Happy Birthday Beth!

So, as promised, a blog on how to do an FPIES birthday cake that everyone will like.


We planned a sesame street themed birthday party for beth. I believe there were 15 adults and 7 kids there! Don't worry, it wasn't in my house. I rented our clubhouse for that. We had a kids snack table with cucumber, cantelope, strawberries and cheese, beth's favourite snacks, and we ordered pizza for everyone except beth.


I'm not horribly anal about unsafe food in the area if I'm there and everyone in the room is aware of her issues. I just reminded the adults not to leave plates laying around. Beth isn't too curious about that stuff though. I tell her it's not for her and she says "Make Beth sick". So smart!


The cake, however, had to be all Beth friendly. Did you know that icing sugar has cornstarch in it? Corn is an evil food, it is in everything and Beth cannot eat it. Baking powder also has cornstarch. So does store bough icing or scribblers, light sour cream and many yogurts (her cake recipe called for sour cream)


So I found icing sugar and baking powder at Healthway Market in Abbotsford which uses tapioca starch instead of corn, thank you Jesus.


I used a natural, plain yogurt from Save on foods. The flour was entirely Quinoa flour and I had to use real butter because margarine has soy in it, and sometimes corn. Lame.


Here is the recipe courtesy of Bob's Red Mill (one day I will meet this Bob and kiss him).

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups organic quinoa flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the butter in a small heat resistant bowl. Pour boiling water over the butter and stir until completely melted. Whisk in the cocoa powder. In a large bowl, sift together the sugar, quinoa flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the cooled cocoa mixture, egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream and blend well. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold into batter.

Spoon into a muffin tin lined with paper cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Makes 12 gorgeous cupcakes.

I did not make cupcakes, I just did a double batch and poured it into two round cake pans. I used butter cream frosting and royal icing to decorate it. I've never decorated a birthday cake like this before. It definitely wasn't anything professional but the focus wasn't on appearance, it was on making something edible that Beth would not throw up two hours later.

The funny thing is, she had one bite and then wanted to go play. She does not know junk food. She only ever has cake on her birthday and she's only had two of those so it's not that exciting for her. She loved to look at the cake though and blow out the candles and I had the peace of mind knowing that everyone was eating Beth friendly food. And everyone else really liked the cake so that was satisfying. I couldn't have it because of the dairy in it, you can't win 'em all.

The big appointment/disappointment

So we had our visit to Children's Hospital to see the 6th doctor for Beth. He was a pediatric gastroenterologist. I had to demand a referral to him at a walk in clinic just to get this appointment so I was very excited. I have been asking for a referral to an allergist since she was 4 months old but the doctors just kept saying "they don't allergy test on babies" which is complete crap because I know babies who have been allergy tested.

Advice: If you think your kid has an allergy issue, you tell them what they need to do, do NOT let them give you some BS response like "oh he's fine, he's just sensitive, he'll outgrow it". You are not an idiot, you know your kid better than they do.

Anyways, I told the doctor about FPIES and big surprise, he'd never heard of it. But I came prepared with an article and he was surprised that it was from a reputable source. Not sure if I should have been offended by that. But basically he said it sounded like a fancy name for a protein allergy. He explained what that meant, that her gut was too permeable and certain proteins would pass through the lining and her body would have a reaction. This is the exact description of FPIES so he wasn't giving me any information I didn't already have.

He then said "well what do you want me to do?". I told him I needed to know what our next step was, that we didn't want to start trying her trigger foods unless we had good reason to believe she had outgrown her intolerances. He said her gut should be corrected by age 2 and we should try again and if there was a reaction, see an allergist.

This was where I nearly lost it. How am I supposed to see an allergist when nobody will refer me!!! He then changed his story and said he would refer us and we should wait to see the allergist before trying any new foods.

Anyways, we got a referral to the allergy centre at Children's. Guess what? 10 month waiting list! So for the time being we will continue with our daily grain free, nut free, soy free diet for Beth and later in the year, probably between 2.5 and 3 years, we will either muster the courage to test her on something like wheat, OR we will wait for the allergy appointment, which may or may not be helpful. Either way, I think we are going to just have to take care of business ourselves, which we have been prepared to do since seeing the first doctor when she was 4 months.

In other news, Beth now loves raisins, cucumber and baked apple chips which I make at home and she graduated to big kid sunday school early as it provided a safer environment for her, cookie free!