Recipe: EW Mom's Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Lactation Cookies

While I seem to have enough milk to keep my little one happy (and at a healthy weight - 7lb7oz at birth, he weighed in at 13lbs at 2 months!) I have been trying to pump extra every day in order to store up for my return to work.  I'm not sure how much each thing is helping exactly, but so far my combination of 2 cups of Mother's milk tea and a bowl of oatmeal daily seem to be doing the trick.

I finally got around to baking some lactation cookies this week. For the EW Lactation cookie, I based my recipe off of what seemed to be the highest rated / reviewed recipes by 1) Kelly Winder of www.BellyBelly.com.au,  and Noel Trujillo.   Of note, both their recipes make a huge batch (which is suitable if you're planning to share with your family).  My recipe is half a batch, which still yielded plenty of cookies (approx 50 bit sized ones).  The "magic" ingredients which stimulate milk production appear to be flaxseed, oatmeal, and brewer's yeast.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter 
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1.5 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal  
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt  
• 1 1/2 cup oats, thick cut if you can get them (I used quaker instant oats b/c that is what I had in my pantry, and it worked out fine) 
• 1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 2 heaping tablespoons of brewers yeast 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mix the flaxseed meal and water and let sit for 3-5 minutes
3. Beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar well.
4. Add eggs and mix well
5. Add flaxseed mix and vanilla, beat well.
6. Sift together flour, brewers yeast, baking soda, and salt.
7. Add dry ingredients to butter mix.
8. Stir in oats, cranberries, white chocolate chips, macadamia nuts. 
9. scoop onto baking sheets (I like my cookies on the smaller sized so used a teaspoon) 
10. Bake until golden and soft but firm in center.  I like my cookies soft and chewy so for teaspoon size cookies, I baked them for approx 8 min. Adjust your time for longer if you like your cookies more baked through and/or larger.
11. Let set for a couple minutes then remove from tray.