Making Gluten Free Vegan Teether Biscuits for Baby

Somehow we always have extra boxes of baby cereal cluttering up the counter. We don't really feed Charlie rice cereal all that often, I think mostly because hes constantly chomping down on his Baby Mum Mums, or- Oh! That's it! I should use the baby rice cereal, to make Charlie some teether biscuits!!

Now before I tell you how to make these, I need to get all of the disclaimer stuff out out of the way. Teether biscuits, and teether cookies, are not the same thing. Biscuits are harder. Much harder. They do not dissolve like cute little rice puffs. Teether biscuits are for older babies that already know how to chew. I'd say 9 months or older, but every child is different, so you make the call. And of course, no baby should be left alone with a teether biscuit. Your baby should always be supervised when eating these, for don't-choke-on-that reasons. There have been a few times that I've had to whip my neck around the corner to make sure that the gagging sound coming from the high chair was just from my kid not knowing how to swallow his own slobber properly, not because there was a chunk of biscuit stuck in his throat. So there, now that we've gotten that out of the way...

What you will need to make your own teether biscuits:
-2 tbsp shortening (I used spectrum organic palm oil shortening)
-1/4 c sugar
-2 flat tbsp fruit (or banana, pumpkin, or apple, or whatever)
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/8 tsp cinnamon
-1 tsp vanilla
-3 tbsp water
-1 1/2 cups baby rice cereal (I used Gerber white rice, since that what I had leftover from Wic)


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cream together your sugar, fruit (I used pumpkin, since we seem to have a never ending supply), shortening, and vanilla. All of your wet ingredients except for the water, pretty much.

Measure out your rice cereal, and then pour all of your dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients. Slowly add water, and stir. It should look like this...


At this time, its probably best to ditch the wooden spoon and just mix it up with your hands. Keep playing with it, until it pats into a ball. Like this...



While you're doing all of this, you might need a helper. Just sayin'.

I'm all about fast and easy cleanups, so, what I did next might seem kind of silly, but it totally worked.



Grab a big 9x11 casserole dish, or do this right on your counter top. I did this in the dish because it helped keep the edges of the dough in control. Tear off 2 pieces of wax paper, line the dish with one, put the dough on top, and then set the other piece of wax paper on top of that. Like a wax paper/dough sandwich.

Now press down. You could use a rolling pin if you wanted to, or a glass, or... whatever- I just used my hand.


After its all flattened out, grab the wax paper out of the dish, and plop it down onto the counter. Now, grab a knife or a pizza cutter, and cut it into squares.


Next, line a cookie sheet with that other piece of wax paper, or parchment paper. Take a spatula, and carefully pick up the dough squares and transfer them to the cookie sheet.


I found it easiest to pick up 2 at a time with the spatula, and then flip them over into my hand, and use my fingers to position them on the cookie sheet.

See how the biscuits are kind of jagged? Just use your fingers to kind of push down and round out the edges.

Put your biscuits in the oven for 25-30 minutes.


After they're finished, they should be crispy, and hard. Let them cool completely before removing from the parchment paper.

Now put them to the test!


Clearly, they passed.

Next time I make these I'm going to try using banana instead of pumpkin. I don't think Charlie will notice the difference though, he'll eat anything, haha.