A “radiant” British ballet dancer with a severe peanut allergy died after eating a mislabelled biscuit in the US.

Órla Baxendale, 25, suffered a severe allergic reaction after eating a Vanilla Florentine Cookie which did not list nuts among its ingredients.

Ms Baxendale, who moved from East Lancashire to New York to pursue her dancing career, carried an EpiPen but it was ineffective “due to the severity of her allergy”, her family’s lawyer said.

She died of anaphylactic shock on Jan 11 2024.

Ms Baxendale was “very careful and hyper-vigilant about everything she ate, and always thoroughly checked the ingredients on all packaging”, the lawyer said.

Paying tribute, Ms Baxendale’s sister Ciara Baxendale, an actress, said: “I will never ever, as long as I am on this earth, stop talking about how radiant, how beautiful, how kind, how cool, how hilarious, how witty, how vibrant she was.

“She had a golden touch. Everything about her was magical, she was just so other-worldly. She looks just like an angel and I just cannot believe that she has gone.”

‘Gift for lighting up any room’

Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham, where Ms Baxendale trained, described her as a “radiant force”.

The school said: “Her authenticity and ability to stay true to herself resonated with all who had the privilege of knowing her, and she had a remarkable gift for lighting up any room she entered.”

Ms Baxendale, who was cast in the world premiere of Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet, bought the biscuits from a branch of Stew Leonard’s in Connecticut.

The cookies are understood to have been made by wholesaler Cookies United and labelled with Stew Leonard’s brand name.

The firm’s CEO, Stew Leonard Jr, said in a video that the supplier had changed soy nuts to peanuts in the recipe without notifying their chief safety officer.

Cookies United said it had notified Stew Leonard’s in July 2023 that the product contained peanuts and that all products shipped to the retailer had been labelled accordingly.

Stew Leonard’s has recalled all the mislabelled biscuits in partnership with the US Food and Drug Administration.