The hardest thing about cooking for a child with multiple-food allergies isn’t avoiding ingredients—it’s finding substitutions for them. Nowhere is this a bigger deal than in baking.
Graeme is allergic to three things used in a lot of baked products: wheat, egg whites, and corn (corn starch is in baking powder, and corn syrup is in most vanilla extract).
When my wife and I first found out that Graeme had allergies, I tried using alternatives to wheat like rye and sorghum, and alternatives to eggs like flaxseed meal. But baking is more science than simple substitution. We’ve had to toss gooey cookies, flat bread that wasn’t supposed to be flat, and a number of confections too dense to be consumed.
But now I am benefiting from the hard work of the gluten-free folks. People with gluten intolerance or celiac disease have trouble digesting gluten, the ingredient in wheat that helps give bread its structure. When folks with these conditions eat gluten, it causes their immune systems to attack their small intestines, making it difficult for them to absorb nutrients, which can lead to serious health problems.
The gluten-intolerant community has done a fantastic job lobbying for products without gluten. You can find gluten-free beer, pasta, restaurants, bakeries, and—the most helpful to me—ready-to-make baking products.
I’ve given up baking much of anything from scratch, now that I’ve discovered them. The manufacturers have figured out the science of substitution so that bread rises, cookies crisp, and brownies taste like brownies.
Just this week we baked two types of chocolate cookies (Glutenfreeda Real Cookies Chip Chip Hooray and Miss Roben’s Gluten-Free, Soy-Free Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix), one batch of brownies (Cherrybrook Kitchen Gluten Free Dreams Fudge Brownie Mix), and one loaf of bread (Bob’s Red Mill Homemade Wonderful GF Bread Mix).
In addition to the premade mixes, there are lots of blogs dedicated to gluten-free food. And even larger recipe sites are starting to cater to the gluten-averse.
Like allergen-free products, gluten-free foods tend to be pricier than their gluten–y counterparts. And just because a product is gluten-free doesn’t mean it’s free of other food allergens. One batch of gluten-free cookies, the Glutenfreeda, contained corn starch, eggs, and soy lecithin—ingredients Graeme can’t have.
But still, these products are saving me from hours of unsuccessful kitchen experimentation—and they save Graeme from being subjected to the awful results.
(PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO)
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Comments (2)
Hey Sean–since my son is nut allergic, I’ve missed adding nuts to cookies and muffins. Now my solution (for muffins at least) is adding pumpkin seeds (pepitas). I chop them up a bit and mix them into the batter. It’s added nutrition for him, and I love the taste. xo, Sarah
just about 2 to 3 weeks ago i received a e-mail from health and there was an article on a woman that was holding two cantalopes in front of her breasts and i was going to read that article but it was deleted i was wondering if it can be sent to me again @vzevtbf5@verizon.net i would appreciate it if you can thanks Janell Snell