Vegan Lactation Cookies 2

I have a new mini-vegan so it's time for a new lactation cookie recipe. This was based on a recipe that used large amounts of sugar, butter, and eggs. I decided on a healthier approach than just substituting vegan versions and came up with this recipe, which contains no oils or refined sugars except in the chocolate chips.

Lactation Cookies 2

Wet:
1/2 cup applesauce
1 very ripe banana
1/2 cup peanut or almond butter
3/4-1 cup dates
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Dry:
1 cup ground flax
3 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
3 Tbsp brewer's yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine wet ingredients in a blender or food processor and process until smooth. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix well.

Drop ping-pong ball sized portions of dough onto the cookie sheet and flatten slightly (the dough will not spread when cooked). Bake for 12 minutes.

Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.


Variations: substitute raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dried fruit for the chocolate chips. Other nuts or seeds can be used instead of sliced almonds.

Fudgy Marshmallow Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies are s'mores for adults - a gooey, fudgy, decadent cookie made a little healthier with a base of oatmeal and whole wheat flour. Regular cocoa powder can be used, but I prefer the darker flavor of dutched cocoa. These aren't the prettiest cookies since the marshmallows tend to melt and explode, but they make up for their homeliness in flavor.

There are two brands of vegan marshmallows that I know of -- Dandies and Sweet & Sara. Both are good, but Dandies have more of the air-puffed campfire marshmallow texture. If you use the bigger marshmallows from either brand, cut them into quarters or eighths before folding them into the batter.

Fudgy Marshmallow Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup dutched cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp ground flax
1 1/4 cups non-dairy milk (I used soy)
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 cup vegan marshmallows (I used Dandies and cut them into quarters)

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two baking sheets.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients except for chocolate chips and marshmallows. Add non-dairy milk, coconut oil, and vanilla and mix well to form a dough. Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Drop dough on the baking sheets in 2 Tbsp-sized portions, making sure there is a marshmallow in each cookie. For a little more predictability in marshmallow expansion, you may want to fold the dough around the marshmallows instead of mixing them directly into the dough.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool for at least 5 minutes before transferring them to a plate or rack to finish cooling.

Garbanzo Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm not gluten-free right now, but I still like to experiment with gluten-free baking. I have never used xanthan gum in my gluten-free baking because everything I've made has turned out fine without it so I think it's unnecessary in most recipes. These cookies are made with garbanzo flour, which gives a beany flavor to the dough but the beaniness disappears upon baking. They are also free of tree nuts, peanuts, and soy. If you desire, you can stir in coconut flakes, dried fruit, nuts, or seeds along with or instead of the chocolate chips. The cookies bake up soft and don't fall apart or crumble like many of the gluten-free recipes I've tried.

*Note* This recipe had a typo. It should have been 1/4 cup non-dairy milk instead of 3/4 cup.

Garbanzo Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup non-dairy milk

1 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups garbanzo flour

3/4 cup chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, use a fork to combine brown and white sugars, coconut oil, non-dairy milk, and cornstarch. If your kitchen is cool, it might be easier to mix with an electric beater because coconut oil solidifies below 76F.

Stir in vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Mix in garbanzo flour until well combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop dough by the tablespoon onto the cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Variations on a Hazelnut Butter

I picked up raw hazelnuts on sale today with the intent to make nut butter. I usually make raw or roasted nut and seed butters with no extra flavors, but hazelnut isn't my favorite on it's own, so I dressed it up. I'll start out with pictorial instructions on how to make roasted hazelnut butter and finish with recipes for Maple Vanilla Hazelnut Butter and Chocolate Hazelnut Spread using the homemade nut butter. 

Roasted Hazelnut Butter

Preheat oven to 350F. Spread 2 cups of raw hazelnuts on an ungreased cookie sheet. Roast for 10-15 minutes, stirring once.

Now you'll have roasted hazelnuts with a lot of skin. The skins can make your butter a little rough, so  you'll want to remove some of them. Dump the still-warm hazelnuts onto a clean kitchen towel. 

Gather the edges of the towel so you have a bundle, then rub and knead the hazelnuts. The friction will remove some of the skins. It's okay to have some skin, so don't worry about removing it all.

Remove the hazelnuts from the towel. This is what you'll have left over - a lot of extra skins that don't need to be in your nut butter. Toss those skins in your compost and move on.

Put the nuts in a food processor. Since I was making two different spreads, I only put in one cup per batch. 

Start processing. Your initial phase gives a nut powder. This is where you would stop if you wanted to make nut flour for a recipe. We want butter, so we'll keep going.

After processing some more, the nut flour will start to clump and stick to the sides. Scrape down the sides as needed and keep processing.

