this is a great recipe and that the pudding is delicious as well as being allergy-friendly. Definitely one for the cook-book!

A Birthday Treat – Lemon Meringue cupcakes

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This time last year, M was admitted into GOSH for scopes and he and I spent Mike’s birthday away from the birthday boy himself, leaving him to celebrate at home with the rest of the family. There was a point this year when I thought history was about to repeat itself as we’re once again waiting for an admission date for M, who needs further testing to try to sort out the games his body is currently playing. However, Mike’s birthday came, and went, with no sign of a phone-call from GOSH and I finally had a chance to make a long-awaited attempt at the Lemon Meringue cake I’d been dreaming of making last year.

Lemon Meringue pie is Mike’s favourite dessert and there was a time, many eons ago, when I’d actually make him one from scratch for his birthday treat. With the arrival of G and M, the general busyness of work and juggling the school-run alongside business meetings and the general day-to-day running of the household, I don’t think I’ve turned my hand to such a dish for at least a decade. Add into the mix, the newer challenges of egg-free meringues and MEWS-free pastry and it’s not been the easiest pudding to make. I attempted a cheesecake version for Fathers’ Day this year, but that didn’t quite go as planned, so I put my thinking cap on to see if I could figure out an alternative format for this popular dessert.

I settled on lemon drizzle cupcakes topped with vanilla butter-cream icing and small meringues. I’ve made Lemon drizzle cake before, but found that the rice flour made the sponge taste very granular and I was keen to see if I could improve the texture. I found a lovely recipe for vegan lemon drizzle cake and read around the options for replacing the flour to make the cake both gluten- and potato-flour-free. My final recipe included gram flour – an ingredient that’s been lurking in my cupboard for a while, but which I had yet to brave using – rice flour and tapioca flour and the end result was infinitely better than the last time, though some further tweaking to create the perfect lemon drizzle cupcake is needed.

I whipped up a small batch of my vanilla butter-cream icing and used it to secure the mini egg-free meringues to the top of each cupcake. I was delighted with how these cakes looked and M spent most of the day, and evening, before Mike got home from work, begging to try one to “just check it’s okay for Daddy!” I am assured by the family that the cupcakes were a huge success and so that’s another recipe added to my ever-increasing repertoire.

A Chocolate-Lover’s Birthday

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Recently someone posted a link to this easy cake recipe on one of the EGID support group forums I belong to on Facebook. I was soon drawn to its simplicity, not least because it was already dairy-, soya- and egg-free, but also because the comments that followed suggested it could be easily converted to a gluten-free recipe too. What was even better was that I had the perfect occasion to try the recipe out – my Mum’s birthday. As you may recall, we had planned a special afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian whilst we were on holiday, but the actual date was now approaching and we had a family lunch booked for the day itself.

I think it would be fair to say that my Mum is an avid chocolate-lover, one might almost say a chocoholic and there used to be a time when you’d be hard pressed to find her without an emergency chocolate bar stashed in her handbag, glove box or on the top shelf of the fridge. Bearing that in mind, it was something of a no-brainer to decide on a cake that would satisfy her idea of chocolate heaven. The bigger challenge was in making that creation both deliciously decadent and M-friendly.

I doubled up the quantities in the chocolate crazy cake recipe and chose to mix the ingredients in a bowl, rather than in the cake tins themselves as I wanted to make 3 individual layers to sandwich together. I replaced the flour with a blend of rice and tapioca flour and added a pinch of xanthum gum to help it on its way. The cakes that came out of the oven appeared to be beautifully moist and not too granular, although Mike’s first comment on tasting some of the trimmings was that they were a lot sweeter than my usual bakes. I swirled vanilla butter-cream icing with spoonfuls of Grandma’s strawberry jam (all the way from Canada) and used this to sandwich the layers together. Lashings of home-made chocolate butter-cream icing then covered the entire cake, before I finished it all off with a generous sprinkle of pearl drops, moo-free chocolate buttons and shavings of moo-free orange chocolate.

