Lactation Cookies

Okay?!!! Don’t be taken aback by the title. Yes these are cookies with special ingredients to boost breast milk production, however, my DH has eaten quite a number of these in the recent week and he hasn’t grown man boobs yet. It’d be nice for him to take over a few of the overnight feeds I tell you. The original recipe I found online came out a bit stodgy, so I decided I’d try a batch using my rock cakes recipe, they taste 100% better.

Ingredients:

75g butter

1/2 cup castor sugar (I used brown sugar this time)

1/2 cup Plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

2 cups rolled oats

2 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp flaxseed meals

3 tbsp brewer’s yeasts

1 egg

1 tbsp treacle

1 cup dark chocolate chips

¾ cup chopped macadamia nuts

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 180C.

2.          Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add to it the sugar.

3.          Chopped chilled butter into small cubes and add to the dry mixture.

4.          Used your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

5.          Add the flaxseed meal, sesame seeds, oats and brewer’s yeasts.

6.          Add lightly beaten egg and the treacle to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.

7.          Add the chocolate chips and nuts and mix till even.

8.          Spoon a heap tablespoonful of mixture onto a flat baking tray, pressing the top to flatten it a little, allowing room for the cookie mixture to spread.

9.          Bake in 180C oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. The cookies will harden once they’re cooled.

Treacle Banana Cake

Banana cake is comfort food for me. I just love the aroma of it baking in the oven perfuming the house. I tweaked a recipe to include the treacle, and it’s come up really nice. It has a caramelised characteristic to it compared to the common garden variety.

Ingredients: (makes one 20cm round cake or 12 large muffins)

125g unsalted butter, softened

¾ brown sugar

1 large tbsp treacle

A pinch of salt

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarb soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large bananas, mashed

1/3 cup buttermilk

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 160C.

2.          Cream butter and sugar, add salt, vanilla, bananas and eggs. Mix well.

3.          Sift in the flour and bicarb soda.

4.          Gently fold it in pouring the buttermilk in two lots.

5.          Mix evenly.

6.          Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes for a cake, and 15 minutes for muffins.

Turmeric Rice (Nasi Kunyit)

My baby turned one month old yesterday. In Malaysia we celebrate the occasion as “Full Moon”, where usually a party is held and friends and relatives come to be introduced to the newcomer and visit the new mother (since traditionally the mother and baby are not to leave the house for a whole month!)

Nasi Kunyit or turmeric glutinous rice is usually served at one of these parties, or gets packed in boxes to be distributed to friends and relatives. It symbolises wealth (gold) to finance the child’s upbringing. It accompanies the “Red Eggs” which are just hard boiled eggs with the shells dyed red to symbolise fertility. (Even numbers for girl babies, odd numbers for boy babies). Throw in a nice chicken curry it makes a hearty meal.

Ingredients

3 cups of glutinous rice

2 tbsp turmeric powder

1 piece of dried tamarind (or use 1 tbsp of tamarind paste)

5 cloves

5 cardamom pods

400ml of coconut milk

Salt

Water

Method

1.          Wash the starch off the rice.

2.          Soak the rice in 3 cups of water, add in the turmeric powder and tamarind.

3.          Preferably soak the rice overnight or at least 4 hours.

4.          Wash off the residues, the rice should be nice and yellow by now.

5.          Add in the spices and spread the rice in a flat tray.

6.          Add the coconut milk and salt and steam the rice on high for 20-30 minutes.

Here's a baby photo.