Jack is getting into gnawing. He’s got two tiny bottom teeth and pretty much anything he gets his mitts on will get gnawed: the coffee table, my W-2 sitting on the coffee table, day-old floor apple bits, etc. I recently visited an old friend whose daughter was sucking on a little brown slab. She seemed to be going to town on it. When I asked her what it was she told me it was a teething biscuit she had baked herself.

I was intrigued, so I decided to give it a whirl. Jack loved it. He dedicated 10 whole minutes of gnawing to one biscuit and he only chewed up half of it. One batch made about two dozen little rectangular cookies. They are hard as a rock, but that’s perfect because they won’t fall apart while your baby is slobbering all over it.

The recipe my friend sent me called for whole milk, but since I still haven’t fed my 9 month old cow’s milk, I decided to try it with breast milk. It was kind of funny baking with my own milk, but that ensures baby gets some homegrown nutrients in every gummy bite. It also calls for unsulphured molasses, which is a decent source of calcium, magnesium and iron.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup unsulphured molasses

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1.5 cups white flour

1.5 cups whole wheat flour

Note: you can use any combination of whole wheat and white flours. I used half and half. Experiment with different types of flours, if you dare.

Directions:

Mix together the wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the flours to the bowl and combine till a tough dough forms. Knead the ball for about 5 minutes on a floured surface. If your dough is flaky and dry, add a little bit of water. Knead till the dough is smoothish. It should be pretty tough, but hold together well. Wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out your dough till it’s a rectangle about 1/4-inch thick (I didn’t measure at all). If the dough doesn’t stay together very easily, add a teaspoon of water and fold the dough back on itself and re-roll it out. It was tough to roll it, but luckily this dough has no elasticity, so it will stay in the shape you make it.

Cut the dough into 1 x 2.5-inch rectangles and place them on a baking sheet. Cover with foil and let sit for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before storing. I placed them in a Ziploc in my freezer so they’ll keep longer.

Good luck with teething!