Lactation Cookies

Since we started the baking blog almost two years ago, I've made very few things more than once. I've wanted to experiment, to share new recipes, and there is no shortage of new recipes to try. There are a few staples, sure, like Oatmeal Carmelitas and Cake Mix Coolers and Blueberry Banana Bread, that I've made repeatedly, as well as special occasion foods like the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake that I make for my husband's birthday, but for the most part, most of it has been new.

But I've made this cookie recipe pretty much every two weeks for the last two months. I love it because you can mix it up a bit - I've added cranberries, substituted white chocolate chips, etc. - and it yields about six dozen, so I freeze most of them and have a ready stash.

The other reason I love it? A bit more complicated, and perhaps, at first, a bit more challenging to follow. But here I go:

Breastfeeding is hard work, yo. (Cue your "I thought this was a baking blog?!" statements here.) I gave birth to my daughter more than five (!) months ago, and she's been exclusively breastfed. We plan to introduce solids after her six-month pediatrician's appointment, but for now, her nutrition is all on me. No pressure, right? :) We've actually had a fairly easy time of it - no issues latching, no supply problems, no real pain - and I am extremely grateful for that. But it hasn't been a stress-free journey.

Initially, it is very exhausting and overwhelming to be "on-call" 24/7. After the first few weeks, things calmed down a bit, but the whole process of breastfeeding works on the premise of supply and demand. And when I returned to work, I worried it would  be harder to keep up the supply, because a breast pump just doesn't replicate the demand as well. Combine that with added stress and sometimes having to miss a pumping session because of work-place demands, and supply can easily plummet for some women.

But to keep my supply up, I sacrificed: I make and eat these cookies regularly. I know, I know - I lead a tough life, but someone has to eat the cookies!

I was introduced to the lactation cookies in one of my mommy/baby groups - it is actually a "breastfeeding support" group, but we cover a variety of topics, from eating to sleeping to acid reflux. The facilitator of the group brought these cookies in to one of our meetings, and although it *could* be psychological, they really do seem to help. I was without cookies for a few days at one point, and it didn't seem like I was pumping as much as I usually do.

Oatmeal is a food commonly mentioned in conversations about naturally increasing breastmilk supply, and these cookies contain two other key ingredients: Brewer's Yeast and flax seed. I found the yeast at a natural food store, and while it wasn't cheap, I am set for life and even shared some with another mom.

 The breastfed wonder. She knows she's cute :)

But aside from those ingredients? These are your run-of-the-mill chocolate chip cookies. My husband and one of his friends have eaten them (without lactating) and were surprised at how "normal" they taste. They're not the healthiest cookies I've ever made, considering they have a cup of butter in them (and my attempt to substitute "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" produced flat, not-quite-right cookies), but when you're breastfeeding, you need to consume *some* extra calories to make up for the fact that you're contributing so many to the baby. It isn't advised to eat a diet of Twinkies, onion rings and Skittles to get those extra calories, but if I'm going to eat a dessert, I now choose these cookies.

Mommy note: I often make the batter for these at night, when my daughter is in bed, and then I bake them during her nap or playtime the next day, when I can put her in her jumperoo for a few minutes and dart in and out of the kitchen to change cookie sheets. Life with an infant can be a little unpredictable, so at least if the batter is made, I can sneak in a few baking sessions here and there during the course of the day.

Mommy note II: These wouldn't be a bad gift for a new mom, especially if you know she's breastfeeding. Or you could buy some of the pre-made mix from a seller like Hardier Lime. 

Ingredients:

1 C butter
1 C sugar
1 C brown sugar
4 T water
2 T flaxseed meal (no substitutions)
2 Lg eggs
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
3 C Thick cut oats
1 C Chocolate chips
2 T Brewers Yeast (no substitutions)

Directions:

Preheat oven at 375.

Mix 2 T of flaxseed meal and water, set aside 3-5 minutes.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs.

Stir flaxseed mix into butter mix and add vanilla. Beat until well blended.

Sift dry ingredients (except oats and chocolate chips).

Add butter mix to dry ingredients.

Stir in the oats and then the choc chips.

Drop on parchment paper on baking sheet. Bake 8-12 minutes.

Source: Epicurious

Raspberry Oatmeal Bars

As the end of my pregnancy nears, I feel like I could be doing or making things for the last time before the baby arrives. I was recently scheduled for a shift in a different department than my usual one and realized it could be my last time in that department before my maternity leave.

So clearly that meant I needed to bake for them.

I had saved this recipe to my "Recipe Box" on allrecipes.com more than a year ago. I don't know why I never made them - they are amazingly cheap, easy and taste absolutely fantastic. They are perfect for summer, too - the berry taste is very prominent, and the bars are so soft and buttery it is ridiculous. I'm a sucker for anything involving cake mix, too. I will definitely be making them again and hope to substitute some other kinds of jam in, too - I'm imagining blackberry, strawberry ... mmmm ...

