Were you worried the baby food section on this website would be ignored now that Camille has teeth, is walking, and is shaking her head ‘no’ at certain foods? I’m glad to say this isn’t the case.
I will always make some form of baby food, but as Camille gets older, it’s probably going to be desserts that are naturally-sweetened, or remakes of store-bought ‘kid’ food. Personally, I don’t believe in kid food. But I also don’t believe in denying your kids such rights of passage, like graham crackers.
Camille started going to a church daycare for 3 hours a day a few times a week when she was 9 months old. (I needed to start cleaning my house again, ya know?). Every day, I would fill out a form that specified food requests for her. Next to the box that said ‘Are graham crackers okay?,’I would circle NO, underline it, and scribble in ‘snacks from home only!’ She is my first kid, after all.
I’m not sure if Camille stared longingly as the other kids ate graham crackers, but in my defense, she was very late to get her teeth, so I didn’t think a hard cracker was a good idea.
She has five (yes, 5!) teeth now, and is really enjoying hard crunchy foods on her gums. She snatched a graham cracker off the cutting board when I was making my cheesecake dip, and her eyes lit up. She begged for more.
How I made homemade graham crackers with natural sweeteners:
So, I set about making homemade graham crackers, but I really wanted to use natural sweeteners.
I reached for coconut sugar, honey, and molasses for this recipe. The molasses is just for iron (and some may argue about its natural-ness), and if you really want to, you can use extra honey instead. I have a self-professed vegetarian kiddo on my hands, and so I welcome the iron in the molasses. (Side note: send tips for getting kids to eat meat in the comments below, please).
Yield: 12 whole graham cracker sheets (24 halves)
Homemade Graham Crackers
These homemade Graham crackers are super tasty!
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
17 minutes
Total Time
32 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup grass-fed butter, chilled and diced
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup water
- 3 tablespoons molasses (or more honey)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350, and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flours, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Pulse a few times to combine.
- Add the diced butter, and pulse until a coarse meal forms, about 10 1-second pulses.
- Next, combine the honey, water and molasses (or more honey) in a measuring cup with spout. Stream the liquid into the food processor while its running (use the feed tube).
- The dough will clump together and form a ball.
- Roll out one-quarter of the dough at a time between two pieces of wax paper. Roll it until it’s slightly less than ¼” thick.
- Use a square cookie cutter (or any other cookie cutter shapes you like) to cut out shapes.
- Peel the dough away from all the cut-outs, and then use a spatula to move them to the prepared baking sheet. (Removing all the dough around the crackers first helps you pick them up with the spatula without mangling them too badly).
- Use a fork to prick holes all over, and the blade of a knife to score them in half (do not cut all the way through).
- Bake for 14-17 minutes, until deeply golden brown on the edges (see photos for reference). If you underbake them, they’re very soft (which might be okay for younger babies!)
- Store in an airtight container for 1 week.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 227Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 20mgSodium: 231mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 2gSugar: 18gProtein: 3g
