MelissaH

This. The market for stuff to be eaten in schools is enormous. Halloween candy in the U.S. is not uniformly made in peanut-free facilities. I know people who wish it were!

I love this thread, both the knowledge imparted and the conversations spurred.

That means that the facility in which these were manufactured is free of all these. FWIW, last October, we went to Canada and I hauled home a bunch of Canadian chocolate bars for my friend. She can't have American Milky Way, KitKat, or the like in their home because they are manufactured in a facility that handles peanuts and therefore could kill her son if anything gets cross-contaminated. But the Canadian ones, at least the packages I got, were made in a peanut-free facility and therefore were safe. Her son once ate a KitKat (and suffered no ill effects, luckily) and knows how delicious they are but that he couldn't eat the ones we get. He was eternally grateful for the Canadian ones!

Nothing on the wrapper indicating that it was processed in a facility that handles peanuts or nuts, so it might be an option for my friend who has a son with a severe peanut allergy?

I haven't seen them, but they sound like they could work!

The closest we ever came was a rum cake, based on a box of yellow cake mix and a box of pudding, baked in a bundt pan and glazed with a boozy glaze after. My mom came up with a sherry variation.

I was thinking about the iron possibilities. But I have it. You need a roll of aluminum foil, a ziplock bag. Mix together the filling ingredients, seal them in the bag (might want to double-bag, or put the bag in a tight foil packet), and shove it in the coffee maker carafe. Run the coffee maker (no coffee, just the hot water) in. Let it sit till it cools. Dump. Repeat until the fruit has cooked enough. (See https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/11/the-food-lab-extra-gooey-apple-pie.html). For the topping, mix it up, flatten into a relatively thin layer on half a piece of foil, fold to cover, and seal the edges. Iron until it's done. In a bowl, combine hot fruit with cooked topping. Voilà: microwave-free fruit crisp-ish!

We were at TJ's yesterday. We're big supporters of our university's women's hockey team, and like to get them treats for their overnight road trips. One favorite is the individual packaged breakfast mix (think granola clumps with dried cranberries and white yogurt chips), sold in bags of 10 "handful" packages. But one of the team members can't eat gluten, dairy, or eggs, so for her we've always gotten a box of the brown rice treats, which are sort of like rice krispie treats but basically contain about three versions of rice and nothing else. Yesterday, I looked all over the store, trying to find the rice treats, without success. I finally asked a worker, and was told they've been discontinued! I expressed my dismay, and will be writing to TJ's HQ to let them know how disappointed I am. In the meantime, the worker steered me to a snickerdoodle cookie that's free of gluten, eggs, dairy, nuts, and pretty much all the other common allergens and some other less common allergens also. That's the best I can do, for now, although if I get inspired, I'll buy a box of GF cereal and make some treats myself. I'll have the vegan Earth Balance spread left from another use.

Jacques Pépin tells a story in his memoir about food waste, and coming home from trips to find a cleaned-out refrigerator (and not knowing exactly how it got that way). I need to get better at that: if I didn't like it the first time, it's probably more wasteful to package it and store it in the freezer than it is to get rid of it right away.

I also find that when I bake on silicone, things spread very differently than they do on parchment. I think it's a combination of the extreme slipperiness and the insulation that keeps things from setting up as quickly. @KaffeeKlatsch, any chance you could try using the silicone mat with the piping marks as a guide to draw circles on parchment, then flip the parchment over and use that for baking?

I saw the carrot cake oreos at Wegmans earlier in the week, along with a "love" version that advertises a pink "sweet and tangy" creme, and a dark chocolate version. I can't imagine how they're getting the carrot flavor into the cookie, because I can't imagine a fake carrot flavor and I bet they don't spring for real carrots. I'm also not at all sure about sweet and tangy, because that could be code for fake tutti-frutti bubblegum flavor or worse. But I caved for the dark chocolate, which are tasty but not super-special IMHO. I wish I could get the Oreo chocolate cookies with the strawberry filling from the Neapolitan Joe-Joes.

I'm wondering if edible-ink magic markers would be easier than paint, to give you the result you're after. I've never used them so I can't speak to how they work, but I've seen claims that they work well on fondant.

And that's saying a LOT!

After seeing @robirdstx's set, I bought one of my own. They're great for surprising people.

King Arthur Flour sells a "baker's special" dry milk that's been treated at high heat before being dried (or something like that) to deactivate enzymes that will otherwise degrade gluten. KAF claims that bread rises better with it than with normal dry milk. I've not done the test myself.

What's the olive-green sphere just to the left of the pork rind?

Have you tried BraveTart's version of Wonder Bread, in her cookbook? I thought it was a little sweet, but for that sort of thing, I kinda liked it. I'd make it again, but cut the sugar down to a more reasonable level.

@Anna N, Santa knows you well!

Just wondering: why?

I almost think it was a 100 W bulb. Do those still exist as incandescent bulbs?

When someone talks about cooking with light, the first thing that comes to my mind is the old Easy-Bake ovens, the kind I coveted when I was a kid and never got, where the heat came from an incandescent light bulb of a wattage that can no longer easily be bought!

Cookies look great. Did you use the prescribed colonial style fine cloth bolted pastry flour and the Euro butter, or the more plebeian grocery store versions thereof?

Agree—a tarted-up Ghirardelli mix is my go-to for when I don't feel like/have the time to chop chocolate to melt and go all in.

I hope they're good!

That thought struck me as well. We'll be back down to TJ's later this week, doing the holiday meal shopping, and I'll investigate the options. (Do they sell the flaxseed corn chips alone? I know I can get them elsewhere if I need to.)