Dealing With Allergies at Halloween: Licorice and Pretzel Wands

Okay, so you have a Harry Potter and sprinkle crazy child fan in the house (like my daughter is right now *laugh*) and you want to make licorice wands like on the candy trolley cart in Harry Potter, but there's the slight problem that you have a corn allergy to deal with.  So, what do you do?

Well, if you're me, you end up doing double duty by making home made pretzels via Alton Brown's recipe here, then you dip those pretzels in chocolate and make "pretzel wands"  and you cover them in Sprinkelz (they're all natural sprinkles that are corn and gluten free...look for them in the organic food section...I found mine at Fred Meyers).  Trust me they'll be just as impressed as with the licorice wands once you include the sprinkles and chocolate into the equation *laugh*.

The best gluten free recipe I've tried is found on the Bob's Red Mill Site but just to warn you it's not very allergy friendly.  I just make it because I don't have to adjust it to make it corn free (since all the gluten free pretzels on the market seem to be made with that darned cornstarch) so my daughter and son can eat some too.  I'm still working on developing my own recipe, but haven't had a lot of time to mess with it yet.

I'm told that there is licorice that you can order that is corn free, but I didn't have any and didn't have time to order some, so my son got Twizzler licorice wands (peanut free) to play with (he's really not big on eating much in the way of anything, so I just make some things allergy friendly in case he should take a bite out of them) and my daughter got the pretzel wands.

So, here you go folks...a really easy thing to do for your corn or peanut allergic kiddo.

Up close look at the Sprinkelz.

Licorice Wands (Peanut Free)

• 24 Twizzlers
• 6 oz. Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (you can also order specialty chocolate from Vermont Nut Free Chocolates which is what I did...the melting chocolate is even made with sugar and not corn syrup, so I can feed it to the daughter :).
• Sprinkelz Organic Vegan Topping
  

1.  Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler until well melted (trust me do NOT try doing this without a double boiler or you'll be sorry) and then dip your licorice sticks to cover 1/2 of the licorice stick. 

2.  Place on wax paper to dry and sprinkle with Sprinkelz to desired "kiddo loving" level.  Place in a clear glass container to serve for an extra wow factor.

So, you want an entirely corn free alternative?  Here you go.

Pretzel Wands (Peanut, corn free)

• 20 Pretzel sticks approximately 6 inches in length (I made mine from the Alton Brown recipe above as I couldn't find any sticks at the store that weren't processed in a facility with a peanut product)
• 6 oz. Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (you can also use 6 oz. of unsweetened baker's chocolate and after it's melted add honey to your desired sweetness level).
• Sprinkelz Organic Vegan Topping

1.  Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler until well melted (trust me do NOT try doing this without a double boiler or you'll be sorry) and then dip your pretzel sticks to cover 1/2 of the pretzel stick.

2.  Place on wax paper to dry and sprinkle with Sprinkelz to desired "kiddo loving" level.  Place in a clear glass container to serve for an extra wow factor or other cool Halloween themed container.