A tiny, stress-free holiday dessert fit for a tiny (gluten-free) king!
Jump to RecipeWhen I was 12 years old, my mother was diagnosed with celiac disease. It was early December, in the early ’90’s and our entire home was alarmed with just how many places wheat was hiding in many of the foods in our home. But the most alarming and immediate shift was the way my mother’s extensive holiday baking list was torn down to nothing. There wasn’t a single treat she could eat.
Being the baking-curious tween I was, I immediately demanded to be taken to the grocery store where we picked out gluten-free flours I could use to manipulate our recipes to be friendly for the entire family. It was a disaster. Soy flour is something that no one should have to eat. We were all discouraged. But I was humbled – I knew there was a way to make beautiful, delicious treats with ingredients that had virtue. I could feel it in my tiny bones.
And so, I’ve been practicing for the results of Leo’s allergy test my entire life. Making him gluten-free, egg-free and maybe even dairy-free, beautiful foods might just be my life’s purpose. And these Sticky Toffee Puddings were my first stab at the adventure of allergen-free baking for my little family.
The news of his allergies (? sensitivities?) came at what felt like an inconvenient moment. But of course, everything is always happening right on time. I was in the midst of planning our holiday menus for the celebrations I look forward to most each year….and many of my favorite things include butter, eggs, wheat, peanuts and soy. All things we eat in great moderation in our house, but all things we do still eat. Raising a child unafraid of food, excited about flavor is a goal of mine. And so far it’s going very well. My son is a curious, excited eater who loves new flavors. My worst nightmare is him crawling up into my lap at the table, requesting to “taste” or “try” something I’m eating and for my response to have to be “you can’t have that.”
And so, when we received Leo’s results, we decided to remove all of the allergens from our family meals. And that meant figuring out a way to make our holiday meals plentiful, delicious, grateful and…without.
There were a few things (of course) that felt like a big groan of course. We’re Sicilians after all; pasta, pizza, cheese. But in reality, there are just a few staples I’ll need to be wary of in my regular cooking. And, luckily for us, we’re always eating all foods in moderation – something I highly recommend to all of my clients as well.
What does “in moderation mean?” It means that just because we can, doesn’t mean we “should.” It means that there IS such a thing as too much of a good thing. When I plan our meals at home, I’m making sure that none of us are eating the same ingredients more than one time each day. If we have gluteneous bread for breakfast, we’re not having bread for lunch or pasta for dinner. The same is true with nuts, with dairy, with fruits, with vegetables. There is a world of ingredients we know and love, and we eat a wide variety of them each day.
This might seem like an extra layer of obsessiveness. But really, it’s one of the simplest things I can do to know that I’m getting what I need to thrive, and that my people are getting the same.
In the case of gluten – glutenous foods are GOOD for us! There are so many wonderful reasons to include them in our diets! Gluteneous foods provide our bodies with irreplaceable sources of fiber and prebiotics that feed a healthy and balanced microbiome. These foods support healthy motility (digestive process – making and moving bowels) and deliver nutrients and minerals no other plants on the planet can deliver so readily. Particularly when we’re talking about heirloom sourced grains.
And yet, from an Ayurvedic perspective, if our digestive states are compromised (ie: we have weak digestive fire, we’re stressed, are enduring an immune response, etc) these foods will be very challenging for us to digest. The work here is ensuring that our digestion stays as balanced as possible and that we aren’t reducing our digestive fire by eating too many hard-to-digest foods. It’s a delicate balance.
The work is also ensuring that we get deep nutrition from a wide variety of sources.
One of the easiest ways to ensure we have a healthy, thriving microbiome (which also indicates that we have a healthy, strong digestive system, nervous system and metabolic function) is to include 30 plant foods in our diet each week. This includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, and spices. This is actually quite easy to do in a single day, if we’re building our meals in an aligned way.
But if we have many eating opportunities each week that are being occupied by the exact same ingredients, specifically gluten, this becomes hard to achieve.
If you’re having toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and pasta for dinner, that’s at least 3 additional plant foods you’ve missed out on.
One of the ways I make this moderation happen is by having lots of raw ingredients in our home to use interchangeably. This means a little stash of quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, rice varieties, oats etc so that we have options that can stand in for the gluteneous grains or wheat.
The other way I make it happen is by deliberately using “alternative grains” in my baking. Because we love to eat bread, and pasta, and those frequently fill in for foods in our menus, I make baked goods and treats with alternative ingredients so we don’t eat these glutenous foods many times each day. But we can still have a treat. And these Sticky Toffee Puddings are an excellent example of that.
Are basically little upturned muffins, with a gooey, tender center and a not-too-sweet but luxe tahini-date frosting. The guests at your table or your teatime will not miss the gluten, dairy or extra sugar when they’re drizzled with sweet frosting. The recipe is truly foolproof, and doesn’t require any special equipment (EXCEPT that I recommend using an immersion blender!) My favorite sources for dates and tahini – two ingredients that I HIGHLY recommend having on hand all the time – are linked in the recipe below. You’ll use a standard muffin tin to bake them, and you’ll want to pull them from the oven on the early side so they keep their interior gooeyness!
The last thing I’ll say here is that there IS a proper way to measure coconut oil – check out the recipe notes below!
These are a strong candidate for dessert for our Christmas Day dinner and I hope they make it to your holiday meals as well! This recipe makes 4 little cakes, but if your crowd is bigger than you can simply scale with the toggles built into the recipe.
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