When it comes to eating, I’m sensitive to all the major culprits: wheat, dairy, gluten and sugar. It’s hard to find anything worth indulging in. Then I stumbled upon what is by far my favorite new recipe site: The Lookbook Cookbook. It’s full of fun treats that are easy to make, and all are vegan and gluten free. I tried out the recipe for B-Raw-Nies this weekend, and could swear they were better than any box-made sugar-laden brownies. If your child has any food allergies, it doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy regular treats. Check out this amazing recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cookies or Chocolate Peppermint Fudge, made with only four ingredients.

Lookbook Cookbook not only provides amazing recipes, but photographer/vegan baker Jessica Milan does a fun photo shoot with the final product for each new entry. Along with her model “Gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, but never boring,” she’s bringing a new spin on allergy-conscious baking. While some recipes do have sugar, it’s easy to swap out raw sugar for coconut palm sugar or maple syrup for rice syrup. I can’t wait to try the rest of the recipes.

In an attempt to keep my daughter entertained and allow me to not go crazy, we have been watching baking videos on Youtube.com. My daughter loves to bake, but I have no will power and will eat everything that we bake. Therefore, I try to limit our baking, or I cleverly have my daughter bake with my Mother, so that very few cookies ever reach our house.

The other day my daughter asked to watch a video showing how to make a princess cake. We had watched some a few months ago on Howdini.com This time, I let her click from video to video while I was making dinner – I can see her and the computer from the kitchen. So she now “knows” how to make a fire truck, a castle, a duck and numerous other festive cakes.

Somehow she left cakes and found her way to videos of people making miniature candy ice cream and bento in Japanese. There is no explanation in either Japanese or English. It is called Kracie Popin’ Cookin’ and as far as I can tell it involves pouring water into little containers that have been filled with special powder, stirring, sometimes adding colors and delicately displaying the wares once they have set. It is very odd. And the strangest aspect to me is that some of the videos have literally been viewed millions of times. You have to check them out.

My daughter also found videos people post of their elaborate cakes. Generally there are slow pans of beautiful cakes and stacks of cupcakes with a bit of commentary. Sometimes there is a soundtrack. My daughter doesn’t really like them, but will watch them. I am amazed by the detail and intricacies.

We went to a gingerbread decorating party on Christmas Eve and our house was totally chaotic. I must admit that I had picked up some tips from watching these videos, but they didn’t seem to apply to my daughter. Oh well.