Our son is taking French this Semester and he brought home the dreaded permission slip for a Mardi Gras party. Every child was asked to bring in something from the list and a party would be held in the classroom. My first response was not something I could repeat out loud. I took a deep breath and asked my son what he wanted to do. He wanted to participate, so true to form, I sent an email to the teacher asking for some recipes for King's Cake and asking for details of how she planned to manage the day with a severe allergy child in the room. She was lovely to deal with and we had a great discussion at the end of the day. I was able to make a safe copy of all of the different foods that would be served and we sent in allergy safe baguettes we bought at a local supermarket for the rest of the class to share. We could not find safe colored sugars for the King's Cake so we made our own. The purple took a little extra experimenting and the kids had a blast helping out. We bought the little baby toys to put into the bottom of the cakes and we made a smore's crepe instead of a simple chocolate crepe. Our son had a blast and was super happy he could eat everything the whole class had during the party. We did send his treats in a separate container and placed it ahead of time in his desk so that nobody would accidentally touch it before the party.
The research for this project was a little intense but the experimenting and creation process was a whole lot of fun.
King's Cakes Allergy Safe Hack:
Gluten free vanilla cupcake mix, replace eggs with sweet potato puree.
Confectioner's sugar and water for a glaze poured over the top and sprinkle the colored sugars on top of that before it dries.
Use an apple corer to cut a hole in the bottom and slip one of the little baby toys inside. Whoever finds the cupcake with the baby toy gets crowned King or Queen for the day.
Colored Sugar Allergy Safe Hack:
Three tablespoons of granulated sugar in a sandwich sized ziploc bag.
Add several drops of safe food coloring
Massage the sugar and the food coloring together in the sealed bag until the color is picked up by the sugar.
S'mores Crepes:
Start with a soft gluten free flour tortilla folded in half
Fill it with mini marshmallows and safe chocolate chips or pieces
Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes
Enjoy Mardi Gras any day of the year!