They were a hit with my coworkers, and my husband suggested that I start selling them.

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
2 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
3/4 cup margarine, melted
1 cup raspberry jam
1 tablespoon water

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, cake mix, and melted margarine so that it makes nice clumps and there is no dry mix left. Press 1/2 of the oats mixture evenly into the bottom the prepared pan. In a separate bowl, mix jam with water, and spread over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture evenly over the top.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 to 23 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Cool before cutting into bars.

Source: allrecipes.com

An affordable - and tasty - new tradition

Kristin and I have bought each other birthday and Christmas gifts for years. But with the economy what it is, and both of us trying to save money for various endeavors, this year we decided to try something new.

Instead of shipping gifts across the country, we shipped... yes, that's right... baked goods!

It's brilliant, really. We co-author this baking blog, but living 1,000 miles away means we never get to reap the benefits of the other one's creations. So now we do!

I admit that I *may* have dropped one or two *tiny* hints to Kris that if a container of Oatmeal Carmelitas appeared on my doorstep, I would not be overly disappointed. I had the joy of tasting them once when I visited her in Florida, and have dreamed about them ever since. Yeah, I could have made them myself. But somehow it's just not the same, you know?

Thankfully, she's a smart girl, and the 50 or 60 hints I dropped appeared to have been received, because I came home from work today to this glorious site:


If you are ever looking to bake something that you need to ship, these held up extremely well. Not a broken one in the bunch. I popped them right in the fridge (well, after devouring one or two), and they stayed fresh and tasty forEVER. Yuuuum.

I wonder if she'll send them to me again for my birthday....

Butterscotch Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I spent the summer splitting my time between two different departments. Each week, I'd be in the news department for about two days, then move to sports for the next three days. Lately, I've been in sports five days a week, which means news is *not* getting baked good love from me :(

I took advantage of a rare news shift a few weeks ago to fix this problem.

I also took advantage of ingredients I had in my cupboard and my insane desire to recreate fall in every cookie, bar, bread and other creation I can. Florida doesn't have a real fall (we get two days of crisp fall-ish weather in January), and I am IN LOVE with all things autumn, so it kills me to still be running my air conditioner at full blast and sweat on the way from the car to the office. I'm sure you'll hear more about this in future postings :)

One coworker told me these were the best cookies she'd ever had. They went fast, but I have to say that if I make them again, I'll use more butterscotch chips. You can never have too many!

Ingredients:
1 yellow or spice cake mix (I used spice)
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup applesauce
2 cups quick oats
1 cup butterscotch chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With a spoon, mix cake mix, eggs, oil and applesauce together.


Stir in quick oats one cup at a time. Add butterscotch chips. Drop doug balls onto a lightly greased cookies sheet.


Bake 9-12 minutes or until light golden brown around edges. Remove cookies and place on nonstick rack to cool.

Source: 101 More Things To Do With A Cake Mix by Stephanie Ashcraft

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

I felt like baking over the weekend, and I'm sort of on a breakfast baking kick lately (i.e., buttermilk pancakes, biscotti and zucchini bread). So I decided to stick with that theme and whip up some muffins.

I'm also at that point during the summer where I am simply tired of the heat. Every time I go outside, I think, "Ugh. STILL hot." This happens toward the end of August each year.

For those who live back East, the best time of year is about to arrive -- fall. The air gets crisper, the leaves start to change, and pumpkin spice cappuccino hits the gas stations. But in Phoenix, it will still be hot into October.

So, I chose a muffin recipe that is reminiscent of fall. I'm hoping it will bring me a miracle: a cool September. I even used muffin wrappers with fall leaves all over them. That should do the trick, don't you think?

These are pretty tasty. They are light and fluffy, and the chunks of apples are refreshing and give the muffins a nice bite.


Ingredients
1 package white cake mix
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1-3/4 cups peeled and chopped apples (2 large apples)
1-1/3 cups milk
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions
1. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oats, cinnamon and baking powder. Stir to blend. In another large bowl, whisk together eggs, apples, milk and melted butter.

2. Add dry ingredients, stirring with a wooden spoon just until blended. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins.


3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until set and golden.

Source: Duncan Hines' Cake Mix Magic

For the record, it is still hot. Record high temperatures and record low monsoon rainfall, in fact. Maybe it's time to bake a pumpkin pie?

Oatmeal Choconut Cookies

My friend Julia is heading to law school in a few short weeks, and this past weekend we had a going away party for her. I was in charge of desserts. (Woo!) I made several old favorites (cake mix cookies, cookie dough pizza, and lemon chillers), and I also branched out with some new recipes.

One of the new recipes was these Oatmeal Choconut Cookies. I wanted something moist (and Meg and I have found anything with cake mix stays soft and moist longer) and had oatmeal and coconut to use up, so this totally fit the bill.

