Archives for Snack recipes for babies and toddlers category
Recently, I was watching Food Network show called “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” hosted by Guy Fieri.
In one episode, he went to one restaurant that specialize in BBQ and he got to learn some of their popular dishes and dessert.
One dessert in particular called “Apple dumpling” was intriguing to me and I thought it could somehow make it into healthier, toddler friendly recipe for our son “Liam”.
Then, next time I wanted to make snack of the day for Liam, I decided to do toddler friendly version of Apple dumpling and started building a recipe and experimented to make one for him.
Result was good. He loved the tender touch sweet Apple inside the flaky pie crust and,he enjoyed the snack very much.
Apple dumpling known for the public is made from tart Grainy smith;cored peeled and butter usually about 4 tsp and brown sugar 2 tsp to 4 tsp inside the hole.Then the whole apple is wrapped by pie crust and being baked in some kind of syrup like.. the one made from 1.5 C brown sugar,1 C water,1/2C butter . Usually kcal for one Apple dumpling runs around 700kcal to 800kcal.
Obviously, 1 whole apple is too much for Liam, and sauce seems a bit too rich and too sweet for him. And it is high fat high sugar content and I did not want to give him such a high kcal snack either even if I make the way it should be down and give him some section for.It still is high fat,high sugar content..
This is my version of toddler friendly Apple dumpling; low calorie, low sugar, low fat.
My husband enjoyed the Apple dumpling that I made and I loved it too so, I am sure you would be able to enjoy these too.
In this entry, I would like to share the recipe for Apple dumpling toddler friendly version with you.
I do not bake with volume (using measuring cup) anymore.I do bake with weight (grams).
However, pie crust recipe is from the time I was still baking with volume and I forgot to write down the weight measurement so I am giving you the volume measurement with this one.
Please note that when you bake with volume measurement, 1 C of flour can vary from one person to the other, and baked goods result can be somewhat different.
Apple dumpling..
Ingredients for crust;
1C unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 tsp table salt
6 tbs butter
2 tbs shortening
1/4C ice cold water
Ingredients for apple filling;
1/2 Fuji apples cored,peeled,sliced into 8th
Ingredients for the sauce;
1 tbs butter
1/3 C white sugar
1/3 C dark brown sugar
1C water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp heavy cream
Ingredients for the cinnamon sugar;
1 tbs white sugar
3/8 tsp ground cinnamon
<Crust>
1. In the food processor,add 1 C unbleached all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp table salt and pulse to combine
2. To that, add 6 tbs butter,2 tbs shortening and pulse so the flour mixture becomes pebble size bits
3. To that, add 1/4C ice cold water and pulse to form the dough
4. Shape the dough to log and wrap the dough in plastic wrap tightly and let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes
5. After the 30 minutes rest, divide the dough into 8 and roll out the dough on lightly floured surface and start wrapping the 1/16 apple that was cut into half,cored,peeled and cut into 8th (you can cut the apple first into half and then cut that into 4th and cut those in the center to make them 8 portion)
6. Start placing then on greased 8″ x 8″ baking pan, and brush it with bit of heavy cream and sprinkle cinnamon sugar and raw sugar on top
7. Add in sauce mixture in the pan to the 1/4 – 1/3 depth of each dumplings. you can save the rest of the sauce to use for your oatmeal or pancakes or for drunken apple in the skillet etc.
8. Bake them in the 350F oven for about 40-50 minutes or until crust gets light golden
9. Enjoy!
Jul 06, 2016 | | Snack recipes for babies and toddlers
When you visit grocery stores, bakery shops, you would find variety of sweet baked goods such as Muffin.
Back home in Japan, I do not remember such a wide variety of muffins or cupcakes.
Especially the one with frosting because we tend to decorate baked goods with whipping cream (we don’t do icing or frosting), and melted chocolate with or without cut up fresh fruits.
I find American bakers use more dye in baked goods than us, and it looks like more colorful dye art field than ours.
