“These cakes are lovely!” Thanks, I said, they’re free from gluten, dairy, egg, soya, nuts and there’s no sugar in the cakes, just in the icing. “What on earth are they made of… Magic?!” Well you could almost say that, as the magic ingredient is chickpea flour.
This blog is all about the journey to making ‘magic cakes’ and so much more as we’ve navigated my handful of allergies and my daughter’s 13 food allergies. As we start the blog she’s now down to ‘only’ 10 food allergies but this is still a daily challenge that means we make almost all of our food from scratch. Cooking together is one of our favourite Mama and daughter things.
So, what do we eat? We are vegan and gluten free and due to allergies strictly have to avoid dairy, egg, soya, fish, kiwi and the proteins of wheat, oats, rye and barley. This still leaves us with a surprising variety of foods and ingredients to use. Our main meals are mostly based around rice, gluten free pasta and potatoes with plenty of beans, lentils and chickpeas to provide protein, as well as occasional vegan sausages, burgers or meat replacements as long as they don’t contain wheat or soya. We love our vegetables which is lucky! We also bake our own gluten free bread and enjoy making our own cakes, biscuits and pastries and sharing them with friends!
What about nuts? Well, we are not allergic to nuts (hurrah!) but my nephew is and so is my daughter’s best friend so we’re really good at doing nut free versions of almost all of our recipes and will always make it clear if a recipe contains one of the top 14 allergens that have to be listed in bold on packaging in the UK and EU. Of course do still check the packaging of your ingredients as manufacturers change their recipes - we always check the packet to be safe.
In future posts we’ll be blogging our recipes and tips and tricks alongside pictures of our delicious bakes; sharing our meal ideas for dinner and lunch and more; talking about the challenges posed by allergies and hopefully help to inspire in others with allergies the confidence to make some of our recipes.
Where does chickpea flour come into all of this then? It really is the magic ingredient! So many recipes require eggs (and many bought gluten free products contain eggs) so we needed a guaranteed egg replacer that wouldn’t let us down, especially for important occasions like breakfast or birthday cakes. Chickpea flour, particularly in combination with aquafaba the water you find in a tin of chickpeas or that you create when cooking dried chickpeas, makes a fantastic egg replacer - so good in fact that we make ‘scrambled egg’ with it. Keep reading our posts and you’ll learn all about this magical ingredient. #ChickpeaFlourPower !