Vegan Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a kid, I used to love caramel, especially during Christmas time; they were our special treat from Santa! Every year on Christmas Eve, my parents would have all seven of us take our baths, jump into our pajamas, hop into bed and read books together as we waited for the jingle of Santa’s bell. That special jingle meant that Santa had come to our house! We would all rush downstairs and quickly open our presents. After everyone had opened their presents, it was time for us to see what Santa left us in our stockings. As I reached for my stocking, I would quickly toss aside the apples, oranges, and walnuts. Lo and behold, I would then zero in on the Hershey’s kisses and, my favorite, the caramel. If I was lucky, I could quickly eat some before my Mom would see me. If not, I would have to wait until tomorrow to eat them because it was off to bed. The anticipation would sometimes keep me up at night, dreaming of the mouth-watering caramel in my mouth.

Over the years, my love for caramel has diminished to be replaced for an intense need for dark chocolate instead. This long ago longing recently returned after I tried a salted caramel chocolate chip cookie for the first time. Sea salt, caramel and chocolate chips all in one cookie. Genius! Caramel is traditionally made with milk or cream and butter so that made it off-limits for our teen due to her dairy allergies. There are recipes out there on how to make your own caramels but most of them include nuts. Cara Reed from Fork and Beans has a great recipe that is nut free if you want to learn how to make them yourself!

I decided to buy some from JJ’s Sweets Cocomels Sea Salt Caramels to see if these would work for a quicker fix. Their caramels are made with Coconut Milk and are dairy-free and gluten-free. They have four varieties available and you can order a sample pack to try them all. Please note: they are manufactured in a facility that shares space with other companies who produce nut products. JJ Sweet’s uses their own equipment in their processing. Since my teen does not have trouble with the Cocomel Caramels, we used them in the recipe below.

Vegan Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

½ C vegan butter

¾ C brown sugar

½ C granulated sugar

2  Egg replacer eggs (3 tsp. egg replacer + 2 T warm water)

1  T non-dairy milk

1  tsp. vanilla extract

2  C All purpose flour

1  tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. sea salt

1  C non-dairy chocolate chips

9  pieces of Sea Salt Cocomel Caramels, each cut in half

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375° F. Line your baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. Mix the egg replacer and warm water and let stand for 5 minutes.

In a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together until well-blended. Add the egg replacer mixture, vanilla and non-dairy milk and mix until blended. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt ingredients. Add half of your dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, mix well and repeat with the other half. Dough should roll together in a ball. If too flaky, add a bit more non-dairy milk. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Roll 1 tablespoon of cookie dough into a ball. Cut the Cocomel caramels in half and place one half in each rolled cookie dough ball. Smooth some dough over the caramel to close up cookie. Repeat for the remainder of the dough.

Place on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool down on the baking sheet for 1-2 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. These are best served warm but can be eaten at any time.

It’s A New Look

For those of you who have been following my blog, you may have noticed some changes over the past week. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to update the look of My Allergic Teen to make it brighter, easier to read, in addition to providing a new layout to display my recipes better.

My focus will still be on the difficulties my teen and other teens—with severe food allergies—face on a daily basis. I will continue to come up with more allergy-friendly recipes for you to try. My allergic daughter is an avid baker and we really enjoy creating our own creations as well as tweaking other recipes that are dairy, egg and nut free. My hope is that my teen will want to post some of her own experiences but at this point she is happy to just help out with the testing and baking.

Since I am determined to make most of the design changes myself, please be patient with me as our blog becomes a work in progress. This means that you will be seeing the changes as they occur; one change at a time. Lucky you! Look for more nutritional information to be added as I am starting my journey as a Certified Nutritionist. Wish me luck!

Feel free to let me know what you think of our changes and if you have any suggestions. 

