My Favorite Cook Books

Well... at least for now.  I wanted to share with you a list of my top 5 favorite cook books.  Here they are in no specific order.

Babycakes Covers the Classics  by Erin McKenna made this list by offering up some goodies like wonder buns, thin mints, and doughnuts.  It is a vegan cookbook so it is naturally free of milk, egg, fish, or shellfish ingredients, but this book goes beyond that and is also gluten free and I haven't made a recipe yet that uses soy. It is free of 6 of the top 8 allergens which is great.  Be forewarned, there is a lot of coconut products used here.  My daughter was given the ok to use coconut, but check with your doctor to see if it's safe for you.  Coconut is categorized as a tree nut according to the FDA but since it is processed in a different manner than other nuts the fear of cross contamination is not so great (still check your products though) so she was tested for coconut and passed!

The Vegan Scoop by Wheeler Del Torro is all about ice cream.  There are 150 recipe's of dairy free deliciousness.  There are plenty of allergens in this book including, peanuts, tree nuts, coconut, and lots of soy.  If you can't have soy or are against it this is not the book for you.  I think the book is worth it, because I just skip the nut recipe's and go on with it.  Ice cream is something we always had around before allergies came into the picture and it is great to have it back.

Food Allergy Mama's Baking Book by Kelly Rudnick covers all your baking basics.  There are quick breads, muffins, waffles, bagels, and breads.  Then, of course, come the cookies, cakes and pies.  My favorite is the blueberry buckle but the caramel corn is awesome too.  It is free of milk, eggs, and nuts.

The Divvies Bakery Cookbook by Lori Sandler is also milk, egg, and nut free.  She also offers bread, pie, cake, and cookie options.  In addition there is a fudge recipe, a few drinks, granola bars, snacks, and more.
Our favorites from her are mini marshmallow chocolate clusters and cookie smores.

Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz will wrap this list up.  Yes, it is vegan so there is no meat in there.  Add some if you want, but they are pretty good as is.  Lets face it when you can't have milk or eggs it really screws with breakfast.  This book gives you the opportunity to have waffles, french toast, and crepes, along with muffins, scones, biscuits, and scrambles.  My favorite is english muffins.  She also provides a section on sauces, creams, and spreads.  This book is free of milk, egg, fish, and shellfish.  It is not an allergy free book, so you will probably have to make some substitutions occasionally.  We all know it's easier to make one substitution than it is three or four, so this book has already done most of the hard work for us.

That's it for me.  Hope you get a chance to look at a few of these books.  These books are all in the $20-$30  range, so if that seems to be a bit much for you, check the library.  I live in a town of about 50,000 and our library has an excellent variety of allergy friendly (and vegan) cook books.  I just picked up Licking the Beaters 2 by Siue Moffat from my library.  There are a lot of no no's in this book, so I'm not buying it, but there are also some great ones in there like butterscotch fudge, caramel,  maple sugar candy and a few more. If you are willing to spend some time searching through vegan cook books there are a ton of great recipes to be found.  Happy hunting!