Ours highlight the baked goods with fresh fruits a lot along with melted chocolate art and they are much much less sweet.
My mother is a great baker.
I remember I was looking forward to checking out the kitchen at 3 pm every day after school,which we called “snack time”.
Our son’s snack time is also 3 pm and he looks forward to that time.
Japanese kids grow up with certain snack time (younger ones might have 2 snack time 10am and 3pm but as they get older, 3pm is the most common snack time for kids) and those are the time family sit around the table and enjoy snack together with a cup of tea.
We don’t snack throughout the day,which is good practice I think for kids. Plus our parents put some portion out for kids, and those were the amount we had each day.
Portioning out is a good practice I think because we know how much we are snacking. You never know how much you had already if you were eating right out from ice cream container or potato chips bag, for example.
When my mother was working, she would leave us kids a plate of portion; homemade snacks with a little note.
When my mother was not working, I enjoyed watching how she make things and helped her baking cakes,bread and more. It was fun.
I have had Muffin or cupcakes as a kid my mother made but, we did not have those as often as I would be having here in the states.
Now I come over here in the states and experiencing all kinds of flavors and ingredients, and I found that making muffin/cupcake is quite fun playing around with all kinds of flavor ideas combining different kinds of ingredients with or without choice of liquor or wines.
It is easy to bake muffin. When mood strikes, I like baking different kinds time to time.
That being said, now we got Liam, I am very careful for the choice of right snack for him.
Not only that, I tend to use more fresh ingredients in snack for more nutrition in mind and, I bake stuff with much less sugar.
Probably sugar I use is 3rd or so of regular basic recipes of many kinds.
I myself hate sticky sweet baked goods and I used to bake half the sugar or less that are calling for in basic recipes. However, I have even lessen that amount now.
Still, it tastes good and having fresh fruits in it helps bringing out more taste in the baked goods.
The recipe below is toddler friendly snack recipe.
This recipe fits great for their snack recipe variety:-)
The recent muffin I made is Skinny berry berry peach muffin. I named it skinny because I used really low sugar in it.
I used blueberry,raspberry and peach and it came out real good.
It was so good that my husband said he could have eaten 5 of them in one sitting:-)
Adults can enjoy this very much. I myself loved it too.
These are not sticky sweet, dense muffin. This is the muffin filled with fruits, and they are fluffy textured muffin.
When you have it next day, I suggest that you will take off the tin cup and wrap it with paper towel so it gets steamed and microwave for good 15-20 seconds.It gets fluffy textured muffin again.
Skinny berry berry peach muffin..
Ingredients for the Skinny berry berry peach muffin;
187 g unbleached all purpose flour
55 g white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp Baking powder
30 g raspberry
68 g blueberry
68 g chopped peeled pitted peach
5tbs butter
1 egg
1/2tsp vanilla extract
1/3 C milk
pinch of raw sugar to each muffin top
0. Preheat oven at 400F
1. To a big bowl, put 187 g unbleached all purpose flour, 55 g white sugar,1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp Baking powder and mix well
2. Prepare another bowl and add 30 g raspberry, 68 g blueberry, 68 g chopped peeled pitted peach and mix
3. Add 1/3 C milk, 1 lightly beaten egg, 5 tbs butter melted, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract into the flour bowl and stir
4. To bowl of <3>, add fresh fruits mix and fold in gently
** Do not to over mix the butter
5. Pour the butter to muffin tin cup fill at about 80%. Then, sprinkle raw sugar on top and bake at 400F about 20 minutes or till toothpicks inserted in the middle comes out clean
** In the empty muffin tin area, add in about 1/4″ deep water so muffin gets steam baked. You should have 2 spots if you use dozen muffin tin pan
Makes:10 muffins
Enjoy!
Jun 22, 2016 | | Snack recipes for babies and toddlers
In Japan, mothers usually start feeding solid food to babies around 5 months old or 6 months old.
