Fun Halloween Recipes for kids with allergies!!

[lmuller]

Help! I am a kindergarten teacher who typically likes to do a number of cooking projects and special snacks in my classroom. This year I have some serious allergies that I need to work around. Peanuts and treenuts are definately out as well are wheat, corn, and dairy. Any suggestions of fun, spooky treats that we could make?

[lmuller]

Thanks for the suggestions! Family Fun has a lot of great teacher-y ideas for crafts and stuff too. I hadn't even thought about corn syrup. Is that really from the same kind of corn? I will have to check out how severe this particular child's allergy is I guess...

[jsaimd]

I don't have a lot of great ideas, but having a son with allergy and myself, just a few notes for you.

Because of the corn allergy and the high use of high fructose corn syrup in things, I would suggest you stick with non-food crafts, or making things from scratch

There is a whole line of baked good mixes that are corn, wheat and dairy free (see 123 Gluten-Free or Namaste Foods), but they are expensive.

But - I would suggest using fruit to make things, like baked apples. Fall themes. Pumpkin things. you can make spooky halloween "potions" with pumpkin or other fruit. For your dairy allergy use silken tofu/soy milk.

Warning - rice crispies have barley malt in them, which has cross-reactivity with some wheat allergy, and licorice is made with wheat flower and has corn syrup.

There are cute sucker spiders and ghost crafts too! Oh- and you can make homemade suckers too...

[chowser]

Thanks--I should have mentioned that I use enviro-kids koala crisp cereal (chocolate) and it is gluten free. I didn't even think about the corn syrup in marshmallows. And, there's also cornstarch. Does jello also have high fructose corn syrup? That would be a hard product to avoid.

[HillJ]

When my son was in grade school, we made pumpkin faces on apples using small chewy candies and icing pens found at baking supply stores. If you have a Michael's Crafts nearby they have some fun ideas in their baking aisle.

Spiders out of black licorice is easy.

Visit http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/ for visuals and more ideas.

Keeping the fun in teaching, good for you!

[chowser]

Tough one!

Rice krispie bars, using Halloween shaped cookie cutters. Or, you could shape them into balls and then cover them w/ cellophane to make them look like ghosts(using sharpies for face). Peel grapes, call them eye balls. Shred jello and call them intestines. They have a jello mold that is brain shaped, too.