- Makes approx. 18 cookies for ADULTS – Ready in 45 min -
I just couldn't make a nice-tasting lactation cookie when using brewer's yeast, due to its nasty bitter aftertaste. These cookies are delicious and are still packed with healthy energy-and-mood-boosting ingredients. They may or may not boost your breast milk supply, but at least you will enjoy eating your way through them whilst you find out!
Gather together...
1/4 cup of milled linseed / milled flaxseed.
1/3 cup of warm water.
1/3 cup coconut oil (melted, as it is solid at room temperature).
1 cup brown sugar - to be plastic free I use 'Billington's Demerara Cubes' which I crush up, with a potato masher in a high sided jug, into dry granules before using in the recipe. These sugar cubes come in 100% plastic free packaging but they MUST be stored in an air tight container once the box comes home from the supermarket. Asda and Morrisons both sell them.
1 tsp vanilla extract (make sure the one you use in this recipe is an ALCOHOL FREE syrup-based formula e.g. the Dr Oetker branded vanilla extract).
1 and 2/3 cups of oats, blitzed up for 60 seconds in a food processor, to make oat flour.
1 and 3/4 cups of oats (ideally chunky 'rolled' traditional oats).
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (sieved to avoid unpleasant lumps).
1 tbsp ground cinnamon.
1/4 tsp salt.
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut, blitzed up in a food processor (with the chocolate) for 30 seconds.
1/2 cup dark chocolate, blitzed in a food processor (with the desiccated coconut) - 'cooking chocolate' melts far more easily than regular chocolate and is much less likely to shock and split. Sainsbury's own-brand cooking chocolate is sold in foil and card (so is plastic-free), Green & Black's cooking chocolate is plastic-free AND palm oil-free, but is too pricey for me to use regularly.
1/2 cup chopped, mixed nuts (or blizt whole nuts in a food processor, but only for 10 seconds or so, or else they go oily).
1/2 cup of (small) dried fruit (sultanas / dried cranberries /dried cherries).
Get making...
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (fan 160 C) or Gas 4.
2. Grease two large baking trays.
3. In a medium-large bowl (for example the bowl of an electric food mixer as there are a lot of ingredients to stir together later), combine the 1/4 cup of milled linseed and the 1/3 cup of warm water, stir well with a metal spoon. Set aside for 5 minutes for the water to swell the linseed.
4. Meanwhile gently melt the 1/3 cup of coconut oil. Turn off the heat and allow it to cool slightly for 1 minute.
5. Then add the melted (slightly cooled) coconut oil to the bowl containing the rehydrated linseed,.
6. Add the 1 cup of brown sugar and the 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the coconut oil / linseed mixture. Stir well until the sugar starts to dissolve.
7. Next add the 1 and 2/3 cups of blitzed oat 'flour', the 1 and 3/4 cups of chunky oats, sieve in the 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda, add the 1 tbsp (yes, one whole tablespoon) of ground cinnamon and the 1/4 tsp of salt. Stir slightly with a metal spoon to mix the dry ingredients together, but not to yet mix them with the wet ingredients further down the bowl.
8. In a food processor blitz the 1/2 cup of desiccated coconut WITH the 1/2 cup of dark chocolate squares - blitzing them together make the coconut deliciously coated in chocolate, plus it helps blitz the coconut into smaller pieces (so it is less likely to stick out haystack-like and burn during baking). Add these blitzed chocolatey-coconut flakes to the bowl, don't stir yet.
9. Add the 1/2 cup of chopped mixed nuts and the 1/2 cup of dried fruit to the bowl. Stir the whole bowl really well for 30 seconds (by hand or using an electric food mixer) until well combined.
10. Taking golf-ball-sized chunks of mixture (50g per cookie if you want uniformity) place nine well-spaced balls of dough on a large buttered tray. Repeat on the second tray.
11. Press down each cookie firmly with your fingers, the dough is hefty so it won't flatten below 1 cm.
12. Bake the cookies for 20 minutes in the middle / bottom of the oven. Swap the trays around half way through baking.
13. Leave the cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes.
14. Then remove the cookies with a fish slice and cool them fully on a wire rack, so that they do not go soggy.
15. Eat the cookies up within 5 days - make sure that you store them in an air tight container. Or freeze them on the day of baking and have them to nibble on whenever you need them.
Adapted from the 'Lactation Cookie' recipe on ambitiouskitchen.com.