These incredibly easy and healthy cookies make the perfect finger food for babies. They take 5 minutes to prepare and have a soft texture. These cookies are a healthy breakfast for baby led weaning or snack for older toddlers and kids.
Baking cookies for babies sounds like a lot of work, but this recipe is incredibly quick and easy. You will get two or three breakfasts for only a couple minutes longer than it would have taken you to prepare some oatmeal or toast. There are only three core ingredients: the banana, peanut butter and oats, and then some optional mix ins toppings, so you are likely to have what you need on hand.
I’m calling these breakfast cookies because oats are the main ingredient, and they fantastic for babies who don’t eat from spoons (either out of preference or because they’re doing baby led weaning) to get their fix of oats at breakfast time. But these cookies work equally well as snacks for babies and toddlers and grown-ups. I ate plenty of them!
These are not teething cookies, and the texture is soft so babies need to be able to chew. I chopped them into small pieces for Odette to feed herself, until she became more able to bite off appropriate pieces or larger objects (some babies can do this from the beginning, but she wasn’t one of them and would throw anything too large on the floor!).
I know they don’t look like classic colorful thumbprint cookies, since peanut butter is roughly the same color as the oat and banana mixture! But I felt that peanut butter was the ideal filling for baby thumbprint cookies. It’s such a healthy food for little ones, fatty and protein packed, and (if you buy the right brand) salt and sugar free. And single blueberries on top gave a little pop of color without all the sugar that comes with jam. You could use raspberries, blackberries or slices of strawberry too.
Banana & Peanut Butter Breakfast Thumbprint Cookies for Babies
Ingredients
- 1 medium ripe banana
- ½ cup (40 g) oats
- Pinch cinnamon
- 2-3 drops vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp peanut butter, for babies I like to use the salt and sugar free variety
- 5 blueberries
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F / 170C.
- In a bowl, mash the banana and then add the oats, cinammon and vanilla. Mix together with a fork until a dough is formed.
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Form 5-6 cookies from the dough by rolling them into ball and gently pressing down in the middle to create a dent.
- Spoon peanut butter into the dent in the cookies, and top with a blueberry on each.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned. (a bit less if you want them super soft)
How long can these keep for?
I’ve kept them for 2-3 days in the fridge 🙂
I love this recipe, thank you! I’ve added raisins and lemon peel instead of blueberries, and put the oats through a food processor first, so they came out softer, perfect for my 1 year old with no molars 🙂
That’s awesome, I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed these! Raisins and lemon peel is such a great idea!
These are so easy to make and perfect for tiny hands! I love that you’ve included peanut butter as well since the latest research suggests we should actually be introducing potential allergens like peanut butter quite early. Thanks for another great recipe!
These are so easy to make and perfect for tiny hands! I love that you’ve included peanut butter as well since the latest research suggests we should actually be introducing potential allergens like peanut butter quite early. Thanks for another great recipe!
Could you freeze these? X
Definitely! I’ve frozen them and just defrost in the microwave, they go quite soft again.
I’m out of rolled oats – will quick oats do?
Yes but you may need less! Just keep an eye on the texture of the dough.
These are so easy to make and perfect for tiny hands! I love that you’ve included peanut butter as well since the latest research suggests we should actually be introducing potential allergens like peanut butter quite early. Thanks for another great recipe!
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They taste AMAIZING I’ve made more of them because my hubby was ready to eat them all without sharing with our son haha
Yay! Thanks so much for the feedback! 🙂
Can you use baby oatmeal in place of the oats? I have a few ags I want to use up.
I think that should be fine, yes!
What age would these be appropriate from?
Officially these are fine from 6 months, once you’ve established that your baby is OK with nuts. That said, that solid peanut butter would be too sticky for a lot of babies so I would wait until you know they are really good at chewing, or leave that off.
The banana came out still mushy. So disappointed bc she does not do anything mushy.
The cookies are definitely soft, but you could always bake them a little longer to harden them up.