I have a one and a half year old daughter. As a parent, her diet is extremely important to me. I try hard to only give her the highest quality food and a wide variety of textures and tastes. I have vowed that she will not even know what a “chicken nugget” is until she starts school where, inevitably, she will become aware of this food option. But, as long as she is at home, it is a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and exotic foods. I’m helping to build her little palate after all!
That being said, little kids do love treats, crackers, cookies, and snacks. I have always made the effort to cook all of her food from scratch. I made my own baby food when she first started eating solids. So, why not continue with cookies and crackers. Sure, it’s convenient to just buy a box at the store but, by making them myself I can be sure of the ingredients in them and that she isn’t getting a bunch of “junk” in her crackers. And, when I started making them, I really couldn’t believe just how easy they are to make and much cheaper!
I have also had a lot of fun experimenting with flavors and different types of flours. Once you have a base recipe, it is easy to swap out flours and add in different flavors. I have five recipes to share that the little one seems to like quite a bit. The first recipe is an Orange-Honey Animal Cracker and I used this as my base recipe and began swapping ingredients to create other flavors. I have included recipes for:
- Orange-Honey Almond Animal Crackers
- Chocolate Almond Animal Crackers
- Strawberry Almond Animal Crackers
- Coconut Macha Animal Crackers
- Aged White Cheddar, Quinoa, and Oregano Animal Crackers
Each recipe yields about 30 medium sized crackers.
I hope that you enjoy these recipes and have as fun as I did creating them. Thanks!
Orange-Honey Almond Animal Crackers
½ cup Almond Flour
1 cup all-purpose Flour
¼ tsp. Clabber Girl Baking Soda
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup unsalted butter, chilled
1 Tbsp. Honey
½ cup Buttermilk
Zest of one Orange
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a medium bowl, blend the almond flour, flour, baking soda, and salt.
Cut in the butter using a pastry blender (or your hands) until the mixture becomes like the texture of sand.
Stir in the honey, buttermilk, and orange zest.
The dough may be a bit crumbly. Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until a dough forms.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place the crackers onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned.
Chocolate Almond Animal Crackers
½ cup almond flour
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. Clabber Girl Baking Soda
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a medium bowl, blend the almond flour, flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt.
Cut in the butter using a pastry blender (or your hands) until the mixture becomes like the texture of sand.
Stir in the buttermilk. Dough may be crumbly.
Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until a dough forms.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place the crackers onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned.
Strawberry-Almond Animal Crackers
½ cup Almond Flour
1 cup all-purpose Flour
¼ tsp. Clabber Girl Baking Soda
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup unsalted butter, chilled
1 Tbsp. Honey
½ cup Buttermilk
¼ cup freeze-dried strawberries
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a medium bowl, blend the almond flour, flour, baking soda, salt, and freeze-dried strawberries.
Cut in the butter using a pastry blender (or your hands) until the mixture becomes like the texture of sand.
Stir in the honey and buttermilk.
The dough may be a bit crumbly. Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until a dough forms.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place the crackers onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned.
Coconut Macha Animal Crackers
½ cup coconut flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. Clabber Girl Baking Soda
1 Tbsp. Macha Powder
¼ cup unsalted butter
1 Tbsp. Honey
¾ cup buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a medium bowl, blend the coconut flour, flour, baking soda, salt, and Macha Powder.
Cut in the butter using a pastry blender (or your hands) until the mixture becomes like the texture of sand.
Stir in the honey and buttermilk.
The dough may be a bit crumbly. Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until a dough forms.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place the crackers onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned.
Aged White Cheddar, Quinoa, and Oregano Animal Crackers
½ cup Quinoa Flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. dried oregano
¼ cup Aged White Cheddar, shredded
¼ tsp. Clabber Girl baking Soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup Buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a medium bowl, blend the quinoa flour, flour, oregano, cheddar, baking soda, and salt.
Stir in the buttermilk.
The dough may be a bit crumbly. Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand until a dough forms.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place the crackers onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned.
