Wartime Vegan Recipes

Since I’ve been forced to look for vegan baking recipes, I’ve stumbled upon a “wartime” chocolate cake recipe that is classically (but accidentally) vegan. During wartime rations, butter, milk, and eggs were hard to come by so people were forced to change the way they baked. It's also called wacky chocolate cake, depression cake, etc and it's delicious. It uses water, vegetable oil, and vinegar to give it lift. It’s moist, chocolatey, and really pretty surprising that it’s vegan.

But, in preparing for Thanksgiving, I stumbled upon a new wartime recipe (originally in Better Homes and Gardens in 1944)- Brownie Pudding Cake. It’s not vegan because it uses milk, BUT there’s no eggs or butter. And I know that the less things I have to substitute the better, so I gave it a try, simply using oat milk. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a pudding cake before, but it was a wild process to make. I made a cake batter, put it in the pan, then poured a boiling water, cocoa powder, sugar mixture on top. When I read the directions I thought it would be just like a little bit of water on top to keep it moist, but it’s 1 ½ cups of boiling water and it completely covered the cake batter. I was skeptical with how it would turn out- but just like the recipe said, when it bakes, the cake layer rises to the top leaving a pudding layer on the bottom.

A cake where you have to spoon off the pudding bottom? Where have you been all my life?

I made mine the day before our holiday get together and the pudding layer wasn’t as big as promised, but all in all, it was delicious.  An extremely easy, extremely chocolatey, extremely good vegan chocolate cake? Yes, please.

Oral Immunotherapy

We have been spending a lot of time at the allergist over the past few months in our first experience with Oral Immunotherapy (OIT). OIT is introducing a small dose of a food allergen, then slowly increasing it over time to hopefully desensitize the immune system. It’s not a “cure”; it doesn’t work for everybody; and those it does work for, they still can't go to town on a jar of peanut butter. BUT it can reduce the risk of anaphylaxis which is great.

Peanut OIT is the main one I have heard of. Every time I tell someone my kid has food allergies, inevitably, I get this response: “Oh! My friend’s kid had a peanut allergy when he was a baby! But they did this thing at the doctor’s office and now he can eat Resees!” Sounds like a miracle to me. Because of these stories, every time I went to the allergist I would ask, “So, that thing where they introduce a little bit of peanut dust…. When can we start that?” And my allergist would always say when she’s four.

Then in January, there was this new study that found the EARLIER you start OIT the BETTER OUTCOMES. How early? Ages 1-3. I pestered our allergist again- but her answer remained the same. The FDA has only approved the peanut powder in ages 4 and above. But apparently my constant questions about when we could start peanut OIT did accomplish something because we convinced her to start us on baked milk OIT. This has involved baking muffins with real dairy milk and giving her small doses (starting with 1/64 of a muffin) for two weeks and then doubling it.

Every time we double it, though, we have to go into the see allergist. And we have to stay for a few hours to see her reaction. Which means we have spent a lot of time at the allergist. And a lot of time baking and cutting up muffins. How do you cut up a muffin into 64 equal pieces? Very carefully. Then because 2 weeks of 1/64 of a muffin is only ¼ of a muffin, we cut up the next size and the next size and the next size… and froze them in separate plastic bags. Now we are up to ¼ of a muffin and we only have: ½, ¾, and 1 whole muffin left! Just 3 more visits!

48 frozen plain muffin quarters. Look how big they are! It's a recognizable fraction! C'mon baby girl, you're so close to a full muffin. We can do this!

 

Some rules about OIT that I didn’t realize before we embarked on this journey:

• They have to be completely well when you give them the allergen. Not just when you double it, but EVERY DAY when she get's her muffin crumb, she has to have zero sickness. And if she is a little sick (it's cold and flu season now, she's in daycare, she's always sick), we have to wait to start giving it to her again until she's well. So instead of taking 16 weeks, this may take our entire lives.
• Hot baths and physical activity can increase their risk of reaction so we have to keep her calm after she has her muffin. Super easy to explain to a two year old.
• Turns out plain muffins are boring to eat and now that she’s eating a sizable muffin chunk, it’s taking some convincing for her to eat it. We can’t add blueberries or chocolate chips to the muffins because that would throw off how big they are/how much baked milk is in each one. So I’ve had to make a chocolate ganache (dairy free, clearly) dipping sauce every day for dinner. This has been hard for a muffin, but it's a muffin and she likes muffins. I can imagine it's going to be a bigger issue if we do it with other foods.

I think the plan is for us to do this with baked egg muffins and maybe garlic powder and then when she is 4 peanut powder?  We are definitely going to get to know our allergist well. That’s potentially 8 visits x 4 food and hours and hours and days and days spent watching Daniel Tiger on their little computer screen. But if she can eat milk and egg and garlic and small amounts of peanut and not need epinephrine? That’ll be totally worth it.

Class Snack

Group school snack is not the place for a kid with food allergies. This week we got an email that next week was our week to provide snack for the class. This was quite the surprise because our kid can’t participate in group snack- every day we pack her a morning snack, lunch, and an afternoon snack because we decided that was the safest way. 

