Tag Archives: Special Diets

Piece of cake

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!

“I like rice…

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..Rice is great if you’re hungry and want 2000 of something.”

– Mich Ehrenborg

I never realised just how daunting food could be until we embarked on our dietary journeys with our children. It might sound ridiculous, but having achieved such a resounding success from M’s move to the elemental diet, the prospect of food reintroductions caused my heart to beat a little faster, my palms to grow a little sweatier and several middle-of-the-night awakenings to contemplate just how the whole process would work. A big part of the problem was the lack of ~~useful~~ any information from the dietetics team about…well about anything I wanted to know. I like to have a clear plan to follow and needed to understand how we would choose which foods to start with, how each food should be prepared, how much to give and how often. The vagaries of sweeping statements such as serve M “a portion”, with no hard and fast details of the specifics drove me insane, but with lots of discussion, frantic e-mailing and a move back to our old and trusted dietitian rather than the one I’d had run-ins with during M’s admission, we finally got the answers we were after.

Courtesy of alternative-doctor.com

The decision was to begin with rice, commonly considered to be hypoallergenic and therefore a great starting place for M. Whilst many children reintroducing foods following the elemental diet might trial potato first, this was one of the known triggers for M’s allergic reactions and so we needed to find a basic food that was likely to be safe. Despite being told that we could comfortably start with a “portion” of rice, I chose instead to take things slow and M had just 1 tablespoon of plain, boiled rice on that first night. He enjoyed his mouthful and, looking forward to having more the next day, carried on somewhat oblivious to the anxious monitoring I was trying desperately to hide. The evening passed without event and we all went to bed happily – well, the rest of the family went to bed happily, I went battling the usual Mummy-paranoia that accompanies anything and everything that involves my children and their welfare.

Courtesy of smartwebsite.ru

Since that day, around 4 weeks ago now, we have been able to gradually increase the amounts of rice M eats each day and have branched out to include rice milk, rice cakes and gluten-free rice cereal – a veritable feast! This week I even managed a rice batter, using rice flour and sparkling water and made some deep-fried rice balls to tantalise his taste buds. M has shown an occasional atopic reaction to the rice as it triggered a rash across his shoulders and back, although the hives have now calmed down as his body has become accustomed to eating once again. Despite this rash, we have seen no reaction in his bowels and are able to count rice as a “safe” food for him. Even better, we have also been able to add chicken to the mix and this week have been trialling pineapple, though the jury is still out as to whether this may be causing a mild behavioural reaction akin to the one we’ve seen him experience before to soya. Assuming all is well with the pineapple, we have plans to trial pork, cucumber and carrot over the coming weeks and may even have time to squeeze in another carbohydrate before we head back to GOSH in April.

Christmas without food

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It’s not until you find yourself in a situation where you need to avoid food that you realise just how much of our everyday lives and how many social occasions revolve around meals or other food-based activities. Just think about it: birthdays are celebrated with a mix of party food, cake, treats for your friends and – when you’re turning 9 – party bags filled with sweets; Easter inevitably includes the requisite chocolate egg plus Easter biscuits and Simnel cake; a catch-up with old friends often starts with coffee and cake and may well move on to drinks and dinner; and Christmas is, quite simply, the time when we all over-indulge and go mad, filling our cupboards and fridge with chocolates, biscuits, mince pies and brandy butter in a manner that suggests there’s a genuine risk that we might run out at any minute.

Our plans for this Christmas itself were relatively simple. My Mum had suggested that we served a buffet over the festive period, rather than having the traditional mid-afternoon sit-down feast that we’ve all become accustomed to, which seemed a great alternative and allowed us to cater for everyone’s needs. Much to my surprise, M was keen for the rest of us to sit at the table for supper on Christmas Eve, whilst he sat in the other room watching some Christmas TV and sipped his glass of full-sugar 7-up, one of the few treats he’s allowed alongside his elemental feed. By Christmas Day, he wanted to have company in front of the TV and Boxing Day saw us eating in shifts, whilst the others played board games or watched films with M. We quickly learned to let M decide where he was happiest being at meal-times and included him in as many traditions as we could – pulling Christmas crackers, sharing the jokes, wearing paper crowns and making the time as normal as possible without focussing all our attention, and his, on the food.