Ingredients:
1 yellow or white cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup coconut
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat over to 350 degrees. With a spoon, mix cake mix, eggs and butter together.

Stir in coconut, oats and chocolate chips.

Drop dough balls on to a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake 9-12 minutes or until light golden brown around edges. Remove cookies and place on non-stick rack to cool.


Note: Semisweet or peanut butter chips can be used in place of milk chocolate chips.

Source: 101 More Things To Do With A Cake Mix by Stephanie Ashcraft

Moon Rocks

I have a few recipe books that I absolutely adore. One of them is from the "3 Books in 1" series - Cookies, Bars and Muffins. My good friend Jen gave me this book for Christmas 2006, and I've gotten a lot of use out of it. You'll likely see me post a lot of recipes from that book on this blog.

Julia borrowed the book when she was looking for a cookie recipe for a Christmas cookie exchange. She tried a cookie called "Moon Rocks." The cookies were yummy, but they were flat, and she knew why - the recipe called for cake mix with pudding in the mix. She wasn't using cake mix with pudding in the mix.

For Julia's Signing Day, I decided to recreate the Moon Rocks. I made sure I got a cake mix with pudding in the mix. It was fun - if you want to work out some aggression on a cookie, this is your answer. You get to smash up some pretzel sticks! But that's where my recommendation of this cookie ends. I don't know why, but it was one of the most dry, almost stale tasting cookies I've ever made/eaten. It might have been a fluke, but it just didn't taste fresh.

My sister had told Meghan and I she wanted us to send her samples of our baked goods. We told her if she joined the blog as a "follower" (see the section on the lower right side of our blog - hi followers!) we would send her food. I threw a few of these cookies in to a plastic bag and mailed them to her to thank her for supporting the East to West Bakers. I had little faith that they would not end up crushed and squished merely because I didn't really pack them all that well. Marti reported that they were, in fact, "pulverized." But, she admitted, they were also rather dry. "But still delicious!" she said.

But dry.

I don't like dry cookies. And I'm not quite sure why this recipe produced dry cookies. I will share it with you for the mere reason that maybe you will recreate them and they will be grand and you can tell me what a silly blogging baker ninny I am.

Ingredients:

1 package (18-1/4 ounces) devil's food or German chocolate cake mix with pudding in the mix

3 eggs

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

2 cups slightly crushed (2-1/2-inch) pretzel sticks

1-1/2 cups uncooked old-fashioned oats

1 cup swirled chocolate and white chocolate chips or candy-coated semisweet chocolate baking pieces

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Blend cake mix, eggs and butter in large bowl. Stir in crushed pretzels, oats and chocolate chips. (Dough will be stiff.)

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.


Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until set. Let cookies cool on cookie sheets 1 minute; transfer to wire racks to to cool completely.

Source: Favorite Brand Name 3 Books in 1: Cookies, Bars, Muffins

Oatmeal Carmelitas

My grandmother brought carmelitas to a family dinner once. I must have been in elementary or middle school when I first had them. We had moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania in 1988, but back then, my grandparents drove out to see us every few weeks, and Grandma ALWAYS brought food. (I am convinced she is the source of my journalistic and baking interests, but that's all for another post at another time.)

The gooey bars were offered. Then devoured. We were skeptical at first - so many layers, an oatmealy crumble on top, etc. - but quickly fell in love with them. Luckily, my mom got the recipe and made them for us, too. I've made them more times than I can remember - they've become a favorite of every place I've worked. My little torn out recipe square is battered, oil-stained and well-worn.

I love these bars because they're easy, delicious and can be enjoyed cold or warm, so I don't have to worry about anything except preventing them from completely melting.

Ingredients:

Crust
2	cups flour
2	cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 1/2	cups firmly packed brown sugar
1	teaspoon baking soda
1/2	teaspoon salt
1 1/4	cups margarine or butter, softened (*a substitute like "I can't believe it's not butter" does not work well)
Filling
1	(12.5-oz.) jar (1 cup) caramel ice cream topping
3	tablespoons flour
1	(6-oz.) pkg. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
1/2	cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

	Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9-inch pan. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. In large bowl, combine all crust ingredients; mix at low speed until crumbly. Reserve half of crumb mixture (about 3 cups) for topping. Press remaining crumb mixture in bottom of greased pan. Bake at 350°F. for 10 minutes.
	Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine caramel topping and 3 tablespoons flour; blend well.
	Remove partially baked crust from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts. Drizzle evenly with caramel mixture; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.
	Return to oven; bake an additional 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled. Refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or until filling is set. Cut into bars.

The crust mixture.

Drizzling yummy caramel goodness on the crust and chocolate chips.

Fresh out of the oven!

Source: Pillsbury bakeoff winner, 1967.