Here the oils are starting to break out of the nuts. You'll have to scrape down the sides more often at this point.

 

Getting close, now. It's now holding together as a nut butter, but it's still a bit chunky. Scrape the sides and process just a little more.

Finished hazelnut butter. You can add a little salt if you want and pulse to mix, or make one of the variations below if you'd like something sweeter. Spoon it into a container and store in the refrigerator. 

Maple Vanilla Hazelnut Butter and Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

Maple Vanilla Hazelnut Butter

1 cup roasted hazelnut butter
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Pulse all ingredients in a food processor. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Makes 1 cup.


Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

1 cup roasted hazelnut butter
2 tsp coconut oil
2 Tbsp sugar or maple syrup
1 Tbsp cocoa powder

Pulse all ingredients in a food processor. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Makes 1 cup. This may be a little on the runny side, but the coconut oil will help it firm up to be spreadable once refrigerated.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I can't pass up the mint and chocolate combination. It has always been my favorite flavor for desserts even though I'm not normally a chocolate-lover. I make these cookies with white whole wheat flour, which is a lighter-tasting variety of whole wheat.

Fresh from the oven.

Cookie dough ready for the freezer.
Are you like me and eat way too many cookies when you make a batch? Try baking just what you need and freezing the rest so you can pop a couple in the oven when you have a craving or when the kids think they need cookies. Freeze tablespoon-sized scoops on parchment paper, then transfer to freezer bags or another container so you can just pull out a few scoops, defrost, and bake!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup non-dairy milk,
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp peppermint extract
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

With a hand mixer, cream together sugars and coconut oil in a mixing bowl. Add non-dairy milk, cornstarch, and extracts and mix again. The coconut oil will harden if the milk isn't at room temperature, but don't worry about that. Sift in flour, salt, and baking soda and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop dough by the tablespoon onto the cookie sheet. These cookies hold their shape well, so you may want to flatten them slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Chocolate Mint Pudding

This is similar to the raw young coconut pudding idea I suggested in Feeding the Finicky Toddler. However, I made this one all for me (and little Messy Mouse, who decided it was awesome). I used fresh mint to imitate the flavor of a cheesecake I had once at Cafe Gratitude. My husband didn't like the herbal flavor of fresh mint, but I loved it.

If you've never had a young coconut, pick one up at an Asian market and break it open! Inside, you'll find a surprising amount of coconut water (mine tonight had 1 1/2 cups) and a jelly-like meat. My first exposure to young coconuts was at a cultural festival, where the Thai booth served ice-cold young coconuts with nothing but a straw to drink the water and a spoon to scoop out the meat.

Chocolate Mint Pudding

Jelly from a young coconut (about 3/4 cup. Reserve the coconut water for drinking or for another recipe)
1 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
4 fresh mint leaves
Sweetener of choice, to taste

Put the jelly, chocolate, and mint in a food processor. Process until smooth, scraping the sides as needed. Stir in sweetener to taste and enjoy!

Serves one mommy and one silly tiny toddler.

Vegan No-Bake Lactation Cookies

I get so many requests for my vegan lactation cookie recipe, so I figured I'd post it publicly so that all the moms out there can use it.  And hey, it's not just for lactating moms!  My husband and son love these things.  No, they have not lactated as a result of eating them.  They are just tasty cookies with lots of stuff in them to help support lactation.  They are dairy-free, egg-free, wheat-free, and can be soy-free depending on what non-dairy options you pick.  They might not work for all women since everyone responds differently to galactagogues, but they work for me.

Vegan No-Bake Lactation Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I've used soy, rice, and almond successfully)

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup peanut butter (the natural all-peanut kind)

1/2 cup vegan margarine (Earth balance works well and comes in a soy-free variety as well)

1 Tsp vanilla

3 cups old fashioned oatmeal

1/2 cup ground flax seed

2-4 Tbsp brewer's yeast or nutritional yeast

Combine oatmeal, flax seed, and brewer's yeast in a large bowl. 

In a small saucepan, combine non-dairy milk, sugar, cocoa, peanut butter, and margarine. Stir over medium heat and bring to a boil. Boil mixture for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add vanilla. 

Pour chocolate mixture over oatmeal mixture and stir well to combine. Drop cookies onto a cookie sheet or wax paper to cool or refrigerate until cookies are firm and no longer sticky.

Variations:
I've played with a couple of variations on this recipe recently that turned out well. Replacing the peanut butter with another nut butter like almond or hazelnut is tasty. I also tried adding a scoop of vegan protein powder to the oatmeal mix before adding in the heated liquid mixture, and that also turned out well.