Easter food fun

Happy Easter everyone!
What a lovely time of year with family, friends, fellowship, fun and food.
This is often a tricky time for those with food allergies, trying to juggle through the chocolate mess, find appropriate eats, socialising and escape the season in safety.

I have been sick for the last 2 weeks and although I love cooking and baking have been dreading the baking involved in an allergy Easter. Thankfully I found most of our special Easter bunny chocolate in store and I didn't need to bake near as much as I thought.

I thought I'd share with you what was on the Easter bunnies list this year.

Pictured above is the items that will be appearing over this holiday break.

• Large Kinder hollow eggs for Mummy and Daddy with bonus toys inside for Mr 3 and Miss 2 (Mummy and Daddy wanted something that we could safely eat around Mr 3 without causing him any risk of a reaction. Thankfully some of the Kinder range is safe for nut and egg allergies as we don't have to worry about dairy allergies)
• Woolworth's Macro label  in the health food isle also had a packet of 12 nut free chocolate eggs available so I whipped them up for a egg hunt on Sunday morning :D
• Sweet William chocolate as usual had their bunny shaped Easter chocolates individually wrapped for the munchkins to enjoy too. I also got them each a special  Sweet William rice crackle chocolate Easter bunny.
• Mummy and Daddy could resist and also purchased some small cadbury milk solid eggs kept out of sight and reach for night time when the kids are in bed (as chocolate may contain nuts).

I don't think we will get through all this chocolate and will most likely share it with other family members but it was great to be able to buy all this and know it was safe to have in the house......nothing like seeing your child with a huge chocolate grin and know they are not missing out.

We were invited to a friends house last night for dinner along with another family with dairy allergies and also on the fail safe diet.
Our lovely hosts live a life with no food allergies but are extremely kind and understanding to our needs. All three Mummy's got together and organised the menu, who was to bring what and how to do it to ensure everyone would be safe and happy to make the most out of our night.

Desert was on my list which I love. My cold started getting better a couple of days ago so I was ready and rearing to get in that kitchen and do some baking.

So what do you bake to please a bunch of people with dairy allergies, anaphylaxis to nuts and eggs, four people on a moderate to strict version of the elimination diet and non food allergy friends?
...........this!

If you didn't see my earlier recipe post "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" Chocolate cake click here to view.

This is hands down the best chocolate cake recipe for non allergy and allergy eaters.
It's dairy free, egg free, nut free and safe on the fail safe diet even with the decorations and was enjoyed by all last night.
The cake is decorated with white pascal marshmellows to make the Easter eggs on top, shaved sweet willaim chocolate, sweet willaim chocolate bunnies on the side and safe writing icing brought from the shops.
I figured it was good Friday and we were not going to go without chocolate to share just because of food allergy issues. So this was the answer and as well as tasting devine, EVERYONE got to eat their cake! :D

So what recipes are your staples come Easter time?

Fabulous fairies, tea party and cinnamon toast!

Last month the munchkins and I were in rather a crafty mood, with fairies being a topic lately due to Miss 2's new Big girl room...we were to make fairies!

I had remembered reading the post Easy kid craft- Pipe cleaner flower fairies by one of my fave Crafty mummy blogger pink and green mama.

With our fairy mood on and craft inspiration, we frolicked to the local shops to buy some pipe cleaners, fake flower arrangements and wooden beads.

Soon enough after selecting just the right colours for our fairies and a bit of cutting, threading, twisting and love our fairies were made.

Miss 2 promptly asked were their babies  were, so after a bit of experimenting mummy whipped up a boy and girl baby (fairy size of course!).
Then Mr 3 piped up and said were are the boys, so 2 boys were then created with pixie boys in mind, using leaves instead of flower petals.

Here is a picture of our materials before we got stuck in, we got some inspiration from the books Rainbow magic and Australian Bush fairies.

This activity was so simple but so rewarding, the process of making each fairy was very special.

I thought it would be lovely to enjoy a special afternoon tea party outside with our fairies, after the munchkins afternoon nap but I left that bit a surprise :)

It also coincided with a new food challenge for the munchkins so I thought the fairies/tea party would be just the thing to make this food challenge a bit of fun.

As the munchkins slept, mummy set the scene outside for a fairy tea party with a menu of cinnamon toast for the Munchkins, Mummy and Daddy (cinnamon being the challenge, a great spice to spice up biscuits and all manner of good)...the munchkins later helped to pick a nice selection of flowers for the fairies to nibble on.

You will see from the pics that follow, the munchkins certainly were very wrapped in the whole activity and our fairies remain to be much loved and often come out to play.
I very happy to say the cinnamon challenge was a success!

"ssshhhhhh the babies are asleep"

Miss 2 very happy with the addition of fairy babies

before the munchkins nap they kindly set the fairies down for a nap too :)

the fairies woke up and made themselves comfortable until the munchkins arose

The tea party

We all had a very Fairy Fabulous time!!!!