If you’re unfamiliar with the company Divvies from New York State, they manufacture and package yummy goodies that are all free of peanuts, nuts, eggs and dairy. Offerings include everything from cupcakes and cookies to chocolate bars and candy. The candy and chocolate items are made in their own separate building from the bakery so are also wheat/gluten free.
We’ve partnered with Divvies on different occasions to bring Divvies products to Canada through the Nonuttin’ website although we do not carry Divvies products year round. We’ve found that the products are always delicious, safe (founders Lori and Mark Sandler’s son Benjamin has various food allergies ) and beautifully packaged.
Lori Sandler’s “The Divvies Bakery Cookbook” is no exception. It’s a visually beautiful book, looking as pretty and delicious as a Divvies bakery box full of cookies. But I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I also had my teenage daughters look over the book since we do a lot of home desserts due to our family’s food allergies and my girls are big baking fans. They certainly found recipes and pictures that inspired them to want to bake. And recipes aren’t the only treasure trove in this book; Lori provides helpful tips and personal suggestions throughout the book.
Not all recipes are “baking” but are ideas for fun treats that may help you creatively deal with parties and events where you’re either serving for many or sending that special treat with your allergic child. For example, there is a recipe for chocolate covered bananas – not rocket science but something I’d never thought about serving to kids.
Our family no longer has all of the allergies in the book so in the majority of the recipes, it would be an easy switch back to an egg, for example. However, some of these substitutions listed, including silken tofu or applesauce, would certainly improve the nutrition of many recipes so you might want to try it anyway, purely for that value. I found that some of the substitutions suggested are not available in Canada but Lori has picked well known brand names so Americans should find most items readily available at the grocery store.
Although there are many recipes that are gluten free naturally or could easily be substituted (such as gluten free oats for traditional oats), there are several recipes that would need to have a practiced gluten free flour hand to be free of gluten, dairy, egg, peanuts and nuts. So if you you are just avoiding wheat/gluten but not the other allergens, this may not be the book for you. Overall, multiple allergy fans will find this a book to cheer about! See www.divvies.com for ordering information.