My challenge with Abby this week – gluten-free, dairy-free caramel cheesecakes.  I have made this recipe once before, about 2 years ago, and they were a success, but used a lot of ingredients that I now cannot eat without suffering the consequences.  When Abby was going through my recipe book a few weeks ago, she spotted this one … and I agreed to make it with her, with a great deal of trepidation.  But then I remembered the objective was to spend quality time with Abby, irrespective of what the final product turned out like (like last week!).

The crust was made of almonds, almond meal and coconut milk (along with baking soda and some other things), so naturally gluten free.  Ok.

The filling suggested cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Fortunately I had found some dairy-free cream cheese for the worms in the mud (see post here) so I just stocked up on some more.  So that was ok.

The caramel topping … hmmm, all the recipes I have in my folder and have found on the internet contain some sort of butter or milk or other lactose-containing ingredients.  So I found a few ‘healthy’ caramel topping recipes and thought I’d give one a go.  This one used sugar, vanilla and coconut milk.  I was skeptical that it wouldn’t set, but remain a sauce, but thought that wouldn’t matter since we could always put it on ice cream for sundaes (sorry, the ‘we’ there would be the rest of the family, not me!).

Anyway, here’s what the finished product looked like:

I was right – the caramel didn’t set, so it was a bit messy eating them.  But the overall verdict was that they tasted great … can’t really do much more than that (apart from having the caramel set, I guess)!

And the ultimate objective of spending quality time with Abby was met.  We had lots of fun making these … can’t wait to see what she’s chosen for our next Mummy-daughter time!

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home … with kids!

Sarah