Milk Making Cookies

Milk Making Lactation Cookies
For those of you who haven't had children you may find this weird, but for those of you who have had babies and chosen to breastfeed you will understand how hungry breastfeeding makes you! Women have to eat at least 500 extra calories a day to keep up a good supply of milk. Now these cookies are just stuffed full of good stuff which can help with boosting your milk supply, but for anyone who isn't nursing, they are still an awesome cookie and are full of health benefits! They are also ridiculously tasty and fill you up for ages.

The three main whole-food super ingredients in these cookies are oats, brewers yeast, and linseed (also known as flaxseed). All three ingredients are packed full of fibre, which has been known for centuries to boost milk supply. Oats are a great source of iron, which new mothers are frequently in need of. Brewers Yeast is one of the best natural sources of B Vitamins, which are essential to your overall health and also give you an energy boost.  The oil from the Linseed is packed full of Omega-3 which gives you all of your essential fatty acids - a crucial part of a nursing mothers diet. You can find more information on these cookies and their health benefits on Drmomma's website, where I found the original recipe first created by Kathleen Major, a pediatric health specialist from the US. I have slightly adapted the recipe to fit in with standard English metric measurements and common ingredients found in the UK. I hope you enjoy it!


Ingredients
Makes 24-36, depending on how big you make them. You can freeze half and bake batches of cookies as you need them.
 
Freezing instructions: roll dough into balls and put in the fridge for an hour or so to set. Put the dough balls into a sealed bag and freeze. Defrost before baking.

You can find most of these ingredients in a health food shop. Try to find organic ingredients where you can.

225g wholegrain flour
1tsp bicarbinate of soda
1tsp salt
1tsp cinnamon
170g almond butter (alternatively use peanut butter or nutella - not as healthy)
115g unsalted butter, softened
120g caster sugar
90g soft dark brown sugar
2tsp vanilla extract
3tbsp brewer's yeast (if you can't find the powder, buy the tablets and crush them)
160g milled linseed (also known as flaxseed. If you can't find it milled, whizz the seeds up in a food processor)
75ml water
2 large eggs
250g chocolate, chopped (you can use dark, plain, milk or white)
150g chopped nuts of your choice (pecans, hazelnuts or macadamias work well)
180g whole rolled oats (not instant oats)

Preheat the oven to 170ÂșC

In a medium sized bowl combine the flour, bicarbonate soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a very large bowl, beat together the almond butter, butter, both sugars, vanilla, brewer's yeast, linseed and water until creamy.

Mix in the eggs.

Gradually beat in the flour mixture.

Mix in the nuts and chocolate chips, then gradually stir in the oats.

Place balls of dough onto a greased baking sheet and press them down into a disc. These cookies will not spread out too much when baking so make sure to get them to your preferred thickness before baking.

Bake for 12 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.

7 comments:

  1. Silly question, but by whole oats do you mean whole rolled oats (not quick cook) or steel cut oats? I have both, just don't know which to use.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whole Rolled oats are perfect. Hope you enjoy the cookies!

      Delete
  2. Is wholegrain flour the same as wholemeal?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For the US, Whole Wheat flour is the same as the UK's Whole Meal flour. Hope this helps. You can use any flour you like with this recipe though, the more wholesome the better.

      Delete
  3. I bought wholemeal bread flour from waitrose was the only wholemesl flour I could find will this work....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes I can only find wholemeal bread flour too! It makes a small difference to the texture as it has slightly more gluten in, so the texture is a little tougher, but it still works :) What you can do is use half white plain flour and half wholemeal bread flour to lower the protein levels a little.

      Delete
  4. I made these cookies recently. I added dried cranberries (I love them in cookies) and mini marshmallows (had some left over from another recipe). They are gorgeous. Will definitely make again.
    -V-

    ReplyDelete