Fun, shaped baby snacks: eight playful finger foods for picky eaters

If you're after cute, shaped baby recipes — finger snacks, teething sticks and rice balls — this set leans more hands-on than a bowl of purée. Shaped snacks don't just tempt a baby's appetite; they're good practice for hand-eye coordination and for holding food and feeding themselves.

From toast and rice balls to teething sticks and cartoon-shaped bites, there's plenty to keep snack time interesting. Little Bear Burgers and Goldfish Wontons are made to be picked up and played with a little, while Seaweed Pork Floss Rice Balls travel well for a between-meal top-up out of the house.

1. Little Bear Burgers

Bear-shaped burgers ask less than they look. The windowpane test belongs to toast loaves — a small bun only needs to stretch to a thicker membrane, which makes this a fair place for a beginner to start. Pork floss is kneaded into the dough itself, so a child who pushes meat aside still eats it. No rye flour on hand? Cake flour and bread flour stand in, and the cake flour leaves the crumb softer.

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Little Bear Burgers

2. Goldfish Wontons

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Goldfish Wontons

3. Fruit Teething Sticks

Teething leaves the gums swollen and itchy, and a baby will chew whatever is within reach — not hygienic, and there is a real chance of swallowing something that should not go down. A teething stick is simply something safe to gnaw on: red dragon fruit blended and strained for colour, baked, then firming up hard as it cools, and mild enough not to bring on heatiness.

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Fruit Teething Sticks

4. Homemade Teething Sticks

Four things go into these — egg, icing sugar, butter and cake flour — stirred to a smooth dough, rolled thin, cut into strips, given a twist and baked to a deep gold. They come out hard and crisp, which is the whole point of a teething stick, and they disappear just as fast when adults are in the room.

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Homemade Teething Sticks

5. Milk Mini Biscuits

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Milk Mini Biscuits

6. Seaweed Pork Floss Rice Balls

In summer, a bowl of hot noodle soup or congee often leaves a child sweating through the meal; rice balls are the easier swap. Chopped carrot and broccoli are folded into fried rice, seaweed is scattered through, and each ball is rolled in homemade pork floss. One bite each, bright enough to catch a child's eye, and picking them up gives small fingers something to practise on.

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Seaweed Pork Floss Rice Balls

7. Carrot Rice Cake

Rice cake asks far less than steamed buns: carrot purée, rice flour and yeast stirred together, left to rise, then steamed — no kneading anywhere in it. Fermenting leaves the crumb soft and fine, closer to cake than to a bun, though built from plainer, better ingredients than a cake would be. Gentle enough for a baby who has only just cut a tooth, and easy to digest.

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Carrot Rice Cake

8. Bunny Steamed Buns

Steamed buns, bao and flower rolls are not complicated to make — the kneading is what puts people off, and a bun only steams up soft if the dough has been worked properly. A stand mixer settles that in five to eight minutes. What is left is laying a red-yeast-tinted sheet of dough over a plain one, rolling it up, and pinching out a pair of ears.

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Bunny Steamed Buns

Each recipe is written in Chinese, English, Filipino and Indonesian, so the fun shapes come out the same whoever makes them. Save a few into your weekly plan and there's always a snack on hand to win over a fussy appetite.