Bringing a party lunchbox, the quick way

In an ideal world we’d have loads of notice of parties coming up and loads of time to bake and prepare dairy free treats for our little ones to bring to parties. The reality can be finding out about a party with less than 24 hours notice and searching frantically for treats so your child won’t feel excluded. This post is about  food you can find in the shops to bring to parties. I will do another later on about lovely things to make yourself.

Quite a lot of party food contains (or can contain) dairy. If you are in someone’s house, you don’t want to be making a fuss by asking if they made the cake with butter or margarine so its best to bring your own food for your little one so if it looks like things might contain dairy you can offer them their own alternatives.

I used to be able to find dairy free fairy cakes in Dunnes Stores, their own St.Bernard brand were dairy free, they have recently changed the recipe and it now contains dairy. I used to stick some dairy free chocolate buttons in the top of the bun, or even better let my little boy do it himself and he was delighted with himself. I am on the search for other options. Tesco ‘free from’ range has recently expanded to include a dairy free chocolate sponge cake, and dairy free chocolate cake bars. I have not tried these, but they look like winners to replace dairy containing buns and cakes at a party.

Dairy free chocolate buttons are a Godsend.

The Choices ones are available in my local Dunnes Stores, and the other ones are available in my two nearest Tesco branches. The choices orange chocolate ones are particularly nice.

We live in the strawberry growing corner of Ireland,  so in the summer months I like to bring a punnet of strawberries to share at the party. It is always good when your little one can eat something everyone else can eat and enjoy too, and children love strawberries even though they are healthy.

Jellies are always a good choice, usual ones I get are the Natural Confectionery Company, Guzzle Puzzles or good old fashioned Jelly babies. The big bags of National Confectionery company jellies are good to bring and put in a bowl to share at the party.

More party treats are little biscuits in bags. The mini bags definitely make them more exciting than normal biscuits. Again you could bring a few packs of these to share. Fox’s party rings and Iced Gems are my favourite finds, both gloriously dairy free.