3 Tips for a Food Allergy-Friendly Birthday Party

We've had a month of food-allergy friendly birthday celebrations for our Little Guy who just turned 5. It's amazing how one birthday can turn into three celebrations! A family party, treats for friends at school on his actual birthday, and a kid birthday party (mainly his school class!). 

Now that's a lot of cooking for this food allergy Mom. 

Even though I've only been in the world of food allergies for 5 years now (I know some Moms who have been at it much longer!), I feel like I could share some food allergy friendly birthday party suggestions.

1. Schedule the party at a non-meal time

We scheduled Little Guy's recent party at 3pm. One hour of play time and then time to sit down for for snacks and cake at 4pm. I even went so far to mention on the school party invitation that "cupcakes and snacks" will be served, just to let everyone know!

The kids enjoyed the play/sports time so much, that the rest of the birthday party time was just "icing on the cake" (allergy-free cake of course).

2. Keep the food simple

If you deal with multiple food allergies (we deal with nuts, milk, egg and sesame), you're going to be doing all the cooking. There's nowhere I can order safe pre-made food for a big birthday party event like this. I would love to order a cake and pizza and call it a day, but that's not possible.

Since I do all the cooking, I need to keep it simple. For Little Guy's recent party with classmates we served:

Healthy and food allergy friendly snacks! I cut up a huge watermelon and some honeydew melon and cantaloupe for fruit, cowboy caviar (bean dip) with tortilla chips (thanks to MY mom for making it!), and sesame free hummus. We also had Wheat Things, Rold Gold pretzels and Twizzlers for other snacks.





Dairy free and egg free cupcakes. Although I've made cakes in the past, I try to make cupcakes more often as I find them less stressful and easier to decorate. Little guy and the kids loved these Spiderman Cupcake Rings also used as cupcake toppers that we found on Amazon.

I think everyone had their fill of good food, and loved the sweet cupcake treats at the end of the party. Thankfully, everything was a hit with the kiddos and parents!

3. Ask for help

For our Easter/birthday party with family, I said "YES" to my mother and mother-in-law bringing food because I trust they understand how to make it safe for Little Guy. 

If you don't have help you can trust, or just like to control all the food (hey - I get it! It's nerve wracking to have others cook for your child with food allergies), then ask for help with other things like drinks, plates, napkins, or even cleaning before or after the event!

How about get someone else to stuff the party goody bags? Kids love to do stuff like this (thanks to my Hubs for helping with these!).

Gift bags included: superhero themed picture frame, sports ball and fruit snacks!

Whatever you do, don't try to be a Supermom. Accept help in any way you can.

What are your tips for hosting food allergy friendly birthdays? How have you handled them so far?

Other food allergy birthday posts which might interest you:

Gluten free birthday cake

Healthy first birthday cake

Music themed allergy-friendly second birthday party

Fireman third birthday party

  

Easy Birthday Cake Decoration: Sprinkle Numbers (No Cookie Cutter Needed)

If you make your own birthday cakes like I do, you're probably always looking for fun ways to decorate your cakes. It would be much easier to just buy a birthday cake from our local bakery or store. But as you know, Little Guy has food allergies to dairy, eggs, nuts and sesame, so we do our own baking.

So, what's a mama to do when she needs a fun and festive birthday cake topper for her Little Gal's second birthday?

Add on a sprinkle number topper in less than 5 minutes flat! 



I love this decoration because it's a little different than the usual #2 birthday candle. You only need a few supplies that you probably already have in your kitchen:

• Sprinkles (I used Cake Mate Rainbow Sprinkles (affiliate) since they contain soy only. However, please check labels for your own needs every time). 
• Scissors
• Wax paper
• Pencil

Here's how I did it. 

First tear off a piece of wax paper that will cover the whole top of your cake. This will protect the cake from rogue sprinkles falling on it.

Draw your number on the wax paper with a pencil and place the wax paper on a cutting board. 

Use one side of a sharp pair of scissors and cut out the number

Place the wax paper carefully on your cake.  Again, make sure it covers the whole thing so it's safe from falling sprinkles.

Carefully place and press sprinkles onto the icing. Fill up all those icing spots!

Remove the wax paper and you have your sprinkle cake topper!

Have you ever tried this fun decoration? What's your favorite easy way to decorate cakes other than candles?

Want more fun birthday ideas? Check out these posts:

Birthday cake recipe: Gluten free, dairy free, egg free and nut free

Healthy First Birthday Cake

Fun and Festive 3rd Birthday Party

Top 10 Favorite Posts of 2013

I think it all started when I was putting away Little Gal's summer clothes.

I packed away all of her summer clothes last week (YES, I only did it last week. Big procrastinator on that one.) and I started to feel SO nostalgic and sentimental. I'm sure many mamas feel this way when putting away last season's clothing for their kids. Most of the time the kids are too big the next year to ever wear those clothes again.

Tear.

So, I thought I'd take control of my nostalgic feelings and think about what a great year we've had. It's especially fun to review the year when you put parts of your life on a blog! So, I chose my top 10 favorite Mamacado posts of 2013. It's been a busy year, but really a year of growing, living and loving for our whole family. And of course a year of food, family and fun.