Courtesy of abcnews.go.com

We thought we had covered all the bases this Christmas, or at least, all those we considered to be the biggies, but it was the little things that crept up and caught us unawares. Our Christmas stockings always include chocolate treats (dairy- and soya-free naturally), a box of tic-tacs, a handful of nuts and a satsuma pushed down to the toe, but none of those could find its way into M’s stocking this year. I had bought Moo-free chocolate advent calendars and selection boxes for both children before we knew he’d be going into hospital and whilst M had managed to have 4 advent chocolates before his admission and G enjoyed the rest whilst he was in, I had to work out how to give G the selection boxes without rocking M’s world too much. This was one of those small things that needed a lot of late night planning on Christmas Eve.

In stark contrast, Mike and I had considered beforehand the treats that usually adorn the coffee table at home and deliberately didn’t leave out the boxes of Turkish delight or the dates or the orange and lemon slices in their normal home. Instead, we stored them in a safe corner to be pulled out once both children were in bed as we didn’t want them to be a constant reminder of what M couldn’t eat and yet he objected more to us hiding these goodies away than leaving them on display. “It just isn’t Christmas, Mummy” was his feeling on the matter, without these seasonal delights out for all to share and enjoy.

~~I’m not sure~~ I know that we didn’t get everything 100% right, but given that we were very much thrown in the deep end with little advice on how to survive the day, I think we did okay. The biggest lesson learnt was to be flexible on a daily basis and not to expect one day to be like the next, both at home and at school. Some days M sits and chats with G at the dinner table, enjoying a Foxes glacier mint (another small treat allowed) and a glass of 7-up whilst she eats her meal and yet the next will find him close to tears and hidden away in another room for the duration. There is no pressure for him to constantly be a part of every meal-time and as long as he spends some quality time with the rest of the family, I’m happy to give him the time-out he sometimes so desperately needs.

Kracklecorn? What’s Kracklecorn?

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Courtesy of gruffalo.com

Kracklecorn! Why, didn’t you know?

(with apologies to Julia Donaldson and the Gruffalo)

No? Well neither did I until we travelled to London for M’s September GOSH appointment. I had left Mike to keep an eye on the children whilst I fought my way to the train’s buffet car for a much-needed injection of caffeine. As I waited for my latte to be made, I spotted an attractive looking blue and white striped bag hidden amongst the more familiar packs of crisps and bars of chocolate and, intrigued as to what it was, I asked if I could look at the packet and ran my experienced eye over the extremely short list of ingredients. I was thrilled to discover that the four ingredients (maize corn, rapeseed oil, cane sugar and sea salt) were all 100% safe for both G and M and naturally snapped up a bag of Kracklecorn for them to taste, with fingers tightly crossed that I might just have found another M-friendly snack for them to enjoy.

I think they broke records in devouring this popcorn treat and Mike and I barely managed to sneak even the tiniest of morsels to taste ourselves. I’m not a fan of salted popcorn usually, but the balance of the not-too-sweet and the not-too-salty was spot on and even I found little to fault with this snack. As the children begged for more, I had visions of having to buy out all the stock on the train and heave my haul around London, so imagine my delight – and Mike’s relief – when I discovered that it is readily available at most Tesco stores, including, thank goodness, those a stone’s throw from our front door.

