These baby oatcakes are so wholesome and nutritious, made with rolled oats and wholemeal flour. They have a nutty texture and make a perfect snack or part of a meal for your baby or toddler. They are also so versatile as a base for adding other foods too. Read on to find out more.
Healthy snack options
For a while now I’ve been looking for healthy snack ideas for my 1 year old. There are of course plenty of great options to choose from, but sometimes I’m looking for a quick, grab-able fix, that I can take out and about without needing to keep it cool….it’s actually a little harder than you might think.
What I had been using for a while was oatcakes as they are so portable and Raffy loves them. However, I looked a few times and I was unable to find many “low salt” ones from the supermarket.
Oatcakes nutrition
The basis of oatcakes is the oats, which are a whole grain and a great source of carbohydrate, protein and fibre for little ones. They are also a good source of some vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, copper and thiamine (B1).
However, shop bought ones can contain other added ingredients like sugar, various oils like palm oil and salt.
Salt content of shop bought oatcakes
The ones I was using had 0.15g salt per oatcake – which isn’t too bad and is amber on traffic light coding. But I was aware that, combined with other foods throughout the day, it could quite easily add up.
Additionally my nutritional analysis package listed oatcakes as having 0.26g salt per oatcake, which is quite substantially higher and suggests that on average oatcakes available in the UK may have higher levels of salt than the ones I’ve managed to find.
Using this figure however, I worked out that adding a couple of thin spreads of butter and a chunk of cheese to two oatcakes would result in a toddler having a salt intake over 1g from that snack alone. And, even though I usually offer Raffy his oatcakes plain, he does have cheese, bread and many other foods throughout the day that also contain salt.
(I’ve written recently about “How much salt should a baby have?” so feel free to check this out for more information on this topic.)
As a result, I decided to have a go at making my own oatcakes, without adding any added salt. So I did some research and found out that it was SUPER easy….So here is my oatcake recipe…
Charlotte’s Baby Oatcake Recipe
Ingredients:
- 110g rolled oats (I choose to use organic oats)
- 30g wholewheat plain flour
- 1 pinch of baking powder
- 35g unsalted butter or plant-based spread
- 30-40mls hot water
- Any additional ingredients of your choice (see below for my recommendations!)
Method:
- Pre heat the oven to 180℃
- Add the rolled oats to a bowl along with the baking powder and the flour
- Add the butter/spread and rub the mixture together well with your fingers until all the ingredients are combined well and the mixture looks similar to breadcrumbs. (Don’t forget to add some extras to the mixture too if you want to try out some different flavours with little ones.)
- Add the hot water gradually so as not to add too much. You want the mixture to make a nice, fairly firm dough that is not too wet. See picture below.
- Once you have a nice dough, sprinkle some flour on a flat surface and roll out your dough until it is around 1cm thick. Use a cake cutter or a glass to cut your oatcake shapes and lay them on a baking tray before popping them in the oven for around 20 minutes or until they go brown.
Please bear in mind that I intentionally add no salt and no sugar to these oatcakes as Raffy is little and doesn’t need these added to his diet. For an adult (including myself) the oatcakes can therefore taste a little plain, but you can easily top them with your favourite topping options to add plenty of extra flavour or use some of the additions below to add extra flavours without the excess salt. Raffy still really enjoys my oatcakes as his palate is as yet not adapted to a high salt or high sugar diet.
Allergy options
Gluten free – oats are gluten free but they are often processed in factories that are made alongside other grains such as wheat, barley etc. Therefore the gluten in these can contaminate these oats. You can buy gluten free oats, so check the labelling to make sure they say ‘gluten free’
Dairy free -use a plant based spread if you want to make these dairy free. Alternatively you could replace this with oil like olive oil.
Oatcake additions
Try experimenting with some different flavours added to the oatcake recipe as you start mixing the ingredients.
- A small handful of rosemary
- A sprinkling of herbs such as thyme or cumin
- A few squirts of lemon or the juice of half a lemon (you may need less water if you try this…)
- A teaspoon or so of cinnamon
- A tablespoon of peanut butter (you may need less water if you try this…)
- Some fennel seeds
- A thumb sized grating of ginger
- A teaspoon of ground mixed spices
Oatcake toppings
Here are some ideas of good, nutrient rich toppings to go on top of your child’s oatcakes to make it more of a meal and add extra nutrients and textures!
- Peanut butter
- Other nut butter like almond butter or cashew
- Cream cheese
- Slices of fruit such as pear, apple, banana or soft fruits
- Slices of vegetables such as peppers, cucumber or tomatoes
- Mashed avocado
- Mashed or slices of egg
- Cottage cheese
- Mashed fish such as tuna
- Grated cheese
How to serve baby oatcakes
Serve them as they are for your little one, they are nice and crumble and not too hard so they should be easy for a baby with plenty of finger food experience to manage.
However if you’re looking for ways to jazz the oatcakes up and add some flavours, there are plenty of ways to do that too.
For example,
- you could try serving them with dips such as
- Plain hummus
- Butterbean hummus
- Iron rich dips
