D201: Citrus lactation cookies

Bub has been unwell these past few days - a bit of a fever and actual malaise.  I'm not sure I've witnessed malaise before. It seems such a generic, vague description, but she demonstrated it perfectly.  Today the doctor said she had rosiola, thank goodness, coz I thought it was measles.

As a result we won't be cancelling our Melbourne Cup Day visit to our lovely friends tomorrow!  So lactation cookies are on the books tonight because I love donating them to my lovely friend!

Usually I make them with grated apple (to counter the peppery flavour of the flaxseed, and add some moisture), apricots and sultanas.  However I'm out of apricots right now, and while sultanas are always about I thought a bit of a variation might be nice.

These ones have the juice and zest of a large orange added to the flaxseed soaking stage.  It was basically a big ball of juice so I added a little more flaxseed to the first step.  I planned to split the recipe and put dried peel and sultanas in one third, and chocolate chips in the other two thirds.  The peel, however, had seen better days, and once I smelled the lovely zestiness in the mix nothing but chocolate - dark chocolate - would do.  I'm hoping my friend will put aside any guilt about chocolate for the cookies: she's mumming three beautiful kids, breastfeeding and house-holding it all together. Two choc chip cookies a day are the bare minimum in my opinion ;)

D148-51: oh my goodness gracious me oh my

I

Am writing this

With a tall cup of tea in front of me

And nothing in particular to do

Just for a while.

Here are my Maker wins at the end of our first First Birthday season.

One: The Bunting

I finished the birthday bunting on Friday night, in good time for the in-laws' visit on Saturday.  Even more rewarding was that Bub noticed it as soon as she entered the dining room that morning and made lots of sweet noises and pointing gestures.  *glee!*

Sub-wins include it looking nice and neat and not having to correct any spelling errors.

Two: The Party Favours

Sorry for the poor pics. The colours were rather cool though!

I finished the biscuit icing in good time for the party, though wish I'd been quicker on Saturday morning.  I was finishing them off as family arrived, but it did help explain everything I was doing.

I even chose to 'delegate' in a way.  I had thought 6 biscuits in a bag might be too much for little kids, but two bags for bigger kids makes it clearly unfair.  So I had bags of four and of two, and explained that parents could decide how much was enough for their children, considering how many chocolate crackles, corn chips and pieces of fairy bread they'd already had.  And there was heaps that way, with lots of choice.

Deciding to do bags of twos and fours meant I didn't need to bake and ice more biscuits so that every child would get six.  Yay for brains!

Three-A:  The birthday cake

What was left after the party

I took a risk and used Nigella Lawson's Awesome Vanilla Cake recipe.  The risk was in never having used the recipe before and that it uses oil instead of butter.  I've made cakes with oil before, but not with no butter at all.  Initially I could smell the oil really easily.  However, I think that smell largely left once it cooled and the butter icing made a good difference for the taste.

I chose the recipe because it's ridiculously quick to make and there was a pretty good recommendation on the webpage.  And it is very quick to make.  Seriously.  You couldn't even use it in a race, it's that quick. Beat egg and sugar for 1min, add the rest, beat for another minute. Pour.  See?  Zoom.  Took longer to line the pan.

On Saturday night Hub helped me make it a random rainbow cake, which was fun and successful.  In the end I didn't get a proper shot of the cake.  I thought it looked rather amateurish, but it tasted yum and looked happy, which is all the really matters.

Three-B:  The birthday cake again

By Sunday morning I was worried one cake wasn't enough.  So I did the time calculations and after putting Bub down for her morning nap I made another layer, this time without colour.  It had cooled enough to sandwich the two cakes together with blackberry jam, cover it with butter icing and arrange some Smarties on top (all the pink, red and purple ones in the shape of a 1), all completed mere minutes before we left.  Two helpers made a difference too, which leads me to...

Four: Asking for help

I called on one of my BFFs. She's the kind of person I'd trust with my baby, my keys, my kidneys.  She's that good.  At less than 12hrs notice she came to the party 90mins early, bringing her fiancé, and they helped us chop, slice, scoop, decant, sort, decorate, arrange, glad-wrap, pack, transport, arrange, heat, serve, tidy, clean, wash, vacuum and mop.  It was above and beyond the call.  I sincerely look forward to being able to pay it all back, coz I don't think I can thank her enough to actually match my gratitude.  It could not have happened without them.

And not a Maker aspect but a win nevertheless...

Scoring the venue!

We had hoped to use the park on the day and told our friends a few weeks ago.  Then we realised there was a hot plate there so thought sausage sizzle, yeah? Little casual, whatevs.  Then we got into the week before and knew that we'd been kidding ourselves.  August has been windy. (How windy? More italics please.)  It's been showers and generally random <10°C all over the shop.  Yuck.  And we were going to take our friends to the park?  In the wet wind?  With food that rolls?  Hurrrrrrr...