Then, right around 7th or 8th month where babies turn 1 year old or so, 75%-90% of nutrition they need throughout the day would come from solid food itself.
Then, nutritionally, they do not need breast milk anymore to supplement the solid food nutrition.
When graduated from breast milk, 100% nutrition would come from solid food itself.
Around this time, babies would have more will to eat and get better at eating with fingers.
At the same time, right around this time, babies gets more active throughout the day and they need more nutrition from supplemental solid food,a.k.a. snack.
Mothers in Japan usually feed babies these supplemental meal once or twice a day often times 10am and/or 3pm.
Since having routine is a good thing for biological clock for babies, we feed snack at about the same time everyday.
When you hear “snack”, you would imagine sweet desserty stuff but really, for the babies around this time, snack in Japan means 4th meal to supplement nutrition from other 3 meals.
Babies have small stomach and with just 3 meals a day, they cannot get enough energy from the 3 meals. Therefore, we give them 4th meal so they can supplement the deficient / not enough nutrition/energy.
Mini rice balls, mini sandwich, steamed sweet potato, fruits, steamed bread with vegetable mash or puree etc.. are popular snack for Japanese babies.
Our son eats pretty good and, he gives me clean plate so, I do not have much stuff I must add in snack time stuff to compensate the lack of nutrition from other 3 meals.
Therefore, I am a little loose on what I use in his snack. However, I make things with much less sugar, and I try to make something good for him using vegetables or fruits from the fridge or other stuff that are good for him like kinako, which is roasted soy bean flour we Japanese often use just like cinnamon in USA in a sense.
Kinako is good protein source and very nutritious for us.
If you are interested, you can get kinako at Asian store like HMart or at Amazon.
In this “Snack of the day” series, I would like to introduce baby friendly snack recipes you can make at home.
All of the recipes that I would share would be low in sugar but, adults can enjoy them too.
I prefer making snack for our little son than buying snack sold for adults for him.
It would be better for his taste buds development, and not getting to be able to taste the strong taste would be good for him in the long run.
Very first recipe that I share with you is very very easy snack you can whip up on 15-20 minutes plus chilling time in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Liam loves these. I hope your little one enjoy them too!
However,please make sure that all of the ingredients for the recipe is tried with your little ones and no issue with allergy.
Yogurt mousse with strawberry sauce…
<Yogurt mousse>
Ingredients for Yogurt mousse:
Nasoya brand silken tofu (soft tofu) 170g
Plain whole milk Yogurt 130g
Whole Milk 50ml
heavy cream 50ml
sugar 3 tbs
gelatin 1 package
<strawberry sauce>
Ingredients for Strawberry sauce;
strawberry stem off 150g
1 tbs water
2 tsp sugar
<Yogurt mousse>
1. soak the gelatin powder with 2 tbs water in microwavable container and let it sit a bit
2. Add tofu, yogurt, milk,heavy cream,sugar into blender and puree them well
3. Microwave the gelatin water mix about 10-15 seconds to near boil
** Try microwave 10 seconds,5 seconds or so each time and mix with spoon and microwave more if needed. Please be careful container may be very hot.
4. Add gelatin water mix into the blender and mix very well about 20-30 seconds .
5. Pour the mixture into ramekin and cover the top with plastic wrap and chill until set;about a couple of hours.
Makes; 4 servings
<strawberry sauce>
1. In the food processor, add strawberries that were stem and leaves chopped off and puree them
2. Pour them into small 1 quart sauce pan and add sugar and water and cook until thicken.
3. Cool it down.
<How to assemble>
1. Run the butter knife around the ramekin cup, put the ramekin cup upside down onto a serving plate and hold the ramekin cup with plate securely and shake top and down to make the mousse pop down onto the plate.
2. Pour some strawberry sauce and serve.
Enjoy!
May 10, 2016 | | Snack recipes for babies and toddlers
