Dairy-Free Brownies and Baking with a Toddler

Having a child who can't have dairy presents all sorts of problems.  I love cooking with kids and my daughter is ready to help.  The problem -- most baked goods have eggs or milk, and she can't help.  Even though she can tolerate most baked goods that do have eggs or milk, if she were to touch it while helping then she would most likely have a reaction.  I found a dairy/gluten free recipe for brownies that we made today.  She had so much fun helping.  They turned out really good and she was pretty excited during the whole process.  Here a link to where I found the recipe and what I did below while cooking with my daughter. 

Dairy-Free Brownies

1 1/2 cup oat flour (don't substitute regular flour because it won't work)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup rice milk (I buy the small cartons for cooking)

1/4 vegetable oil

1. Mix dry ingredients together with whisk.  When doing this with my 22-month-old, I poured each into a larger container and had her pour each in by herself (yes, we got sugar everywhere).

2. Add milk and oil.  Mix well.  I let my daughter stir it up for a couple minutes.

3.  The mixture is really dense.

4. Pour into greased (original Pam is dairy-free) 8 x 8 pan.  

5. Bake for 30 minutes.  Make sure toddler is in a safe spot when you open the oven.

6. Turn light on oven to let your toddler peak in -- be sure they understand not to touch the oven.

**Tip: Don't stick a toothpick in to see if done.  I did this and it deflated.**