Having a Peanut-Free Easter, Part II

In Part I, I talked about faking the Cadbury Creme Egg. My other nut-free Easter project was fake peanut butter eggs. Now, obviously my peanut-allergic kid can't eat peanut butter - so neither can the rest of the family (at least not at home). Thus, we need to fake it.

Let me introduce you to a pretty darn good PB substitute: sunbutter. It's made from sunflower seeds. I have tried several fake-PBs and this one is my favourite. It has a fairly close texture to nonhydrogenated PB. I like the roasted smell, it's a reasonable facsimile to the smell of PB - although if the smell of PB makes you ill, you might want to stay away. We like sunbutter so much we brought a jar on vacation last year for our toast at breakfast time.

But what's best about sunbutter is that you can make fake peanut butter cups. Which is good, because honestly the delightful pairing of chocolate and peanut butter is something I miss a lot.

So, I made this recipe, substituting sunbutter for the PB (note for future reference: one container of sunbutter is about 1.5 cups). I skipped the egg shape (roll out dough? Not if I can help it!) and just scooped and shaped the filling into balls. Then I dipped them in milk chocolate. 

Twice. 

I didn't want them to feel under-dipped relative to the fake creme eggs. That simply wouldn't be fair.

If you don't want to do the dip/roll steps, you can just press the filling into a 13x9 pan and pour a good layer of melted chocolate overtop, maybe with a bit of butter to make it easier to cut into squares when the chocolate hardens. The only reason I didn't do the 13x9 thing is because I was already dipping the fake creme eggs.

No matter the shape, these babies are yummy. They give me a peanut butter cup-ish taste in a nut-free package. I ended up with A LOT of these, I had to freeze some. Hmmm, suddenly I hear the freezer calling me...

I have yet to try sunbutter in cookies but I think I'll give it a go.

PS: throughout this entire post, stupid autocorrect has been changing sunbutter to sunbather. Maddening! I hope I caught them all.

PPS: no peanuts were harmed in the creation of this post.

PPSS: the sunbutter people have never heard of me. This is all me.

Having a Peanut-Free Easter, Part I

I admit it: my kid is one of those kids - a kid allergic to peanuts. There are times of the year when this matters more than others, and Easter is one of those times. Nutty chocolates and all of the "may contain" warnings can drive a kid, well, nuts!

It can be very frustrating to be a peanut-allergic child at Easter time. Imagine it: a generous person gives you a lovely gift with several chocolate items… but you can't eat any of it. Or, you go to visit the Easter Bunny at the mall, and the gigantic rabbit gives you a chocolate treat that you can't eat. That's tough on a child! (And really, mall rabbit, get a grip! Buy some frigging nut-free chocolates!!!)

We even have to have discussions about what the Easter Bunny will bring. My daughter has expressed concerns in previous years about the peanut condition of the chocolate arriving into the house for key chocolate days. I always assure her that the Easter Bunny and Santa know that she's allergic to peanuts and will not bring her anything she can't eat.

These days, there is an array of peanut-free chocolate available to fill an Easter basket. However, there are a few items that don't make the cut. Enter… pinterest and some simple substitutions.

First up, let's discuss the creme egg. Such yummy sickly-sweet goodness in such a small, chocolatey, "may contain peanuts" package. I have had a recipe for a homemade version (also this one) pinned for a while and this was my opportunity to try it. I kept the ingredients the same, but adjusted a couple of things in the construction process, because I'm lazy and hate unnecessary steps that have no bearing on final taste. 

Number one, there is absolutely no point to making the yellow "yolk" aside from aesthetics - so I skipped that part, and kept all of the filling white. Number deux, ummm, there was no way in hell that I was making egg-shaped chocolates. AS IF I'm dealing with candy moulds. I simply rolled the filling into balls and dipped them in milk chocolate (as suggested at the end of the latter recipe linked above).

Small side note: don't ask me how I know this, but an easy cheat is to take a spoonful of filling and eat it along with a small handful of milk chocolate chips. Ahem.

These were good! My one comment on the recipe is that I could taste the shortening melted with the chocolate. Maybe my shortening has been in the fridge too long. I'd use butter if possible. To ensure that this slight shortening-y flavour wouldn't ruin the taste of the "eggs", I dipped them in a second layer, this time using chocolate sans shortening. 

You know, just to be sure. 

Mmmmmm... 

They were not exactly a creme egg but definitely close. My kid was happy to be able to eat a creme egg. I would have done side-by-side comparisons but there is only so much creme egg a person can tolerate. Next year I'll do a double-blind study, I think. What I do for science! 

I had also pinned a recipe for a creme egg brownie. This sounded too yummy to pass up. Because the brownie's creme layer was the same as for the creme eggs, I ended up just doubling the creamy recipe, thereby saving myself (or more likely, The Husband) another bowl to clean. 

I didn't think these were fabulous. I'd rather have a Nanaimo bar. They weren't sweet enough for me, and I wasn't super fond of the milk chocolate brownie part. Don't get me wrong, I still ate the majority of the pan, but I'll stick to eating my creme eggs and brownies separately from now on. Some things aren't meant to be paired, at least in my mouth.

Next up: faking a Reese peanut butter cup/egg.