For those of you yet to discover this brand, Kracklecorn is hand-made by Portlebay Popcorn in their factory, lovingly known as “The Poppery” in Devon and is available in a huge range of flavours, the like of which I’ve never seen before. Unfortunately, the “Classic” sweet and salty is the only one suitable for my pair, but I can assure you that the “Lemon Sherbet” and “Crispy Bacon and Maple Syrup” flavours are equally delicious and unequivocally moreish – a fact that Mike cannot dispute as we fought over who would finish the bag of lemon sherbet popcorn on Saturday night.

I contacted Portlebay Popcorn to ask for some samples to review and when this parcel arrived on our doorstep, G and M thought all their Christmases had come at once. I asked for their thoughts as they munched their way through yet another bag and the comments “delicious“, “amazing” and “10/10” were just about audible as they crammed more popcorn in. Despite the best efforts of 2 small children in the 7Y2D household in the run up to Christmas, we still have several packs of Portlebay Popcorn waiting to be enjoyed and the question has been what to do with them all as G has been left to devour them on her own whilst M is on his elemental diet. I found the solution today.

Today is the perfect day to be offering my very first blog competition as it is, believe it or not, National Popcorn Day, though admittedly this is celebrated mostly in the USA where they consume an unbelievable quantity of this sweet treat each year. Thanks to the generosity of Portlebay, I am offering 2 lovely readers the opportunity to win 3 bags each of the “Classic” Kracklecorn to enjoy. Simply enter via the link and I wish you all the very best of luck and happy munching!

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*Disclaimer – We were sent packs of Portlebay Popcorn for the purpose of an independent review and the views expressed are entirely my own and those of G and M.

The 3rd and final step

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M and his tube at GOSH

With steps 1 and 2 complete, we were now onto the third step, the one which is going to have the biggest impact on M’s life for the next few months. NG-tube in place, dis-impaction done and pellet study under way, it was now time to move M to an “elemental” diet, one which sees all foods removed from his diet and replaced by a nutritionally complete feed that consists of amino acids, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. The ideal would be for M to drink the 1.8 litres of this feed that he needs each day to have the right amount of calories and nutrients for his age, weight and height, but I knew we had no chance of getting him to do that. Not only is he a reluctant drinker at the best of times, meaning it would be nigh impossible to get nearly 2 litres of liquid into him on a daily basis, but the feed is truly revolting to taste and even adding generous quantities of approved flavouring was never going to be enough to convince him to let more than a minimal amount pass his lips. The only alternative was to feed him via his NG-tube, which meant an intensive few days in hospital for us as we worked out how best to give the feeds, the timings and rates that he could tolerate and I was trained on how to manage his tube.

The original plan proposed by the dietitians was that M receive six 300mls feeds a day via the gravity-feeding method, which meant that we would attach a large syringe to the end of his tube and gradually add the 300mls over the duration of the feed to ensure he took the full amount. The principle of gravity feeding is that you can adjust the speed of the feed as the flow of the liquid is driven by the height of the syringe and the effect of gravity: the higher the syringe, the faster the flow. The dietitian was keen that the feed be given over around 20 minutes, but it quickly became obvious that this just wasn’t going to be a method that would suit M. Within 5 minutes of his very first feed starting, he turned pale and grey and complained that his stomach was hurting. The nurse giving the feed adjusted how high the syringe was held, but no matter how the syringe was positioned, things didn’t get better and by feed number 2, the nurses were adamant that this just wasn’t going to work for him, something I wholeheartedly agreed with. At this point, we were only giving him 200mls instead of the full 300mls, but even that was proving too much for M’s sensitive digestion, so the dietitian finally had to agree to what the nurses were telling her and everything was changed yet again.

M’s rather snazzy new pump

Our new routine saw the feed mixed to a higher concentration, meaning that we only needed to get 1.5 litres into him a day and we were introduced to the wonders of a pump. The pump means that the rate of giving the feed can be at a speed that best suits M and can easily be tweaked as each individual situation requires. There was a lot to learn in the few days we had as I needed to know and be confident in how to check that his tube was correctly positioned, what to do if it appeared to have moved, how to prepare the elemental feeds and how to attach and properly operate the pump. There was also the added complexity that the pumps used on ward by GOSH were not the same as the one approved in our community and whilst the principle was the same, the processes were slightly different. However, by the time discharge finally happened, I was as au fait with this new part of our life as I could hope to be, felt that we could cope at home and, more crucially, had enough medical supplies to see us through the next few days.

