Cookies for breakfast

Every now and then I do some actual cooking in the kitchen. Between cutting the cards, tying knots, and pouring all the tea, meals do get made. When the going gets tough, the tough layer over their jangled energy with baking. With HEALTHY baking.

This is my favourite cookie recipe.

I’m rather big on not sitting down to a morning meal. I know that flies in the face of what we’re taught, but the thought of a big plate full of bacon, eggs, and hash browns before 10am fills me full of HELL NO. Anything solid before 10am fills my heart with meh.

But I worked in a salon and there was no stopping for food when I did get hungry.

Enter breakfast cookies.

Before I completely start to read like one of those recipe blogs that make me want to gouge my eyes out here is the short version: I tried a couple of these recipes online and tweaked until I got something that worked for me. It’s gluten free and vegan, although that was not my intent – but if you’re into gluten free or vegan eating, make these and tell me what you think.

• Preheat the oven to 350F and line a cookie sheet with parchment.
• Into a mixing bowl, combine 1 cup rolled oats, 3 tbsp oat fibre, 1 tsp of baking powder, and 1/2 tsp sea salt. Stir well.
• To that, using dry cup measures, add: 1/2 cup real maple syrup, 1/2 cup Tahini paste. Stir well.
• Stir in a handful of dark chocolate chips and 5-6 medjool dates, pitted and chopped. I also threw a handful of crushed walnuts in this time.
• It will look too wet. Let this sit and rest for at least 15 minutes, preferably closer to 30 minutes. You may be tempted to add more dry ingredients at first. Resist! Oat fibre rehydrates more slowly than wheat flour. Quite often gluten free baking tastes like gritty sadness because we don’t leave the dough or batter to rest.
• Mound the cookies onto the sheet with either a tablespoon or ice cream scoop. This recipe isn’t like others. They won’t move a lot while baking, although they will rise a bit. After scooping, push them down gently and shape them with your fingers.
• Bake 12 minutes, take out and check. You know what you’re doing. If they look like they need more time, put them back in for two minutes and check again.

Please note: Oat FIBRE is not the same thing as oat FLOUR. You’ll probably end up getting it on Amazon because most grocery stores won’t have it. It is the powdered husk and is pure fibre. I put it in there to lower the net impact carbohydrates – but make no mistake, these are not low carb or keto, not by a long shot – and because we could all use more fibre in our diets. Pooping is good and one of these cookies typically has at least half a day’s worth of fibre in it.

So it goes without saying, that even if you love these cookies, don’t scarf down a bunch of them with your morning coffee or you’ll have disaster pants. I also put dates and oats in my breakfast cookies for the same reason.

I had a physical job. I was locked up in my hot little wax room doing body waxing and Brazilian sugaring all day long. Imagine doing jumping jacks in a sauna. I didn’t get breaks because those are non existent in my industry. I needed a way to eat something quickly, that would stick to me at least until 2:30, but more often than not, until later. Two of these cookies did the trick.

They are calorie dense. Tahini, dates, and maple syrup are high calorie foods. So are nuts. Tahini has a high amount of protein and healthy fat but that maple syrup and those dates. No matter how natural and nutritious they are, they’re jam loaded with sugars. Gorge on these night after night and your pants will get tight if you aren’t a busy bee haulin’ arse on a regular basis.

But they do taste damned frigging good 😁