Wow! I have certainly been absent from this blog for a long time; it has been ten months since my last post. I apologize for my apparent laziness, but I was a bit preoccupied having a baby! On May 9th, my husband and I welcomed our first child, Seth Edwin and we couldn’t be more in love. He is absolutely incredible and it’s amazing how quickly he changes and develops. I’m lucky enough to get to stay home with him full time and I so look forward to all the milestones I’ll get to witness.
Amazingly enough, while I was pregnant, all my food allergies vanished! I didn’t know if or when they would return, so I used that time to enjoy all the foods I missed while I had the chance to enjoy them! Needless to say, I didn’t have much need to discover or develop allergen-free recipes. Now that Seth is six weeks old, some of my allergies have returned, namely gluten and dairy. So, here we are. Hopefully, now that I’m home (and once we get into our new routine and adapt to sleep deprivation), I’ll have some more time to experiment and convert favorite recipes into gluten and dairy-free recipes. I’m sure the purpose of this blog will evolve over time to become more than just recipes, but I figure it’s a great way to relaunch!
Like most new mothers, when Seth was first born, we really struggled with breast feeding. Seth just wouldn’t latch, partially because he was just too small. We struggled through together and after just more than five weeks, we now have success! During that struggle, I was doing just about everything to help boost my milk supply while I was pumping to make sure I continued to produce as much as Seth needed and to make sure I was ready for him when we did find eventual success. One of the tricks I found most enjoyable to use was lactation cookies! (Who doesn’t like cookies?) For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, they’re basically regular cookies with ingredients added that are known to increase milk supply. The issue was, all the recipes I found were heavy-laden with ingredients I couldn’t have. So, I decided to develop my own version and share it with the world. (P.S. they’re delicious!) So, here you go!
Gluten-Free Lactation Cookies
2/3 c butter or margarine (room temperature)
2/3 c shortening (room temperature)
1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 1/2 c gluten-free baking floor of choice (Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Flour is my favorite)
1/4 tsp xantham gum (a necessity in almost all gluten-free baking)
2 tbs brewer’s yeast (can be found at most health food stores or online)
2 tbs ground flax seeds
1 c gluten-free oats
1 c chocolate chips
In a mixer, cream butter, shortening, and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla.
Stir together dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add to sugar mixture in 2-3 batches until well combined.
Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
Using a 1 or 1 1/2 inch cookie scoop, place on ungreased cookie sheet (I use a silpat silicon liner for easy clean-up), spread approximately 2 inches apart. I fit 12 cookies per sheet.
Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
You can add whatever mix-ins you like: nuts, dried fruit, etc. Also, these could be fantastic everyday cookies, just omit the brewer’s yeast, flax seeds and oats (unless, of course, you just fancy yourself some oats in your cookies).
Divine Intervention 