Healthy Toddler Seed Cookies

At 11 months Henry seems to think nursing is much too boring for him, at least during the day. As a result, he eats quite a bit of solid food and I am at the point where I have to think about his nutrition - oh no! At least he is not as picky as he was a month ago, he likes a lot of things but it is still sometimes hard to get him eating a significant quantity of something that is not fruit or grains. And he really likes to feed himself so even though he always likes my soy yogurt, sometimes he just refuses to be fed from a spoon. And he loves hummus but that involves either feeding from a spoon or letting him get super disgustingly messy feeding it to himself which is the route I usually go.

So I came up with this recipe for some cookies full of seeds for all their healthy protein-y calcium-y goodness.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sesame seeds (find unhulled for maximum calcium)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp each cinnamon and ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup oil
2 TBSP blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup apple sauce

Grind the seeds and oats in a dry blender or food processor. Mix with remaining dry ingredients. Then add in the wet ones and mix. Spoon out onto oiled cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until set and just a little brown on the bottom.


They turned out well. They taste ok to me, not something I would make for myself but Henry definitely liked them. They are a bit crumbly but I don't think I can avoid that without sacrificing the high seed to flour ratio.


I think the only changes I would make are to use ground up oats in place of all the flour, just because he eats plenty of wheat already, probably good to get a different grain. And I might use even more seeds even though that will probably make it even crumblier, maybe just more flax since flax seeds actually hold stuff together (make a great egg substitute) but I've wrecked muffins in the past with too much flax taste. And I think I will spring for coconut oil since it seems I am always reading that is the only healthy oil for cooking (sorry I couldn't find a more credible looking source but I know I have read it in credible sources too). Even though I try not to be cheap about food since it is such a huge part of life (between eating and cooking and how it affects your health) I usually think coconut oil is too expensive. But since these are for my little angel baby, I think I ought to buy some. I might be posting a version 2 sometime soon.


Here are some more photos of Henry enjoying his cookies ( I gave him 3 and he gobbled them up).