Our Gingerbread Houses of 2014

We finally got a chance to make our annual Gingerbread Houses on Christmas Eve! We use graham crackers instead of gingerbread to make it easier but use our own vegan frosting to decorate them. This year the frosting turned out the best ever! We had a very limited supply of graham crackers so our houses were a bit smaller than previous years. See if you can spot my son's version of a gingerbread outhouse. 

Dairy Free/Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

½ C     Dairy Free Margarine

¾ C     Dairy free Cream Cheese

1/8      Tsp. Salt                                        

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

2 ½ C Confectioner’s Sugar

In a bowl, cream margarine. Add cream cheese and cream well. Add salt and vanilla and mix together. Slowly add confectioner’s sugar and mix on low. Once sugar is mixed in, increase speed and mix 3-4 minutes on medium, until light and fluffy. Chill or use immediately. Makes 2 cups.

A belated Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Being Thankful

Like most people, I am taking time today to think about what I am thankful for this year. As always, I am thankful for my family, friends and our good health. This year I am also thankful for our Michigan Retreat that my parents bought when I was 16 years old. When they bought this house I had no way of knowing we would still be enjoying it many years later. This retreat has been a place where our family, including cousins, aunts and uncles, gather to celebrate the holidays or sometimes just for a weekend of competitive game playing.

What I love best about our retreat is that it is ever changing. In the summer, we spend most of our day on the beach soaking up the sun or going for a ride in the kayaks and then off to ice cream after a late night dinner. Right now, we are here relaxing as we spend some quiet time celebrating Thanksgiving. I am always amazed at how beautiful it is this time of year, no matter what mother nature throws our way.

This is the view of the lake from our window the first day. It poured rain all day and the wind was so strong that you could hear the constant roar throughout the inside of the house.

 The next day was cloudy but warm enough for a walk on the beach. I love the different shades of November with the sky sometimes a light grey and sometimes a light blue.

Our breakers took a beating this year. They will probably be very little left come this spring.

A few brave boats this time of the year. Mostly fishermen and tug boats.

Thanksgiving Day dawned with snow on the ground and a full day of flurries.

The same beach I walked on yesterday is no longer accessible. Large waves and strong winds keeping us away.

We had time between cooking to enjoy the snow. This is how we like to enjoy our Thanksgiving! Wishing you the best this Thanksgiving!

Chocolate Pumpkin Bread Pudding (Allergy friendly)

I used to be the kind of person who would ask for the dessert menu first so that I could see if I needed to save room for dessert after my meal.  Those years have sadly passed as I have gotten older and cannot eat as much as I used to. Those were the days!

A couple weeks ago, while we were in Michigan, my husband and I got a recommendation to a restaurant in Muskegan, Michigan. This restaurant was fairly new but was amassing a favorable reputation in the restaurant community. As we walked in, I noticed a large blackboard listing the specials of the night. One of those items listed, the maple glazed bread pudding caught my eye and I knew that I would need to save room for dessert on this night. Bread pudding holds a special place in my heart because it is a dessert my Dad and I would make for our late night snack as we watched our nightly Twilight Zone episode. I was not disappointed; it was heaven on a plate. It was so good that before I knew it, I had barely saved any for my husband.

Since it is Fall and pumpkins are everywhere you look, I decided to make a bread pudding with pumpkin in it and added some chocolate for an extra bit of sweetness.  Like all my other recipes, My Allergy Friendly Chocolate Pumpkin Bread Pudding recipe is made without any dairy, eggs or nuts.

Allergy Friendly Chocolate Pumpkin Bread Pudding

6 cups bread cubes (I used day old French bread)

1 cup  rice milk

1 cup organic pumpkin puree

1/2 cup brown sugar plus ¼ cup for later

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. salt                         

1/2 cup dairy free chocolate chips (raisins as an alternative)

2 tsp. maple syrup

Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 8x8 baking pan.

In a medium mixing bowl combine rice milk, pumpkin puree, ½ cup brown sugar, vanilla, salt, and other spices until mixed well. In a large bowl, toss the bread cubes with the pumpkin mixture until the bread is well-coated. Add the chocolate chips. Let sit for 5-10 minutes so the bread can soak up the mixture.

