Lactation Cookies

~by Emi

Well, it's Monday. And a perfect day for cookies.

Actually, I am convinced that is it always the perfect day for cookies.

Anyway...

Good morning! Rise and shine, campers! Time to get yourself into your kitchen and make some delicious lactation cookies! The first Monday of every month I, Emi, will be regaling you with my kitchen-based exploits in the pursuit of a meal good enough to share with you all.

This week just so happens to be Global Breastfeeding Week, and these lactation cookies are the perfect, delicious way to boost your milk production. If you're a breastfeeding Mama. Otherwise they're just delicious cookies with odd ingredients.

I first came across these cookies last September after my daughter, Pixie, was born. We had the usual visitors, bringing baby clothes and little toys and flowers, but what I was *really* waiting for was two very special friends of ours, David and Sarah.

There is a very good reason for this. They give the *best* presents. (Not *just* the presents, they're also kind, sweet, great company and so on.) Now, I'm not a materialistic person, but everyone loves presents. I especially love presents when they are as thoughtful and kind as the ones this couple gives.

Their baby gift to us for Ru's birth was to FILL our freezer with nutritious, delicious, home-made food so we wouldn't have to cook in the days after our son's arrival. Stephen and I will still sit back on occasion and say "Hey, remember those sweet and sour lentils and the cowboy chilli that David and Sarah made? *Man*, they were tasty."

Needless to say, they came up trumps once again with gifts after Pixie was born.

They arrived with little gifts, including a gorgeous handmade felted ball (quickly claimed by the cats), and cookies. And a recipe to make the cookies.

You see, these lactation cookies contain ingredients known as galactagogues. These are substances that promote milk-production in humans (and other animals). The three used in these cookies are flax (in the flaxseed meal), oats, and brewer's yeast. Other galactagogues include asparagus, fennel, and quinoa. There are none of these in the cookies. That would just be weird.

So, enough talking, let's get baking!

You will need the following ingredients!

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar (brown, white, golden, mixture, doesn't matter)

4 tbsp water

2 tbsp flaxseed meal *

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups oats

2 tbsp brewer's yeast *

(optional: 1 cup of your choice of extras! Eg. chocolate chips, raisins, mixed peel etc + cinnamon/ginger/a little honey for taste)

*these can both be bought in most health food stores

1. Preheat oven to 190*C (GM 5).

2. Put flaxseed meal into the water to soak for 2-5 minutes. It is going to look like a gooey mess, that's ok. Do not be alarmed.

3. Cream the butter and sugar together. (My husband said I should have put in a photo of the creaming, but I'm guessing most of you know how to use a handmixer...) I had a sneaky lick of the butter spoon. I love butter.

4. Add the eggs, flaxseed meal/water mix, and vanilla. Mix up. I'm lucky, the same Sarah who gave me the cookies recipe *also* gave me homemade vanilla essence as a Yule gift!

5. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix.

6. Add the oats, chocolate chips/raisins, spices if using and brewer's yeast. Mix.

Really, this is all pretty simple and easy to change up depending on what you have in. This time round, I had less flaxseed meal (I ran out), white chocolate chips and extra butter. I have no excuse for the extra butter other than the fact that I was drinking wine whilst I made these on Sunday evening.

Here I am, drinking wine.

7. Scoop onto baking sheet, I usually use a big spoon and just dump them on the greaseproof paper pretty haphazardly, but I made an effort for the purposes of the blog.

8. Bake for 8-12 minutes. Or longer. Or shorter. Depends on your oven. And how well-done you like your cookies. And how big your scoops of dough were.

An optional ninth step is to amuse yourself whilst waiting for the cookies to bake. Personally, I kept checking on them, worried that they'd merge in to one giant cookie, took Myspace-esque photos of me, my husband and Pixie...

 

And fed some leftover dough to my youngest cat. I don't *think* it will cause spontaneous lactation in cats, but Steve has told me if we find tiny kitty-milk trails in the morning that I have to clean it up.

9. When the cookies look kind-of-sort-of browned on top, take them out, and then eat them. Store any uneaten ones in an air-tight container.

A batch usually doesn't last long in my home, as I have a hungry husband, a toddler, a baby and four cats that all love cookies as much as me. I do try and keep them for myself, hide away in the kitchen, greedily, secretly stuffing cookies into my craw, but it's like Ru has a sixth sense for knowing when *I* am eating something that he is *not* eating. (I'm also well aware that cats are not supposed to eat cookies, but I have tried telling them that but they don't listen. Can only assume that I speak very bad 'Meow'.)

All in all, these cookies are full of good stuff, are easy to bake and if they boost my milk production too, then I am all for them.

And they are all for me.

Make your own.

Emi, x

"Om nom nom nomnom nom nomnom."

~ Me