It looked like my idea of a chocolate-lover’s dream birthday cake and tasted good too. My Mum thought adding raspberries would have added a little sharpness to cut through the sweetness of the chocolate, but there wasn’t much left after her meal, which is always a sign of a good bake!

60 birthday wishes!

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My Uncle’s amazing cake – and delicious too

This time last year I discovered the recipe for the best chocolate cake in the world and all in the name of baking an amazing cake for my Uncle’s birthday. This year I was given the weekend off as my Aunt arranged for an old friend, who is also a fantastic cake decorator, to bake the birthday boy a special cake. However, I couldn’t let my uncle’s extra-special birthday pass without preparing some sort of treat for the whole family to enjoy together, so I instead decided to revisit an old favourite, egg-free meringues.

My original thought had been to use the meringues plus a great new product I’ve discovered to make a M-friendly Eton Mess dessert. I read about Soyatoo! Rice Whip on the fantastic Lucy’s Friendly Foods blog and had immediately ordered both the rice and coconut whipping cream to keep at home. I’m always looking for easy alternatives to use for desserts other than just cakes or biscuits and the rice whip fitted the bill. A couple of weekends ago, I had whipped it to serve with some home-made apple and blackberry crumble and both children had cleared their bowls – a sure sign of a big culinary success.

However, inspired by the prospect of the new Great British Baker series starting next week, I thought I’d give a nod to macarons instead. I didn’t venture into completely new territory by attempting to add ground almonds to the mix (that’s for another day), but did colour my meringue mixture before baking and paired them into sandwiches for serving. I made flavoured buttercream icings to sandwich my meringues together and used M and G as taste-testers for the final product. I had mixed success. The yellow and pink meringues turned out beautifully, but the orange ones were an unmitigated disaster and ended up in the bin. I made lemon and strawberry flavoured icing, filled the meringues and served the “macarons” in a dish. I would love to show you how they looked, but I forgot to take a “before” photo and this is all that’s left for the “after” one!

A single, solitary strawberry macaron left

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY UNCLE R!

Delicious date and ginger cake

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I hadn’t been planning on yet another bake, but I remembered at the last minute that the children needed cake for the following afternoon at their holiday club. Once again I needed to work with whatever was hiding in the cupboards and although G was keen for me to make my chocolate cake, I wanted to head in a new direction. We’ve only just finished the frozen chocolate cupcakes leftover from our fundraising at the end of May, so I relished the idea of something different. I’d recently bought a packet of dates and decided to investigate a date and ginger concoction instead.

I couldn’t find a good allergy-friendly recipe to use, but settled on this recipe and adapted it to make it M-friendly. These days I try to find recipes that have not only already done some of the work for me, be they gluten-free, vegan or otherwise allergy-friendly, but that also look relatively easy to bake. Fortunately, given my ever-growing experience in the kitchen, I was able to work out my substitutes fairly quickly and, once the children were in bed, started in the kitchen. My biggest challenge to date then faced me. My electronic scales had given up the ghost – I’m guessing the repeated falling out of the cupboard really hadn’t helped – and I had to revert to using my Nigella cups for measuring the ingredients instead. I’ve never baked using just cup measurements before as I usually convert them into grams and millilitres, but needs must and all, so I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it.

I needn’t have worried as the final cake was delicious, though perhaps a little overdone from 5 minutes too long in the oven. The ginger was a bit strong, though M insists that won’t hinder him eating the cake. G is less sure, but is happy to eat it in small pieces and certainly didn’t refuse the slice offered to her for holiday club.

7 years to diagnosis

Searching for an answer

Tag Archives: Baking

“Elementa(l)ry, my dear Watson”

A tri-umph of rice-themed goodies!

“Muuummm, what’s for tea tonight?”

Piece of cake

Here’s to 2015

Stir-up Sunday

A Birthday Treat – Lemon Meringue cupcakes

A Chocolate-Lover’s Birthday

60 birthday wishes!

Delicious date and ginger cake