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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Blueberry Banana Baby Biscotti

Josephine Fite Filipiak is teething.  It's just the worst.  It started two weeks ago yesterday.  I left for work during her morning nap around 9am.  She woke up to the babysitter (technically her 5th cousin) and proceeded to bawl all morning long.  (Poor Whitney-Josephine usually loves playing with her).  I was convinced that she was starting to go through some separation anxiety and immediately read everything I could.

The next morning I waited to leave until after she had woken up from her nap, played with her a little while Whitney was here and made sure she had a "distraction" as soon as I left.  She did much better but the real culprit presented itself that night when I felt her gums.  All four of her upper front teeth were in that kind of swollen/about to poke through stage.

I immediately felt better about her being not the happy baby she usually is...and was sure that within a week or so those teeth would be through (like the first two bottom ones) and we'd be back to normal.

Well that was two weeks ago.  So far only one has completely come through.  Another you can barely see the white and the two middle front ones are still just below the surface.

And my happy baby is still a little bit more clingy, irritable and refusing to take the 1 1/2-2 hour nap I had come to love (and desperately need to get anything done).  She takes a long time to get settled to sleep and then a hard time staying asleep.  Her 5:30 am wake up time has changed to random 1am, 3 am or 4 am.  And not just a little fussy...full on awake where she throws her pacifier out of her crib and does what we call her "prison riot" by standing up and shaking the sides.

I'm tired.  She's tired.  And Thursday we leave for the gulf which means seven hours in the car.

But yesterday while we were walking around the garden she self-medicated.  She loves to grab at the herbs growing and eat them.  (Thai basil is her favorite by far).  But instead she grabbed a handful of lavender that had bloomed.  It didn't worry me and it made her pretty happy to munch away on her steal. 

About twenty minutes later she started rubbing her eyes and made all signs that she was ready to sleep.  Now.  She had only been awake for less than an hour but I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.  So I made sure she was all clean and swaddled her up.  Sure enough she was out within a few minutes.  Then it hit me:  "Oh yeah, you can use lavender for soothing/pre-bedtime purposes."

After she woke up from her nap I made her lunch and made sure to give her a tough piece of the end of the bread so she could bite/gum down on it.  I thought to myself "I really need to make her some biscotti to teeth on-she loved it last time."  

Last time her two bottom teeth were coming in I gave her some I had in the freezer as kind of a last ditch attempt to help her feel better.  It was actually some frozen homemade snickerdoodle biscotti and not necessarily the healthiest thing I could have given my baby.  But on the other hand, it was a lot better than the teething biscuit options at the store that were full of preservatives and a bunch of other stuff I can't pronounce.  (Actually I can because my dietetics major included a minor in distributive sciences which involves several chemistry courses, including nutritional biochemistry, but you get the point.)

So this is what I've come up with as a decent teething biscuit alternative.  I wanted to avoid adding a ton of sugar, butter, or extracts (just because they are alcohol based not because there is anything wrong with them).  It's something she can hold on to while cruising around and hopefully alleviate some pain-not necessarily dessert.  Plus, if it tastes just as good to her without it, then why add it?  Also, I'm not as worried about the look of these.  Sugar plays an important role in shape and texture of baked goods so if I was making these for an order I'd definitely add it.  Also, the only main potential "allergen" are the eggs and we've cleared that one. (We're fine on wheat and dairy too but for any babies that aren't these could work).

Anyway, here we go:

BANANA BLUEBERRY BABY BISCOTTI

Step 1: Combine the following dry ingredients in a food processor until oats are well milled then dump into a separate bowl:
2 cups oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt (I used Celtic grey)
1/4 cup flax seed
2 Tbsp evaporated cane juice
2 tsp Lavendar- fresh or dried flowers and/or "leaves"
2 Schezuan buttons* (Optional-see note below)
1 heaping tsp ground cinnamon


So it looks like this...


Step 2:  Combine the following "wet" ingredients into food processor and run for 5 minutes until bananas/berries are pureed completely and whipped with the eggs.
2 large pastured chicken eggs
2 very ripe organic bananas
Handful of blueberries (I just added about ten or so that I had left in a bag)



(I thought the berries might give the batter a soft purple hue but they didn't...maybe if they were frozen first-those tend to be more effective in the dye department...)

Step 3:  Now add that bowl of dry ingredients into the food processor and combine until a sticky dough forms.


Step 4:   Let dough sit about five minutes before transferring it to the pan.  This helps the oats soak up a little more of the liquid so you have more of really thick batter and less of a pancake batter. 


Step 5:  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray it with cooking spray.

Step 6:  Now you can pour out the batter/dough into a shape that looks roughly like this:  Note that the width is going to be how "long" your biscotti are once you cut them.  



Step 7:  Bake in 325 oven x 22 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

Step 8:  Let cool.  This is a good time to hold your teething baby who has been screaming because you put her down for five minutes to make these.

Step 9:  Use a serrated knife and cut into biscotti-looking pieces.  You can cut them on a diagonal and make long beautiful pieces.  Or you can cut straight across.  Either way they will get the job done.  

Step 10:  Now it's time to give these the final toast in the oven so your baby will get that good hard texture to gum down on and ease her pain and angst away.   So lay the cookies on their side and toast in 300 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Then take the pan out and turn them over and repeat for another 20 minutes.




Step 11:  Now turn your oven off.  DO NOT REMOVE BISCOTTI FROM OVEN at this point.  Usually you wouldn't need to do this extra drying time but because this recipe turned out really moist and we didn't use much sugar, it's necessary.  So just let those cookies stay in and kind of hot air dry out.  (Much like meringue cookies).  If you make these at night then it's easy just to turn off the oven and go to bed.  (**Really you kind of have to just see as you go for this step.  I made them last night when it was really humid so that definitely affects how crispy they were going to get.  Then today when I tried to maybe bake 'em just a tad more...I set the oven to 375 instead of 275 and nearly made charcoal teething biscuits.)


Step 12:  Remove from the oven-they should be pretty cool.  Then you can go ahead and give one to your sweet baby while you put the rest of them in a ziploc bag and freeze them.  (Actually baby will probably like the frozen ones better and chances are you are making this while she/he is in bed hopefully sleeping for a stretch anyway).

My now happy baby
*Schezuan button is also known as "toothache plant."  We grew some of these this year.  They are antimicrobial and help to ease mouth pain as well as increase taste depth by kind of "buzzing" the mouth clean so I thought I'd throw them in without being sure if they would have any of the same effect after being baked.  In a couple weeks when we're back at the market we may have some of these available-or if you have a teething baby and want us to save you some, let us know! 

In conclusion, baby girl loved them.  And the second tooth finally come on through last night with one of the middle ones close behind.  I also ended up really liking the taste of these...a little too much lavender for me but they definitely seemed to do the trick in helping her get to her morning nap without much of a fuss (and sleeping for nearly 2 hours).   Also there isn't a really strong banana flavor.

 I think if you were making these for "grown-ups" you could use no (or less) lavendar, no Schezuan buttons (I don't think they did anything anyway) and add chocolate chips, vanilla and maybe even some toasted nuts.  You could also use certified GF oats and have a gluten free/dairy free/low added sugar biscotti. 

Hope you other mama's find this helpful!  Let me know if you make them and any other teething tricks that have worked for you!