Making fun sweet potato crackers with children

This week I was hosting the #getcreativewith Instagram theme of the week… FOOD. As part of the week, I came up with a few new ideas for playing with food with my kids. Cooking with kids is one of many ways to interact with foods outside of the mealtime. There are countless ideas. The benefits include building their familiarity with foods and increasing their acceptance of them WITHOUT pressure to eat. These sweet potato crackers (or should I say “quackers”) were fun to make and as a bonus, the extra dough that somehow found it’s way to the floor during cooking*, became a great single-use playdough. *Not naming any names but I think it was my 3 year old ;p

The parts miss 3 helped with included:

1. getting ingredients out of the cupboard
2. mixing the dough
3. rolling the dough
4. choosing the cookie cutters
5. making the cookie shapes

Here is the original post from Instagram:

#getcreativewith food week is in full swing (see prev post for more info). Today we made quackers… Yes, I am serious. What else would you call duck shaped crackers? Scroll through to see the beautiful orange colour of the dough – thanks to sweet potato and turmeric. ? We read Andy Griffiths’ “Duck in a Truck in the Muck” at playgroup yesterday and it reminded me of my duck shaped cookie cutter. (Does this girl ever think of anything but food?)? ?️✂️Would you be surprised that Google actually found me “duck paper dolls?” I kinda was. Verity was super pleased. She has caught Ellie’s paper doll obsession. This just-turned-3-yo is a girl on a mission with scissors! ?Recipe in comments but inspired by @healinggraciesgut and @howmuchikaleyou (tweaked a bit though) – #dairyfree #eggfree #allergyfriendly PS. The final pic is what Verity loved just as much as devouring these Quakers, the raw dough she dropped on the ground during the rolling (#embracemess). I suggested we use it as playdough. She was overjoyed.

A post shared by Simone Emery (@playwithfood_au) on Apr 28, 2017 at 4:43am PDT

And here is the recipe!

? RECIPE ? –

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup buckwheat flour (or you can use wholemeal or other type of flour)
• 3/4 cup plain flour (could use gf too)
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 cup e.v.olive oil
• 1/3 cup steamed sweet potato pureed with 1/4 cup cooking water

Instructions:

Mix the first 5 ingredients to make a crumb like consistency, form a well in the mixture and mix through the sweet potato puree. Roll out thin on a floured surface. Use cutters. Bake 8 mins at 200oC. Enjoy!
These would suit the lunchbox too!

Do your kids like crackers?  What do you serve them with?

Get the tools:
Our positive food talk with kids video gives you all the language tools and advice to help your children learn about new foods without pressure.  Pressure comes in the form of excessive praise and in the form of wanting them to “just take a bite”.  Learn ways to embrace the right language to make mealtimes happy for your family.

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Simone Emery is a children's nutritionist, writer and guest speaker from Melbourne, Australia. Join the email list to keep up to date with her trusted and supportive information on helping fussy (picky) eaters. You've totally got this!

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