Before this year started I talked with her teacher about options for snack time. There were three choices-

1. We pack a completely separate snack for our kid every day
2. The whole class changes their snack menu so that it is safe for everyone (between my kid and the other kid with allergies this means: no dairy, no eggs, no garlic, and no tree nuts)
3. We provide replacements for the things my kid can’t have (dairy free cheese, yogurt alternatives, sunbutter, etc), but she still gets to still eat similar things as the rest of the class

Last year, in the twos class, they decided to completely revamp the snack menu and my kid was able to fully and safely participate with the rest of the class. It was nice- my kid felt included, we didn’t have to spend time packing extra food every day. On the other hand, I did have to let go of having complete control of what she ate and trust that everyone who was picking out food for her could read labels appropriately. That was a stressful first few weeks. But then it was great! She never felt left out! 

This year, the big kids class decided to have us pack her own snack instead. It’s a little sad that she’s left out of yet another food related activity, but she doesn’t seem to mind too much. And she knows that her special snack is over to the side and that she’s not supposed to eat the same stuff as her friends.

So, having to prepare an individual, separate snack for her daily for 3 months, I was pretty upset that we were expected to not only bring snack for the whole class, but bring snack that my kid can’t even eat for the whole class!

Guys. I know toddlers love cheese. But it does not need to be included in every meal.

You’d be hard pressed to make a snack list worse for my kid. I was so upset that I took a convenience sample poll of everyone I talked to in 24 hours of what they would do in our situation. 95% of respondents completely agreed with my completely unbiased proposal- we should definitely not be responsible for group snack if our kid doesn’t participate. 1 respondent said he would provide snack but only safe stuff- which okay, yeah, that would be taking the high road. Rarely, when my kids are involved, do I feel like taking the high road.

It turns out the email was a mistake from a teacher recently back from maternity leave who didn't realize we were left off the snack list. Which, okay, mistakes happen. But she should know that my kid has her own snacks... and that she has food allergies... right? Like, every adult who works with my child should know this, yes? But overlooking that slightly terrifying concern, it turns out my fury was slightly premature.

In case you are in charge of snacks for toddlers and are looking for SAFE SNACKS that are free of the Top 9 allergens- I got you covered. If I was a nicer person and decided to give food to all the kids despite my kid being left out all year, here’s what I would have provided (milk, egg, garlic, tree nut, peanut free):

• Mild garlic free salsa and soft tortillas
• Avocado

• Pineapple
• Plain crackers

• Multicolored peppers
• Cucumber
• Vegan cream cheese

• Granola (checking the ingredients to make sure it’s tree nut free!)
• Vegan yogurt
• Berries

• Pickles (yuck… I guess?)
• Round crackers
• Sun butter

Food allergies can be so restrictive! But we’ve been living with them for 2 years now- I know great, safe options! You just have to ask.

The Switch Witch

I’ve been hearing rumblings of a “Switch Witch” around allergy friendly Halloween sites lately and I thought it was just the parent takes away unsafe candy and leaves behind safe treats instead. Our toddler was old enough this year to understand there is candy she can’t have, but not old enough to know which ones are safe by herself. So, she started out the night picking up each type of candy in the candy bowl and saying, “Can I have this one? Can I have this one?” To our neighbors who know of her allergies, this was made perfect sense and they were very patient as she looked through the candy bowl. To our neighbors who don’t know about her allergies, they just thought she was being super polite. “Aww, yeah! Just pick out the kind you want!”

What really led to some confusion was the fact that a fair number of houses didn’t have anything safe. So as she picked up peanut laden, milk covered treat and kept asking if she could have any, we eventually just gave up and told her to get the shiniest and we would deal with it later. That night, we did our version of the Switch Witch and turned all of her chocolate candies into Sour Patch Zombies (and enjoyed the chocolate as the kids' slept. As any Switch Witch should.)

Left: kid without food allergies, jam packed with anaphylaxis goodness

Right: kid with food allergies.... 95% sour patch gummies. A bag of pretzels. And some suckers.

Turns out the original Switch Witch (originally a book and doll) is a bit more nuanced- it’s a way for your kid to trade in some of their candy and get a prize (coloring book, stickers, toys… etc). Apparently, you let your kid indulge in their candy Halloween night, then they separate out their candy to a pile that they keep and a pile that they want to give away. It's supposed to encourage being more intuitive about eating, learning what candy they actually like, and generally being a little bit more healthy. The more candy they give up, the better their prize is supposed to be (though how the Switch Witch manages this, not being able to see in to the future was not an answer I found online).

I think the big difference for our family is our toddler with food allergies will be forced to give up a certain amount of candy, while the older one can learn the finer points of intuitive eating. But, it'll be nice for the Switch Witch to visit both kids, especially as they get older. 

Next year! The real Switch Witch is coming! "I'll get you my pretty, and your little candies, too!"