One of my fondest memories of childhood is baking cakes, muffins and biscuits with my Mum and older brother... licking the bowl, getting the mixture all over my fingers, and Mum showing us how the process is done... and of course, eating our creations!
Fast-track to my mid twenties, and I was increasingly becoming aware that milk and milk products were affecting my health. After having a test done, I was given the devastating news (well, ok... it's devastating enough for me) that I am allergic to dairy.
The first thought I had was, "that means no chocolate, no ice-cream, no cakes, no biscuits, no anything I actually LOVE!" I was pretty darn heart broken. You see, I love cooking and in my family it isn't dinner without dessert. I guess it is a twisted sense of health, but old habits die hard!
If you think about it, virtually everything you bake has dairy in it. Virtually every dessert has dairy in it.
So, in the past few years I have learnt to live with less dairy. Thankfully I can still eat small amounts of dairy, it just means that if I continuously eat it or eat a large amount in one go, then I have problems.
Throughout the past 3 years I have started to adapt recipes that I love, that would normally be filled with dairy. I have generally always received compliments on my cooking (thanks Mum, for all the skills and knowledge passed on), and I started to think about all of those people out there who have the same problem as me.
So this blog is for all of those people who love baking sweets, cakes, desserts, and all the other naughty but nice goodies out there; and who need to find a dairy free alternative! I will try to update this blog around once a week with a new alternative way of cooking these yummy goodies. If anyone out there has suggestions that I haven't tried, then I would love to hear from you!
I want to bring something to your attention though... I am not a dietician, I am not a chef or even a cook. I am actually a fashion designer, and you can read my other blog, "The World of Ms Penelope Red" here, if you like. Please take this into consideration if you decide to use my recipes, and if you have a very sensitive allergic reaction to dairy.
I do try to use ingredients that are dairy-free to the best of my knowledge and there will be from time-to-time a few recipes that will have "less dairy", which means there will be some dairy included in it. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy my recipes!
