Lactation Cookies 101
Everyone has a magic recipe for lactation cookies, but when I started drilling down, it became clear that most of these recipes were simply full of white flour, butter and sugar, and would mostly contribute to blood sugar fluctuations and baby blues. Definitely not supportive of a new breast feeding mum.
When you’re looking to increase your milk supply, the absolute key ingredient is REST. There is absolutely nothing that beats it, and cookies are not going to be able to augment your breast milk if you’re running around like a headless chicken.
However, if you’re looking for a healthy snack that contains galactagogues, or ingredients that support the production of breast milk, this is a good place to start. This recipe contains the following galactagogues: oats (simply amazing for improving the quantity and quality of your milk), flaxseed and fennel. It is also packed full of fats, in the form of nuts and seeds, coconut butter and coconut oil. Eating enough fat when you’re breast feeding is essential to keeping your milk supply rich and full. If you don’t have it in your diet, the fat can’t pass through to your breast milk, and it’s the fat that keeps the baby full and content.
This recipe is adapted from the Little Bird Goodness Oat Coconut Cookie Recipe. If you’re looking for a fantastic alternative that you can buy off the shelf, don’t go past the Little Bird Cookies. They taste great and are packed full of goodness to make your milk supply rock and roll.
If you’re looking for some hefty nutritional support during breast feeding, I recommend adding a power packed smoothie every afternoon. It’s packed full of goodies that will help boost your milk supply in the evening, when the milk quality is often dwindling with the end of the day fatigue.
Lactation Cookies
Makes 12 cookies
Ingredients:
1/3 cup of ground flaxseed or LSA or Ceres Superseed Blend
1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
1 cup of desicated coconut
1 cup of coconut sugar
2 pinches of sea salt
2 tsp of ground cinammon
2 tsp of fennel seeds
1 cup of pitted dates
2T melted coconut butter
1/3 cup of melted extra virgin coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup of filtered water
OPTIONAL:
Add 1/3 cup of dark chocolate chip or more if you wish, to make a choc chip version
Add 1/3 cup of dried apricots or raisins or more if you wish to make a fruit oat version
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180degrees celcius.
Grind 1/2 cup of the oats into a flour. Do this by placing them in a high speed blender or food processor. If you only have whole flaxseeds you can also grind these into a flour using a blender or food processor.
In a bowl combine the ground flaxseed or LSA or super seed blend with the oat flour you just made and the remaining rolled oats. Add the desicated coconut, coconut sugar, salt, fennel and cinnamon and mix together.
In a food processor or blender process the dates til they form a paste (add some water if necessary). Then add the melted coconut butter and coconut oil and pulse. Once combined add the vanilla extract and water and pulse a few more times. Don’t worry if you have a few chunks of dates in there.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a spoon until they are well combined.
If you wish to add choc chips or dried fruit, cut them small and add them at this point.
Take 1 dessert spoon of dough and roll it into a ball. Place it on a lined baking try and press it down to form round cookies that are approximately 5mm thick.
Bake the cookies for 25mins. Take them out of the oven and leave to cool.
You can store these cookies in an airtight container for several weeks.