Have you heard of Babycakes NYC? If not, you’re about to get an eyeful because I cannot contain my excitement!

This lovely young woman named Erin McKenna has food allergies. She lives in New York City; a city famous for its food offerings! She recalls (on the Martha Stewart Show) the wonderful smells coming from the bakeries in New York and how sad she was that she could not enjoy any of the baked goods. She loves sweets and yummy things…Yummy, chocolaty, moist, iced, baked foods. Well, she decided to do something. She began to research ingredients and what they do when mixed together and all that science behind the art of cooking. She developed her own recipes, tested and perfected them, and Babycakes was born! She creates cakes, breads, cookies, muffins, pies, and brownies without wheat, gluten, sugar. They are good for vegans, too. Just watch the clip from Martha Stewart to get the whole story!

I’ve attempted baking goodies for Benjamin without eggs, milk, butter, and all that stuff that makes cakes and cookies good. Let me tell you…they’re not as good as the real thing. The cake I made tasted worse than play dough. The cookies fall apart so that we end up eating a plate of crumbs. He did not even want my plate of crumbs! My first reaction when I hear someone say they have a great cake recipe without dairy or eggs is to say, “Sure. Right. Whatever. It still probably tastes a little off.” However, if Martha Stewart says it’s delicious, then I believe it’s delicious!

Benjamin has not had cake or baked cookies in a mighty long time. He always enjoys what he does get to have, and he does wonderfully not showing too much disappointment when he doesn’t get to have the same foods as everyone else, but he has confessed how much he would love to have real cake at his birthday.

I first heard about Babycakes from our Aunt Sandy. She was watching Martha one day and called to tell me all about it. I looked up all the info and we all gathered around the computer screen to watch this young woman make a yummy cake without eggs, milk, nuts, or soy.

I cannot tell you how excited Benjamin became as he watched the segment. As he began to understand what she was doing (I didn’t tell him ahead of time what he was watching), namely, making a cake he could eat, he began to jump and leap and hoot. I knew he always wanted to eat cake, but I didn’t realize it meant this much to him. He is soooo excited.

His birthday is this month and he WILL eat cake!!

In the video segment, Erin gives the recipe for her brownies and the cinnamon toasties. I’m not sure I will be able to find all of those ingredients in our local healthy-foods store, but Babycakes ships their goodies overnight. So, if I can’t find everything, we should be able to order his yum-yums.

I know several of my bloggy friends have food allergies with serious complications, so I hope this proves helpful to you, too!

One more thing: Melanie has started a blog called Daily Allergic Living, a mom’s practical experience in caring for a child with life threatening dairy allergies. She has a chocolate cake recipe you may find helpful!