The following is a guest blog post by Taylor Coen, who struggles trying to find or create beloved food dishes because of food intolerances and allergies.
As a kid, I never experienced environmental or food allergies, but as I got older I developed so many, including being intolerant to dairy and wheat. It was hard at first to adjust to not being able to drink milk or eat crackers, but over the years I’ve found some amazing brands of gluten-free crackers, dairy-free milk, and even candy without artificial flavoring or gelatin. It's definitely become easier as companies produce more gluten- and dairy-free products and brands like Dandies really make me appreciate all the things I can still eat.
Dandies' vegan and gluten-free marshmallows are also free of artificial flavorings, colors, corn syrup, and gelatin, which for me is wonderful because most of those items affect me. The marshmallows are vanilla flavored, but not as fluffy as regular marshmallows. They are also very sugary by themselves and taste better microwaved and used in dishes.
For instance, my mom and I made vegan, gluten-free s’mores out of Dandies marshmallows with Kinnikinnick S’moreables, (gluten-free, dairy-free graham crackers), and gluten-free, dairy-free dark chocolate, made with oat milk and sea salt. Here’s how to do it:
1. Place a Dandies marshmallow on a gluten-free graham cracker, and then place a piece of dairy-free dark chocolate on top of the marshmallow. (Some dark chocolate is not dairy-free so check the ingredients. We used Endangered Species Chocolate that is, but it had a rich, overpowering taste, so it didn’t work well with the s’mores. This particular chocolate bar was also too thick to melt appropriately. We suggest a lighter chocolate in both taste and size, if possible.)
2. Place the smores on a microwaveable safe plate and microwave for 15 to 20 seconds. Dandies’ recipe for vegan s’mores recommends 15 seconds at 5-second intervals. We tried both. Their suggestion didn’t melt the chocolate well but when we microwaved the smore's for 15 seconds straight, the marshmallows expanded too much and fell over with the chocolate. So keep an eye on it. It doesn’t take much for the marshmallows to expand.
3. Eat and enjoy. The graham crackers we used were perfect, tasted great with the marshmallows and added to the flavor.
Dandies also come in small sizes, perfect for hot chocolate.
That’s the best way to enjoy these marshmallows. I hope y’all can enjoy them too.