M and his tube at home

Since that first day, now over a month ago, that original regime has been changed and tweaked more times that I care to imagine. The suggestion of 6 feeds being administered at separate 30 minutes periods throughout the day were impossible for M to manage as he wasn’t able to tolerate the 250mls over either the initial proposed 30 minutes, nor our second attempt of an hour. It also quickly proved impractical as any issues with the placement of the tube would take at least 20 minutes to resolve and that was time that we couldn’t expect the school to give him as he doesn’t get any individual support. We soon realised that M wasn’t coping either physically or emotionally with the constant feeding and we have now settled on a routine that seems to work for everyone concerned. His first feed is a 1 litre one starting at around 6.30am, which is given slowly enough to avoid too many tummy aches or occurrences of reflux and which lasts until the end of lunch-time. The pump is disconnected at that point and M is able to enjoy an afternoon free of the encumbrance of his pump whilst at school. The final 500mls feed begins between 4pm and 4.30pm and takes us all the way through to bedtime.

Courtesy of http://www.kksblog.com

This is the routine that we will be living with for the next month or so and then the task of food reintroduction will begin. As our local dietetics team has refused to be involved in M’s care, we will be working with the dietitians from GOSH to work out a detailed approach to trialling foods and the order we try them in. The elemental feeding via NG-tube will continue alongside these food challenges until we have identified enough safe foods for M to eat and get all the calories and nutrients he needs to be healthy. It’s not going to be an easy or quick task to complete, indeed there is a long and arduous road ahead, but it should be one that leads to more answers for M’s health than we’ve ever had before.

Here’s to 2015

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!

Busy days

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Now that Halloween and Bonfire night are behind us and Christmas is fast approaching, there’s finally a little time to look back and reflect on the start of the new academic year. September seems like a lifetime ago and yet was a busy month with appointments right, left and centre that have had a lasting impact on decisions about M’s long-term care. We had appointments with GOSH, a new community paediatrician, M’s OT and with CAMHS; and I needed to be the thread that linked them all to ensure that M remained at the centre of their focus and that all agencies were working together to provide the best support they could.

Courtesy of travaasa.com

The OT’s review was everything we needed it to be and she has already started going into school once a week to work with M on his handwriting skills. The clinical psychologist he meets with fortnightly through CAMHS is slowly building a relationship with him and gently pushing him to talk about how he feels about life with EGID and the frustrations he experiences. As for the new community paediatrician, who was recommended by our local hospital, well, lets just say we won’t be rushing to meet with her again. Her complete lack of understanding of his condition was glaringly evident as she suggested that regular toileting and a sticker chart were the answers to all our problems. How I refrained from saying something very rude is nothing short of a miracle!

The most important of all these, for us, was our regular appointment at GOSH with the gastro team charged with M’s care. The restricted diet and increased medications over the last 3 years have not brought about the results we’ve been aiming for and M continues to be symptomatic a lot of the time. We have become increasingly concerned about his emotional well-being as he struggles with the impact of EGID and multiple food allergies on his daily routines and I was determined to come away from that appointment with a tangible plan in place. Despite our best efforts with the challenging treatment suggested by the local consultant leading into the summer, our worst fears were realised when the registrar told us that M appeared to be impacted again and we would need another course of fairly heavy-duty laxatives to empty his bowel.

That led into a lengthy discussion about where we’re headed and what the most sensible next steps for M’s care are. Short-term plans are all well and good, but we now need a long-term care plan put in place. He agreed that we can’t keep limping from one appointment to the next and promised to discuss M’s current situation with our consultant. Medical terms such as “pellet study“, “elemental diet” and “manometry” were bandied around and I am glad that, thanks to the support from other FABED families, I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of what all these terms actually mean.

