baking · Book Reviews · Cookbooks · cooking · Plant Based Diet

Review: The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book

Having had the luxury of reviewing many niche-specialty diets cookbooks I didn’t “need” but looked interesting, I had picked up a Kindle version of The Food Allergy Mama’s Baking Book: Great Dairy-, Egg-, and Nut-Free Treats for the Whole Family, late in 2012. It sat in my Kindle app until recently, when I noticed it and realized Kelly Rudnicki’s book was um….oh just perfect for Alistaire’s allergies. Suddenly, I was more than happy to realize I had a specialty-diet cookbook in front of me. That her book is also vegan and plant-based friendly? Bonus. And how did I ignore it for so long?

foodmama

And gee, I hadn’t noticed until recently she wrote a favorite cookbook of mine, Vegan Baking Classics: Delicious, Easy-to-Make Traditional Favorites, as well. Oops! I reviewed it back in October of last year.VBC

So um, now I had TWO cookbooks that Alistaire could eat every recipe in them? And they matched up with our family plant-based diet? Seeing Alistaire happily munching on hot biscuits was a wonderful thing. No eggs, no dairy, no nuts. Lots of tasty wheat though 😉

PS: Kelly is a speaker at the upcoming FAB Conference in Las Vegas, in November this year. If you have any intrest in food allergies and blogging, you might want to take a look.

Biscuits

Dinner Biscuits

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp granulated sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¾-1 cup non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened coconut)
  • 2 Tbsp Earth Balance Buttery stick, melted

Directions:

Preheat ove to 425°, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar  and salt with a wire whisk, Add the ‘milk’ slowly  stirring with a spatula until the dough just comes together and isn’t too sticky. Turn onto a lightly floured surface, and knead 12 to 15 times, until the dough is soft and smooth.

Pat the dough unto a circle about ½” thick. Ising a 2″ biscuit cutter, make 8 rounds, re-rolling as necessary.

Brush the surface of each biscuit with melted margarine, and bake for  15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned (mine took 15 minutes)

Enjoy while piping hot!

Note:

The recipe called for soy or rice milk. Since we do not have a coconut allergy in the house, I used So Delicious.

VPizza1

And a fab pizza? That comes together in minutes with minimal kneading, yet is light and soft? Oh yes!

Quick Pizza Dough (I doubled the recipe from the book)

Ingredients:

  • 2 pkgs or 4½ tsp active dry yeast
  • 2 cups warm water (about 110°)
  • 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°. Combine the yeast and warm water with a wire whisk, and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment  combine the sugar, salt, olive oil, and flour with the yeast mixture for about 1 minutes, or until combined (dough will be smooth in appearance). Set aside to rest for 5 minutes.

Turn dough onto a floured board, and knead about 15 times. As I doubled the original recipe, I halved the dough. Roll out to size (I used two rimmed baking sheets, plus I cut off two small pieces of dough for Walker to roll out).

Top as desired, bake for about 20 minutes, until crust is golden and “cheese” is bubbling and golden. Let cool for a few minutes and cut.

Notes:

I used a light hand with marinara sauce, topped with shredded basil leaves and halved/mostly seeded grape tomatoes. For the cheese I tried out a tube of Teese Mozzarella style “cheese”, which I broke into pieces and dropped on top, for a fresh mozzarella look. Teese is soy-free, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, peanut-free and well, pretty much everything free. And is shelf stable as well! The Teese I found tastes its best after being cooked and then chilled. The leftover cold pizza was just beyond delicious!

~Sarah

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