Wow, it’s been a while. I’ve been dealing with a bunch of family issues and haven’t had the mental capacity to post here for a long time – sorry about that! Just a quick update – Bode has a whole slew of health issues. He had a brain surgery and an ENT surgery. Very long story short – we confirmed that he has Crouzon’s syndrome – a rare genetic condition that is ironically due to a mutation in a gene that Minhan studied in graduate school for a bit. He’s getting all of the medical support he needs, and we’re getting back into the groove of life.
Anyway, I love my kids very much and both of them are in daycare. I want them to be able to enjoy healthy, home baked snacks that are also school-friendly (no peanuts), so I developed this recipe for some school-friendly oatmeal cookies. These cookies are relatively high in fiber, protein, and micronutrients. Plus, they taste great! Substituting all-purpose flour with whole grain teff flour adds a lot of protein (depending on your source of information, it is either a complete protein or very close to it) and fiber. Likewise, substituting peanut butter with sunflower butter adds protein, fiber, and iron, among other nutrients. Substituting refined white sugar with maple syrup adds antioxidants and micronutrients and is lower on the glycemic index, meaning it doesn’t cause sugar spikes as rapidly. The chocolate chips are 100% cacao, so no added butter or sugar there either!
The Batter
Making these school-friendly oatmeal cookies is so easy. Since the flour has no gluten, there’s no need to worry about overmixing. That means there’s no need to separate the dry and wet ingredients! Honestly, I just add all of the wet ingredients, then the dry ingredients, then mix either by hand with a spatula or with a mixer.
I love that the timing of making this batter is so flexible because that means that Booker can help out and we don’t have to worry about ruining the texture of the cookies!
The Bake
I use a medium cookie scooper (1.5 tbsp capacity) to scoop these onto my silicone baking mat, then bake them at 350°F for 8-10min before letting them cool on the baking sheet for 5min and transferring to a rack to cool.
Alright, time to nerd out on science for a bit. Sunflower seed butter contains a good amount of chlorophyll, which is the green pigment found in plants. When chlorophyll reacts with baking soda, the result is a greenish hue, which is completely harmless and looks pretty cool in a cookie!
School-Friendly Oatmeal Cookies
Materials:
- 100g extra virgin olive oil
- 100g maple syrup
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100g sunflower butter (make sure the only ingredients are sunflower seeds and salt!)
- 100g whole grain teff flour
- 0.5 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 100g oats (not quick oats)
- 75g sultanas or raisins
- 25g 100% cacao chocolate chips
Methods:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a mixing bowl, add all of the ingredients in order (you can do out of order, but I find this order to be the easiest), and mix!
- Use a medium scoop (1.5tbsp capacity) to scoop batter onto a silicone baking mat on a baking sheet.
- Bake for ~8-10min depending on how soft you want them. NOTE: cookies will continue to firm up a little while they cool on the baking sheet.
- Cool on the baking sheet for 5min before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy!