Lilly Higgins: Healthy summer snacks for bored little people

The summer holidays are in full swing and school children all over the country have finished their summer camps and are beginning to feel bored.

In my house, with three children under the age of four, it means my cupboards are bare. They are eating everything. For an hour after visiting the shops or farmer’s markets, I feel we have stocked up – and then it quickly disappears.

My eldest loves to eat baguettes in their entirety, unsliced and butter-less. He has a weakness for freshly baked real bread and has an incredible skill for making things just disappear. Only a few tell-tale crumbs remain; it’s all part of the game.

The constant snacking and raiding of cupboards means that by actual set mealtimes, they are disinterested and no longer hungry. I’ve started to schedule regular snack times throughout the day, and it seems to be working. I’ve put a curfew on the cookie jar.

My children love to snack on crackers. You can buy them, of course, but they might have a long list of undesirable ingredients such as palm oil, preservatives and sugar.

You would be surprised how many savoury snacks contain hidden sugars.

I make these gorgeous cheese-puffed crackers, and they love them. They are perfect for snacks, picnics or for lunch boxes. They are also great with freshly ground black pepper and they pair well with white wine.

Picky eating is said to peak at age six, so get your toddlers involved in the kitchen now while they are interested. There’s nothing like a bit of home baking to pique their curiosity. They will always eat, or at least try, something they have made themselves.

The little diamonds of puffed-up, buttery, cheesy pastry are so easy to make that children can help by sieving flour, adding the ingredients one by one and pressing the button on the food processor.

The dough is then chilled, rolled out and cut into shape. I sometimes use biscuit cutters to make the crackers into novelty shapes, but a pizza or pastry wheel is much faster and more efficient. It’s worth making a double batch and keeping some of the dough in a flattened disc in the freezer.

I sometimes place the tray of rolled-out, shaped crackers into the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking. The colder the butter, the more the crackers puff up, so give them plenty of time to chill in the fridge and prevent it from being overhandled by hot little hands.