Place in your prepared baking dish and lightly press it down with the back of a spoon. Combine the remaining ¼ brown sugar and the maple sugar and spread on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until top is lightly browned then let the pudding sit for a few minutes before cutting it up. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. It serves 6-8 and is best served warm.

A Retreat Update

In my last post, I talked about the difficulties of my teen going on a two day trip with her friends to a retreat two hours away. While this may seem like it is not a big deal, it was a big step for my daughter who is allergic to so many different foods.

I am happy to say that it went very well. She had a great time with her friends, met some new ones and didn't have any trouble with her food allergies. The food I packed for her remained untouched but it seemed she survived on fruit and a delicious dinner they made especially for her. The most important thing is she felt just like a normal teenager who is now a bit more confident with her allergies than she was two days before. That is priceless!

Retreat

My daughter just took a big step towards independence with her severe allergies. She has decided to go on a two-day church retreat with her friends. This is a very big step for her because she has never been on a retreat or to a camp in her 14 years. She is going to be off on her own for the weekend—in charge and in control of her own allergy problems.

At first, it was just easy to sign up for day camps and not worry about her going away and how we are going to make sure she is safe with all her allergies. This was fine when she was young but as she has gotten older, she has sat back and watched as all her friends have gone off to one camp or another. She has been patient when they talked about the fun activities they did or the cool new friends they have met.

A couple years ago I started talking to her about finding a camp for her to go to. How about going to a special camp for kids with allergies? No! What about going with a good friend to this camp? No! How about we find a camp where I can work while you are there? Absolutely Not! I don’t blame her I wouldn't want my Mom there either! Still, it seemed quite daunting for both of us!

I think part of the reason she didn't want to go was that she was nervous about what she could or could not eat. Can you imagine watching your friends laughing and telling animated stories at the camp table as they are gobble down their food not even caring about what they are eating? Instead, she is wondered if that same food, someone else had made, would give her a reaction. Or more likely, what on the menu besides fruit, could she even eat?

Our daughter’s list of severe allergies is so extensive, (dairy, eggs, peanuts, all nuts and sesame) that we couldn't even imagine what she would be able to eat even if she was to go. As far as I remember, the “Camp” fare usually comprised of eggs, french toast or muffins for breakfast, and pizza, mac-n-cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch or dinner.

So when her friend asked her to go on a Church retreat and she said yes, I was very excited but also a bit concerned. This was a big step for her and for me. I tried to keep the enthusiasm in my voice as I told her that I thought it was a good idea but I would have to look into the food accommodations. That’s when her face fell. For the first time, she had felt like a normal teenager and hadn't even thought about her allergies getting in the way.

I talked to the Church organization and they were very excited to have her come. We talked about the food they would be serving during those two days. As I thought, there wasn't much she would be able to eat but I didn't want that to stop her from going, so we talked about allowing her to bring her own food. I was very pleased when they seemed receptive to the idea, but was disappointed when my daughter who had been full of jubilance about the trip, told me she didn't want to go anymore.

After a few days, we talked about it again. The reality is that she needs to start taking bigger steps towards allergy independence; after all, she will be going away to college in four short years. Another objection she brought to my attention was that people would know she was different and she would be embarrassed, all because of her allergies. At this stage in her life this was very important to her. According to FARE, 1 in 13 children are diagnosed with a food allergy, so there are a lot of kids out there who may also be struggling with the same issues. We found out that two other kids will be bringing their own food for the trip. That seemed to boost her confidence enough that she once again decided the trip would be a lot of fun.

We also talked about how it isn't bad to be different and that as you get older, you realize that having food allergies doesn't make you unusual, it makes you unique. So my advice to her was to embrace what makes her special and to let others know she is okay with being different.

It’s retreat time!