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).
