I just tried this recipe yesterday and my little Gabe seems to like them a lot! It's very easy to make and the end result is almost like a sweet spongey/rubber consistency. The best part was all the banging he likes to do with his cookies couldn't break this one into tiny choke hazard bits! 1 cup Flour 1 cup Infant Cereal 1 cup Juice Combine and shape into bars, then bake at 350F for 15 mins, flip and bake for another 10-15 mins. The mixture is very sticky so I had to keep a small bowl of flour near to sprinkle as I worked. (For those interested) The exact brands I happened to have used were Gold Medal organic all purpose flour, Whole Foods Market peach juice, and Earth's Best oatmeal infant cereal. I forgot to take a picture of Gabe enjoying one yesterday, so i'll take one today and post it in this thread later! I was so excited to find this recipe because I hate buying something I can easily make. And if I make them I know everything that goes into them is good stuff.
They came out a little bit, next time i'm going to try and make it stretch out to 12 cookies. With this first batch I got eight big fat ones.
now I have a question, do you think these cookies are ok for an infant with no teeth? My daughter is getting in 4 teeth at once (all her first, ouch) and she likes to chew. I am afraid to give her anything that isn't edible to chew on because I don't want her to knaw off a chunk and choke. How tough is the cookie???
My son has no teeth (not even showing signs at seven months!! Ah well, no rush.) and these cookies are VERY rubbery. Especially since I made sure to mix them very well. My son can bend them in all manner of ways and they don't break. They will crack a little but I havn't had one break. The one I tested before I even gave him one took considerable force to break apart, but quite a bit more than those hard teething cookies i've been buying him. After he finally dropped it on the floor and the puppies snatched them up they had a bit of a time eating them. And of course I sit with/ am very near to Gabe the entire time he has any sort of edible thing to chew on. Anything can happen at any time.
I'm keeping them in a bin in the pantry with his store bought ones. I wouldn't see why you'd need to put them in the fridge. I'd just keep them in a sealed container so they don't dry out.
My kids found out early that if you throw food on the floor, the dog will come near you. LOL! He looks like he is enjoying it. Do you know if you can use Oat Flour in this? My oldest had a wheat allergy, and although I am probably done having babies, when this child (the allergic one) has babies, she wants to avoid the allergies which made things so difficult for her as a child.
Maggie, if she's allergic to wheat, she needs to avoid domestic oats as well. They are processed on the same equipment as wheat and are cross-contaminated, cause my children and myself some kind of horrible reaction when we eat oats. Oats from overseas are usually okay, though. With recipes, I usually substitute quinoa and arrowroot flour for the wheat, because most of the typical gluten-free flours contain rice, which is also a problem for Jenny. A baby who is getting her first teeth might not be ready for solid foods just yet, and it could cause intestinal distress (or worse). Neither of my kids were ready for any solid foods until after their first teeth had come in, and didn't eat a substantial amount of solids until they had both top and bottom teeth. They both enjoyed one of those mesh safe-baby-feeder things with the handle, with ice chips in it when they were teething. Melted ice is much easier to clean up when they drool and spit it all over the place, too.
i made some with gerber oatmeal, gerber banana-apple juice (thanks, wic) and whole wheat flour. Ember isn't totally in love with them, but they have been keeping her entertained off-and-on It's much better than gnawing on non-food items, which she loves to do! And no crumbs, that's a nice plus.
boogiemama, is this crosscontamination at the farm or when it gets to the factory? Years ago, when Sunshine was SO allergic, I would make her some food with small amounts of Oat Flour (always Organic) and we didn't have a problem, but I was initially afraid she might have Celiac, which was ruled out, thank God. Is Organic OK? I am assuming on Organic Farms and factories, the cross contamination is less?
It is my understanding that even the celiac community doesn't completely agree on the issue of oats. It's one of those things each person has to determine for themselves if they react to it or not. I know that if *we* eat any oats from the US, regardless of brand, we have the exact same problems we would have from any sort of gluten. Quaker oats causes the very most severe reaction for us. When a product is labeled "gluten-free" they usually use oats from the UK instead. Probably, with issues of cross-contamination, it can vary from batch to batch, that maybe the first oats off the line would be much more contaminated with wheat than the last batch run that day. Or maybe it's in the vitamins and other stuff they spray on the oats, or some other chemical they use on the machines during manufacture. Or maybe they ship the oats in the same trucks/trains that they ship wheat in? I really don't know.
I'm pretty sure you could use whatever type of four and cereal you wanted with these cookies. If they don't turn out it won't have been much money lost, and if they do you could save some by not buying the premade kind!
