Sweet Dairy Free Valentine!

Have you a dairy free valentine making your heart flutter? Are you casting around for ideas to treat that dairy free someone special in your life? 

Well, I may just be able to help you out!

We don't make a huge deal of Valentine's Day - mostly it's cards, choccies, flowers and a meal at home. We could eat out, but bearing in mind how busy it is on that day of the year, I don't think we will!

If you are planning on going out for a Valentine's meal, and are wondering where you might go, that's suitable, you might like to check out these older posts, which might give you some ideas, of where you might like to go!

Meanwhile, if you're looking for some sweet treats for your dairy free Valentine, well, it's not an exhaustive list, but here's a few ideas:

A classic!

I've seen these classic Love Heart tins in a number of places, like Sainsbury's, but £1.99 at The Works is pretty hard to beat!

Last year, you could also buy boxes of Haribo hearts from places like Poundland, and 'Baby' insisted on me buying some marshmalllow hearts too - from Waitrose, I think!

However, if chocolate is more your thing:

D and D Chocolates have plenty of other ideas on their website. D and D Chocolates chocolate is all dairy, gluten and nut free. It is made with sunflower lecithin but they do carry a warning that they may contain soya - although they have assured me that the risk is minimal.

Ayni is another great company, you can find online. I love their Chocolate Love Hearts, priced from £1.25 (plus P&P).

Sweet!

And also these Raspberry Cream Hearts. Which are priced from £3.00.

So cute!

You can check out their full range of Valentine chocolate here. Ayni's chocolate is Paleo - handmade without dairy, gluten, soya, sesame, nuts or refined sugar. See here, for more details.

If you're looking for something from the High Street:

Hotel Chocolat have a few Valentine offerings, that aren't too pricey, there's this:

I really love the romantic design on these!

Dark Chocolate Heart Lick - they're £2.50 each. I've had a few of these! You used to be able to get them without the stick. This year, I see that they are now available, without the stick, in miniature form. See below:

Aren't they cute?

Wink Wink - five dark chocolate hearts for £2.50

These Hotel Chocolat's products are made with dark chocolate that is made without dairy. From looking at their website, it seems they may use the same equipment as milk chocolate, but clean carefully between batches. A similar policy exists regarding gluten. They are made with soya lecithin - many folks who have a soya allergy or intolerance are okay with the lecithin (as the protein is removed). Unfortunately, for those of you who have to avoid nuts, Hotel Chocolat cannot guarantee that their chocolate is nut free.

Booja Booja If you want to splash out a bit more on your Valentine, you may prefer to give them a box of Booja Booja truffles, which you can find in most good health food stores, sometimes in Holland and Barrett and even in Waitrose! 

Booja Booja truffles are both dairy and gluten free. They are, also quite yummy, so they make a great treat! However, they are made with soya lecithin and nuts.

However, should you wish to be a little more personal and creative, then I suggest you buy some dairy free chocolate drops, from Plamil, or Hotel Chocolat, then take a look at this site - they sell the most gorgeous chocolate moulds. Although Valentine's Day is just around the corner, I think there's still just enough time!

Sharing the love - it's the little things...

This morning, as anticipated the Hub and I exchanged cards and chocolate. Not wanting Baby to be left out, there was a card for her too. 


What I had not expected (although perhaps I should have done, knowing her love of both bags and chocolate) was that she would take possession of first my husband's bag of chocs, then mine too! Not in any hurry to devour them, as we had to get out fairly quickly this morning, we did not demur but let her cart them around from one place to the next - until it was time to leave. 

This evening, Baby was presented with a tiny gift bag of her own, containing a little box with a silver heart in it. The heart emits a gentle jingle jangly sound when shaken. Nothing could sound more heartfelt than the 'Fwank you!' that my little tot uttered - her joy had been made complete, and the other bags were completely forgotten, redundant, dismissed. 


Her cup ranneth over, when having eaten her dinner, I slipped a few Free From chocolate coins into the bag, along with the box. Again came the artless and heartfelt tones of before, as she 'Fwanked' me. At this point, my heart swelled and my cup ranneth over too. Definitely more blessed to give than receive!


Not expensive, just little things, but the joy that they brought to one dairy free tot... priceless!! 

Celebrate Valentine's Dairy Free!

So Valentine's Day is coming up and I just thought I'd slip this one in, to give us all time to reflect on it (soon find out if my husband is following my posts).

When I was younger, Valentine's Day seemed like a big deal. Not getting a card from anyone was usual - still disappointing, but usual. Funny that these days (old married woman that I am) it doesn't seem like such a big deal. My husband and I had a bit of a discussion and agreed that, for us, remembering our wedding anniversary was much more important. In fact, four years in, even that doesn't get much of a look-in because there's always our baby around!

Valentine's for us, usually means a card, chocolates and cooking for each other, at the very least. If The Hub is lucky, I might make him creme brûlée (his fave pud, but sadly not dairy free) in the heart-shaped ramekins that I bought a few years ago. I'll probably get a card for baby too, just to share the love. She loves ripping cards open and then putting the card back - heaps of fun for her and of course it's completely dairy free!

Of course there are plenty of ways of celebrating Valentine's Day dairy free. However, if you are after anything of the chocolate variety this Valentine's Day, I noticed on my way through Waitrose the other day that they're stocking small packs of chocolate hearts by Divine. They may be suitable for you, if you're OK with labels saying 'May contain milk...' although I've noticed that some of Divine's dark chocolates warn that they're not suitable for milk allergy sufferers.

However, don't despair - if you can't have these, quite a few supermarkets stock small packets of chocolate caramels by Celtic Chocolates that are completely Free From (and can be found in the Free From section). These I've had before and they're quite yummy. 

Other Free From chocolate brands exist, like Moo Free Chocolates. They have been on the Free From shelves in Waitrose, but if they can't be found locally they can be found online. Pricier brands like Green and Blacks and specialty chocolate makers like Willies and Hotel Chocolat are also worth investigating (if you're OK with 'May contain traces of...') as they make chocolate with higher percentages of cocoa solids, which is made without milk. Growing up, and in the early days of being dairy free, I found such chocolate a bit bitter on the palate, but it's amazing how you can adjust when there's chocolate at stake!

I've not seen anything else around, like these chocolate hearts, yet, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled, just in case!!

Update: 

Since I wrote this post, my knowledge of dairy free chocolate has expanded somewhat. You might like to read the following posts:

Oo! Ah! Chocolat!

Sweets for my Sweet