A Few Dairy Free Cooking Tips {A Guest Post from Adventures of Brad & Kendra}

Hi Everybody! I'm Kendra from Adventures of Brad & Kendra where I share my adventures in crafts, cooking and life in general. I am thrilled to be with all of you today. My favorite food ever is Tillamook Cheddar, I could eat this every day (actually I'm not too far off from doing that). One of the first things that I learned about my husband when we met was that he had a couple food allergies - peanuts and dairy. Now that we're married I have to change a lot of the recipes that I make (mostly baked goods and casseroles) so that he can eat them.

I don't have any peanut items in the house since those he has an anaphylactic reaction to but this doesn't affect my life too much - I simply make almond butter and jelly sandwiches instead. I do miss Reece's' Peanut Butter Cups though (Brad went away on work for a week and I seriously ate an entire bag).

Here are a few tips I've found for editing recipes for a dairy allergy (I am in no way an expert, this is just what I've discovered works for me)

1. Determine what the Dairy adds to the recipe, if it is simply for flavor it could possibly be simply omitted. 
2. Most recipes with liquid dairy can use a non-dairy substitute such as rice/soy/almond milk or water, my preference is rice milk. Heavy cream is harder to replicate but it is possible; try something like coconut milk which is naturally heavier.
3. Do not use margarine in place of butter in frosting - the consistency is completely off and tastes kinda funky.
4. Experiment to find out what works best for you - you might have a taste preference of one type of non-dairy milk over another.
5. If you don't tell people that its such-and-such free they are more likely to enjoy it.

If you have friends or family with allergies, don't be worried about cooking for them; it just takes a bit of research and care.