About two weeks ago we had our regular appointment with Harry’s allergy specialist, we managed to get him skin prick tested for two of his supposed allergens with the hopes that he would be negative and we could introduce these foods into his diet. unfortunately he came back as positive for both but I’ll be writing about that more in my next blog.

This round of testing for one reason or another has stirred up a fear a new in me and I’ve been going back to basics ever since removing all ‘May Contains’, ‘Handled in a factory that…’ and my favourite, ‘This recipe doesn’t contain nuts but we cannot guarantee there are not nuts in this product’. shockingly I hadn’t realised how lax my husband and I had become with these labels. We always said we wouldn’t go near any cereals with these notices as we felt that these were probably the most unprocessed foods, but I had decided that pop corn which said ‘Packaged in a factory that handles nuts’ was ok. None of the reasoning made sense so it all had to go. Never mind all the other may contains he is also anaphylactic to

I can honestly say there wasn’t much left in my cupboards once I started going through everything. Especially biscuits.

Harry is a biscuit fiend and the only ones I can find that are vaguely safe for him to eat are an extortionate £2.79 for 7. This is not toddler food. That my dear friends is food for the God’s or at least saved for the best of most desperate days. I needed a biscuit that could be thrown on the floor without care, one that could be passed to friends and their toddlers without fear that my 50p biscuit wasn’t just going to be dust in the carpet.

I had to over come my fear of the unknown in the kitchen. When Harry was first diagnosed I looked up all these allergen and gluten free biscuit recipes and was daunted by the talks of white wine vinegar and curdling god know what, needless to say back then I turned off my computer and headed to the shops, but not this time, now I don’t have a choice.

Before we knew about Harry’s allergies I was a keen baker so I decided to take things back to basics and see what would happen if I just replaced the flour for a gluten free one I knew agreed with him and a dairy free butter that we use daily. First try and success, deliciously buttery sugary biscuits. I whipped up a simple icing, just icing sugar and water and that was it! I Cannot believe I have been so scared to try before, after all what really was the worst thing that could have happened?

The biggest proof they are yummy, Harry wolfed them down and asked for more. He is a biscuit connoisseur after all. It’s also lovely not having that overbearing what if, from now on it’ll be 100% allergen free home baked biscuits for all.

Ingredients:

175g Gluten Free Plain Flour, I like to use Dove Farms
100g Dairy free butter, I used Pure Olive Oil
50g Caster Sugar

Recipe:

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour in thirds until the dough comes together to form a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 15minutes.
Dust a cool surface with flour, (I chill a marble tile in the freezer while the dough chills in the fridge).
Roll the dough out till as thick as a pound coin.
Use biscuit cutters to cut out your biscuits, place them on a baking tray and bake in a preheated over at 180º C till lightly golden. leave to cool for 20 minutes before putting on any icing.