Have a Happy, Safe & Dairy Free Halloween!

Dairy Free Halloween Time!

We love Halloween. We love dressing up, getting together with friends and we LOVE the candy.

We plan Halloween for weeks – the costumes, the friends we will have over, and which houses to go visit for trick or treating…

Emma can eat all types of candy and chocolate - but with Alexa it gets more tricky.

We thought this blog post could help other families with children with MILK allergies – because every kid should have fun trick or treating and get lots of candy!

Here is a blast from the past: A Photo of Alexa and Emma (the princess years) as kids (wait! - we are still kids!) on Halloween!

Enjoy!

Emma & Alexa

The Dairy Free Girls

No Candy

Chocolate – it is safer to not trick or treat for chocolate candy. Some chocolate is possible for Alexa – but the majority of “Halloween” chocolate handed out it MILK chocolate.

Tootsie Rolls – are a no go

Lollipops – Check ingredients! Not all lollipops are OK – we buy DUM DUM Lollipops

Yes Candy

These are our favorites for a Dairy Free Halloween:

 Skittles!

Starbursts!

 Dum Dum Lollipops!

 Gummy Anything! These are worms! Yucky and Yummy!

 Traditional Gummy Bears!

Candy Corn!

 Jelly Beans!

Smarties & Candy Necklaces!

Non candy items are always great: Stickers, rings, tattoos, etc…

Resource: Our Mom buys special things for Alexa at www.veganstore.com on holidays. She likes to keep a stash and pull the pieces out to help add to her trick or treat bag…

If you have additional ideas and resources to help other families – please share and leave us a comment!

Don't forget -  buy non-chocolate/dairy & peanut candy to hand out too in case kids with allergies come by!

Have a Happy Halloween!

Dairy Free Jelly Roll

This is a recipe for a Dairy Free Jelly Roll. Our grandmother makes this dessert for us -  as a Dairy Free recipe, it is a dessert Alexa can eat and we love it...

In Italian it's called: Rotolo Marmellata

It has lots of Jelly and fresh fruit as a garnish - you can change this recipe up in many ways. You can add different types of Jelly (or even pudding or chocolate if you want to make a dairy dessert) and garnish with any type of fruit you want. The main recipe is easy, the ingredients are household ingredients, and it's quick to make. The rolling is a bit tricky - but we did it!

As we continue with this blog - we are styling more and even shooting some of the photos ourselves!

Enjoy!

Emma & Alexa
The Dairy Free Girls

 Alexa styling for the Equipment Shot

 Equipment Shot - Reynolds Wrap Quick Release, Margarine, Cookie Sheet with elevated sides, A Clean Tea Towel

 Emma and Alexa styling the Ingredient Shot

 The Ingredients: Eggs, Sugar, Flour, Jelly, Baking Powder, Fresh Strawberries

 Alexa cracking eggs - she is now an expert and can do it with one hand! Check out the one handed cracks! Go Alexa go!

Expert! Use 4 eggs 

add 8 tablespoons of sugar to the 4 eggs and whisk until light yellow

 Playing around with close up action shots of falling sugar!

 We like to take turns whisking! Emma....

 And Alexa....

 Checking to see if it's lump-free

 Blog Pause: 

 Emma took over the camera - and shot this photo of Alexa

 This one too of Alexa measuring the baking soda and pouring it in the bowl
Use 2 teaspoons baking powder

 Measuring in the flour. Use 3.5 ounces of Flour

 You need some muscles for this! Mix mix till it's not lumpy!

 Emma preps the foil on the pan for baking

So carefully and precise!

 Alexa gets to grease the pan with the margarine

 4 hands are better than 2! Sister power! Spreading the batter in the pan

 Delicious! Bake for 15-20 mins at 350

 As the cake portion bakes - Take the tea towel and wet it  - Emma is very good at this

 Squeeze out the water!

 As much as you can (More muscles needed here!)

 Lay out the damp towel on a counter top

 Sprinkle sugar around the towel - it will be crystal sugar flavor on the top of the jelly roll

 Emma is using a spoon to sprinkle 

 Pat pat....

 Wash the strawberries (or whatever fresh fruit you will use as a garnish)

 Blog pause - sister love!

 Remove cake from the oven

Turn the cake over on the  damp tea towel covered in sugar sprinkles

 Begin adding Jelly - we used Apricot and Strawberry

 Keep spreading across

 Sharing the work!

 Alexa thought the 3 layers of jelly looked like the flag of Spain :)

 This is the hard part - so Mom came in to help us roll

 Grab the front of the cake and start rolling without rolling up the tea towel

 A bit messy - but Emma helped out and we did it!

 Almost done! Once fully rolled keep the towel over it till it's room temperature. Then remove and begin to garnish

 We did it! OK, now to make it look pretty! 

 Decorate with fresh fruit

Add powdered sugar!

 Beautiful colors!

 Ta dah!

 Time to cut and eat!

 This recipe took us less than 30 minutes! No butter, and plenty of fruit makes this a 

healthier cake alternative!

 Thumbs up from Emma...

Alexa was too busy eating! I guess that's a thumbs up too!