I chose these 10 posts based on blog traffic, helpfulness (hopefully for others), and likeability (the posts readers liked the most!). So, in case you missed them, here are my top 10 favorite Mamacado posts of 2013.

10. Gluten-free Strawberry Vanilla Cake: You might feel a sugar rush after reading this cake-heavy top 10 list. Hey - cakes are tasty and usually eaten at fun events. Why not!?

9. Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal Bites: Yummy, healthy, low-sugar, and great any time of year for breakfast or a snack.

8. Chocolate Coconut Oat Bars: Droolworthy. Enough said.

7. Easy Homemade Applesauce: Because everyone should make this since it's so easy. Also because I love the photos of my little ones apple picking in autumn!

6. Healthy 1st Birthday Cake: Big cake, cupcakes and smash cake included!

5. No Bake Granola Bars: Dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free and gluten-free. Plus, I love no bake anything!

4. Avoiding Dairy? What I'm Eating Now: It wasn't too long ago that I was avoiding dairy while breastfeeding since I wasn't sure whether or not Little Gal had an allergy to cow's milk. I know many mamas go through this, so I thought this might be helpful.

3. Creamiest Dairy-free Mac and Cheese ever: Just bought the ingredients for this recipe re-do.

2. Fireman Birthday Party: Because it was just so much fun.

1. Birthday Cake Recipe: Gluten free, dairy free, egg free and nut free: I had a hard time choosing the #1 post, so I just went with Mamacado's most popular post! Birthdays are a hot topic for most parents, and especially for parents of children with food allergies. I've noticed that more and more people need birthday cakes "free" of something. This is one easy way to make a yummy birthday cake and cupcakes that are food allergy friendly!

Healthy First Birthday Cake: Dairy-free, Egg-free and Gluten-free

A few weeks ago I wrote about Little Gals' perfect first birthday party. But I didn't write much about the yummiest part - the cake and cupcakes! Although we haven't seen signs of food allergies in Little Gal (saying prayers that we don't!), I still needed to make the cake and cupcakes gluten, egg, dairy, nut and sesame free since Little Guy has food allergies. That means no bakery made cakes!

I not only wanted to make safe cakes and cupcakes for Little Guy, but I also wanted to make a healthy first birthday cake for Little Gal. I decided to use the oat muffin recipe from Sophie-Safe Cooking to make Little Gal's healthy birthday cake. I like that the recipe focuses on oats and contains less sugar than other birthday cake recipes I've found. This recipe makes 12 small muffins, so it also fit perfectly into a 6 inch cake pan - a perfect first birthday cake size!

Little Gal's First Birthday Cake. Main ingredient: Oats!

I also used Cybele Pascal's recipe for allergy-friendly vanilla frosting and it turned out GREAT. It's thick enough to make pretty decorations and it tastes just like traditional frosting. *Sadly, Cybele's blog is no longer available! Here is another allergy friendly buttercream icing from Kids with Food Allergies that looks similar and just as easy and tasty!

Here are some other tips of how I made Little Gal's first birthday cakes and cupcakes:

1. Make a small special cake just for baby. Why? Because it's fun! Buy a 6 inch cake pan for the baby cake. I think it's fun to put a small cake in front of them rather than a cupcake or REALLY big cake. So, you have one cake (and/or cupcakes) to serve the guests and one for baby to get messy!

I used a 6 inch cake pan for baby's first birthday cake.

2. Buy a pastry bag and cake decoration kit. You can buy this at the grocery store or online. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it works much better than a Ziplock bag!

I wasn't about to decorate all this with a ziplock bag. Pastry bag to the rescue!

3. Keep it simple with the icing decorations. This is especially true if you are a novice cake baker and decorator like me! I made simple designs with my pastry bag like dots and swirls.

Keep the icing decorations simple!

4. Use fresh flowers for colorful decoration. This is especially great if you want to avoid artificial food coloring and dyes, but I still wanted a pretty cake with a little color!

5. Be creative with your "1" decoration. I used Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips which are dairy-free to decorate the cake for the guests. We put a "1" candle on Little Gal's cake. I've also seen cool "1" designs with sprinkles, fruit or other safe candy.

I planned on making one big chocolate cake using Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix and one oat cake for Little Gal. I was worried I didn't have enough (boy was I wrong!) so I made one more batch of cupcakes using Betty Crocker Gluten Free Yellow Cake Mix.  I made the cake in the same way as I did for my strawberry twist cake, and Little Guy's Fireman third birthday party cake.

Here are all the allergy-friendly cupcakes and cakes that are dairy-free, egg-free and gluten-free!

I was happy that someone asked me for my recipe for the chocolate cake. I had to tell her it was directly from Betty Crocker's kitchen! 

Here are some examples of the supplies I used to create the first birthday cakes and cupcakes. Hope they're useful to you!

This is NOT a sponsored post, and I was not paid to include these products. This is what I actually used for our first birthday party celebration! This post does include affiliate Amazon links. That means I may get a few cents if you buy something on Amazon from these links. Thanks for your support!