Easter Sunday is March 23, 2008 - are you prepared with the Easter Basket for your child on the Autism Spectrum? Depending on the school they might be having a party in the classroom and making little baskets for the students to take home.

Make sure you know the ingredients of the food items brought home and consumed at school. Speak with the teacher to find out if other parents are sending chocolate items to the classroom or other Easter treats for the students to share.

Most likely you are skipping the pre-made Easter Baskets found in stores across the country and making your own basket fillings. You can add some fidget toys for the child that are colorful for this spring season - like orange and yellow squeeze balls and koosh types. There are bendable figures for various characters you might find at toy stores.

Besides toys you can also add some items that will bring joy to the child like music with the Songs for Building Social Skills CD.

If you have a Whole Foods Store in the vicinity you can purchase Mi-Del gluten-free cookies. They have chocolate chip mini cookies, arrowroot animal cookies, ginger snaps and pecan mini cookies. I have had all varieties except for the pecan mini cookies. It was the first time I ever tasted a ginger cookie and not too bad. These worked well when I had no chocolate in the house.

The arrowroot animal cookies are really good, even my son Nicholas liked them. I could easily consume a bag over a weekend. These bags are eight ounces and cost about $2.69 each. They do contain egg and soy ingredients and are processed in a facility that also processes wheat, peanuts and tree nuts.

These cookies could be used for party platters at school, clinics and parties for families to celebrate the Easter holiday. You could also wrap some in plastic paper for the Easter basket, twisting it with a bow for decoration.

The ingredients for the Wi-Del mini chocolate chip cookies are gluten free flour (corn flour, soy flour, potato flour, corn starch,, rice flour, potato starch,xanathan gum), organic dehydrated cane juice, organic chocolate chips (organic sugar, organic chocolate liquor, organic cocoa butter, organic cocoa butter, soy lectihin), canola oil, butter (may contain annatto), egg whites, unsulphured molasses, corn starch, natural flavors, baking soda, sea salt, soy lecithin (used as an emulcifier).

This is a Product of Canada that is also available in Canada - in all varieties. The Mi-Del cookies are distributed by Liberty Richter. My Brands Inc ships all their products if you cannot find them in your stores.

If you follow the Feingold Diet make sure you know to remove the following items from your food list since these items contain vanillin:

BAHLSEN:
Waffeletten Milk Chocolate Wafer Rolls
Hit with Chocolate Flavored Filling
Choco Leibniz Dark, Choco Leibniz Milk

These were listed under desserts in the cookies and mixes section. For stage one here are some Easter Bunnies for everyone to enjoy at Lake Champlain Chocolates with the Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny, Mr. Goodtime Bunny ($75) and The Cruising Easter Bunny ($20). Please note that their prices are very high for these bunnies!

Curious Cookie sells Gluten-Free Cookies.

These include Lemon Chocolate Chip, Ginger Cranberry, Chocolate Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chip. These come in tins, six-packs, 12-packs and baskets, plus assortments of all their gluten-free cookies. The prices range froom $13.95 - $39.95 with shipping included in the price. These cookies are also casein free and lactose free, according to the website as I have yet to order any and try them.

As far as cookies I have personally tried and can recommend as being tasty and great for the chocolate lover this Easter, I would suggest the Double Chocolate Bar that is casein and gluten free by Arico Foods. These are individually wrapped with a long shelf life. The chocolate chip bar is quite good as well.

For those that like to bake brownies I would suggest the Gluten and Dairy Free mix from Bob's Red Mill. You might not want to share these with anyone though!

The cookies by Ener-G come in a nice plastic tin that could easily be brought to school for a party or to have at the clinic for therapy clients. Start your Easter morning off with Vans Gluten Free Waffles for breakfast.

For the adults I learned of this website from a show on Food Network. Groovy candy sells retro candy from the era you went to school. If you have fond memories of the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s and want to have that candy again, check out the Candy Samplers they sell. Look for candy buttons and candy cigarettes!

This site also has easter candy available, including peeps.

Hometown Favorites

Easter Activities


Spend the Easter Holiday viewing some related movies: