Birthday party food for allergic dd?

[Roseylea]

Hello all!

Just wanted to ask your opinion. My dd is going to be 5 y o soon and wants a party at home. She is allergic to various foods, the most common of which are wheat and egg.

So the question is, do I make her party table all wheat and egg free so that she can eat to her heart's content, or do I put little flags in the things she's allowed?

I don't really want to be saying to dd that she can't eat food at her own party, but equally I don't want her friends to think that the stuff she eats is weird (eg cake, potato-based pizza, rice salad etc) Her school friends all know that she can't eat certain things, so do you think that they'd accept 'different' food at a party?

There's also the tricky matter of dd falling in love with a fairy castle cake from M&S and wanting me to make one "exactly the same" ...! hah! she should be so lucky!

I'd go with everything on her birthday table that she can eat, am sure that her freinds would understand as it is her birthday.

Can she eat sugarpaste and food colourings? If so that cake doesn't look too tricky if you make the base from a cake she can eat, and decorate with appropriate 'free from' sweets.

I would always go for only food that the party girl can eat - it is her birthday after all!! When my dd was younger, I would have the party at times which did not actually coincide with a formal meal eg 2 - 4 in the afternoon and only offer snacks eg crisps or the like, which worked much better as there was no big focus on food and the kids just got on with having fun!

Good luck with the cake!!!

yeah i agree i would adapt the food to the things that she can eat,the children may surprise you and not even notice

Thanks for that!

I like the idea of not having it at a meal time and just serving light snacks rather than a full on meal. That wuold make it much easier to avoid wheat in particular.

Panda - do you really think that cake is do-able? We have a sugarcraft shop near-ish her eso I might go and check it out. My sis is quite good at those things so I might drag her along!

weeell, I lurve cake decorating, and do it quite a bit. Reckon you it wouldn't be too difficult with sugarpaste - is a bit like playing with playdough.

The cake itself is just a square - the turrets could be covered ice cream cones - can you get free from versions of those? - or even card covered in sugarpaste. The hearts on the top would be a bit more tricky, make from pastillage if you can get it, or sugarpaste several days in advange to really dry out and harden.

Mould a door and some windows - not too tricky. You could mould the roses, or just use some little dd friendly sweets - stick on with royal icing.

if you want to do the quilted effect cake board just cover it and indent with the side of a ruler. I probably wouldn't bother!

for our dd2's last party and other parties she goes too, I do give her her own food...we tried one occasion where everyone ate the same, but it was disastrous as a lot of the food is an acquired taste. I do try and keep the food as similar as possible...M&S do lovely chipolatas that are suitable for this diet, plain hula hoops are fine. For her cake, I found it really hard to do a "shaped" cake using her food (dd2 couldn't have wheat, dairy, soya or eggs), and so I made a house out of normal flour etc using sweets to decorate for everyone, but on the "grass" I made a dog's kennel using her cake mix...so she got to have some of her own birthday cake

My mum used to do wonderful egg free, wheat free, dairy free birthday spreads (including fab cakes) fo rmy sister. There were whole recipe books about it from memory and that was a good 20 years ago. If you google for recipes I'm sure you will find heaps!
Good luck!

My ds was allergic to eggs, wheat, dairy and peanut for his first birthday. I made a boiled choc cake that was all free and iced it with green icing and placed lollipops in the top. It is an easy cake, can post recipe if you like.

At 5 you could do popcorn, fruit/vege sticks, crisps, mini sausages, rice crackers.

You can adapt many recipes to be wheat/egg free. I also have some lovely banana muffins that make up nicely on wheat free flour/no egg. Can post if you wish. hth

oooh jelly cups are another good one. You can layer 2 different coloured jellies in plastic cups with a little spoon.

Its her party ...so find food that is good and everyone including her can eat. If you think the food differences will stand ... then put more concentration on the games and prizes

I'd treat it as an opportunity to educate the children ( and any accompanying parents) that you can have egg and wheat free food that is fine. Any local bakers who will make cakes or a local college with students who decorate cakes to order?

Yes I'd go with food she can eat, you don't want her to feel left out, why can't you make the pizza base with Doves gluten free flour? You can make lovely gluten free bread too.

If there is a local sugarcraft shop, could you go and talk to them? Maybe if you supplied the cake and explained any limitations on decoration they would decorate it for you? The usual problem is getting gluten free cakes to hold "fancy" shapes, but that one is just a square cake...

Go with the gluten/egg free spread. Chances are they won't even notice!

You could use the 'free from' pitta bread as pizza bases and get the kids to make them up with different toppings that everyone can enjoy. Keeps them occupied and gets them thinking about food and possibly trying new things