We left the hospital feeling that we were beginning to making some progress in dealing with the problems that continue to dog M’s every step and a short-term plan that would start to deal with the current impaction issue. The longer term decisions would be discussed both internally and with us before anything was settled on for definite. A follow-up appointment with the consultant herself was made and our step was just a teeny bit lighter as we felt our concerns were being heard and addressed.

Courtesy of abercrombierealestate.com

However, since that day, over 7 weeks ago, I have spoken to GOSH at least once a week and almost daily over the past 10 days. The improvements expected haven’t happened and so the decision has been made to admit M into the hospital for further testing. We need to understand whether his bowel is working as it should or not as that will give us a clue as to the direction we need to head. We have also agreed with his consultant that the diet and medicines just aren’t helping his hugely allergic colon and so have made the decision to remove all food from his diet and follow the elemental diet via NG-tube for a while. This should give his bowel and body some much-needed time to rest and recuperate, something I believe it so desperately needs.

Mission Impossible: More Secret Veg

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Courtesy of twirlit.com

SECRET MISSION (should I choose to accept it!):

To find new ways to sneak extra vegetables into the diet of my somewhat veg-averse children without them noticing
Avoid the obvious appeal of a delicious chocolate beetroot cake and instead find a savoury dish that achieves similar success

RECIPE 1: Vegetable Fritters

Method: I took one of the firm favourites in our household, Corn fritters and decided to give it the sneaky veg treatment. I whipped up a batch of my Canadian pancakes batter, threw in a generous handful of frozen corn and then grated a large carrot and a large courgette into the mix too. I added a little ground nutmeg and black pepper before cooking and serving with sausages and some sliced cucumber and apple on the side.

Result: Silence as the food was wolfed down, clean plates appeared and the requests for “just one more pancake please Mummy” came flooding in. The observant pair had noticed the addition of extra veg, but as M likes his carrots cooked and both thought the courgette was cucumber, there was no complaint about my tinkering with this popular dish.

Mission status: Success

RECIPE 2: Pasta Sauce

Method: I took an array of vegetables I knew that neither child would usually eat, blitzed them together in my handy food blender and heated the concoction through in a pan before adding to some M-friendly pasta. My very home-made and rustic pasta sauce was made from tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, courgette, mushrooms, onion, garlic and the remains of an over-ripe avocado. This time I added a sprinkle of chilli flakes and a dash of rosemary to deepen the flavour. Once the pasta was well coated in the sauce, I added some diced chicken and grated a little cheese on top before serving to my suspicious duo.

Result: G and M again munched their way through a generous serving of the pasta dish and were keen to know when I would cook it again. I poured the leftover sauce into a Tupperware container and now have it stored in my freezer for the next time this pasta dish needs an outing.

Mission status: Success

EXTRA MISSION: Pizza

Method: I bravely took a portion of my pasta sauce, added some safe BBQ sauce as well as some pesto before spreading across our home-made pizza bases. I then topped this with a variety of foods including ham, prawns, pineapple, olives and cheese.

Result: Another resounding success. The pizza disappeared within minutes and with no comment about the sneaky veg pizza sauce I’d added.

Mission status: Success

FINAL MISSION STATUS: COMPLETE

Three brand new savoury dishes, containing enough sneaky veg to keep any mother happy, were successfully created and enjoyed by G and M.

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.

7 years to diagnosis

Searching for an answer

Tag Archives: Special Diets

Piece of cake

“I like rice…

Christmas without food

Kracklecorn? What’s Kracklecorn?

The 3rd and final step

Here’s to 2015

Stir-up Sunday

Busy days

Mission Impossible: More Secret Veg

A Birthday Treat – Lemon Meringue cupcakes