So long story short, I found that the room my parents' group uses was not only for hire, and not only available for that afternoon, but about 60% the regular cost coz I'm a member.*  Full kitchen, outdoor play area and lots of toys appropriate for my friends' kids?  Yes please. The only downside was the start time being 90mins later, but in reality we needed all the prep time we could get.

And the extra icing on the cake: Bub enjoyed herself and rolled with the day in very fine form.  She was a star.

Our little One Year Old girl!

It was a total success.

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*At this point I knew I was about to do exactly what I said I wouldn't do, which was cater for all our friends at a hired venue.  I was sure panic attacks would ensue and I'd unravel in a pyjamaed, crazy-haired, watery, jittering mess.  Two things saved me: being too tired and busy to actually build up any anxiety, and knowing, in the back of my mind, that all my friends would be absolutely fine if I'd chucked it all and ordered a dozen pizzas.

D125: In retrospect...

I made some lactation cookies on Wednesday night.  I was miraculously organised, doing parts of the recipe as I prepared dinner, which made the rest of it easier once Hub was out rock climbing and Bub was in bed.

Some of these cookies have been frozen for a dear friend of mine who was pregnant and is now a third time mum!  So much can happen in the space of a few days!

I'm constantly impressed by this friend.  She is one of my 'What Would She Do?' inspirations (inspirators?).  As I am with all parents who take this great leap, I'm terribly impressed with them officially tipping the balance of their family into Outnumbered.  While thinking of even no.2 makes my toes curl (I know, one is easy in comparison), I'm sure these guys are going to romp it in.  I'd be under-selling it to say they're pretty gosh-darn good, but I know she reads my blog, so I'll save her modesty and reign it in with a gentle 'fecking awesome'.  Congratulations lovie!  Mwah!

D95: Homey timin'

Today was one of bits and pieces, chores and errands.

Here is the fruit purée I made for Bub.  It's a little experimental, based on a favourite smoothie I used to have, and mostly strawberry & cantaloupe.
It needs yoghurt but I'm pretty sure that still gives Bub eczema, so I used banana and rice cereal as thickeners.
 The experimental part is that I'm freezing it to store but I don't want to warm it when defrosting. Warm cantaloupe? Gurrlegaga! You know how many chins that go with that sound, yes?  So the microwave skill level needed for this dessert is Expert.

I also tried to resurrect some failed baby food. We had two rejected items - potato & spinach and leek & cauliflower - but too much of both to chuck them out guilt-free.
I though fritters might work, with a bit of faffing around. A prototype batch with grated carrot and crushed chick peas wasn't too bad but they were rather flimsy. This batch used the rest of the chick peas, a grated zucchini and some cooked rice.  It sounded so good on paper, so effective.  Alas, the whole thing was very wet and the first batch stuck to the ('non-stick') pan.  I added flour to strengthen it and prepared more oil.  However, I had to tag with Hub to settle Bub and he just cooked the rest as is, in larger palm-sized patties.
The flavour was lovely. I decided not to take a photo... Nuf said.

In small-but-it-counts efforts, I sewed a few press studs onto this delightful flannelette wrap from an Ikea sheet set.  We've been using it to shield Bubs eyes from the night light ,which gently shines like the ever watchful eyes of an overly-affectionate radioactive puppy.  It's really very good, just surprisingly freakin bright.  In fact, once your eyes accustom to the dim, you can't even directly look at it without wincing.
So, after draping a flat nappy and a hanky over the night light*, these studs are to hold the wrap over the rail of the crib.

Hopefully I'll get some more lactation cookies done tonight.  And here I am blaming the night feeds for being tired. :|

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Look! Cookies!

Hey! Waddya know!  And I learned something today...  Raisins are pretty large and I've found that if they're in the centre of a cookie then it's way more likely to fall apart.  So when I want smaller cookies I use sultanas/currants only: Raisins are for big cookies.

*No need to freak out about fire safety:  It's a rubber-encased night-light and barely gets warm.  It's more likely to start a fire from burning my eyes.

D85: Milk & Cookies

These are Lactation Cookies.  They are for making breastmilk, not made with breastmilk.  Subtle distinction.

The recipe looks pretty familiar, except for the key ingredients, then at the end it blithely chucks in 'Makes 6 dozen'.  O_o  Hmm, I wondered, shall we be weaning later than I thought? But in the end it was closer to a mere 4 dozen (minus the several Hub stole).

I used the recipe from bellybelly.com.au.  It's very easy, once you hunt down the special ingredients.  We found the flaxseed meal at our local supermarket, and the brewers yeast at a health food store although not all health food stores have it.  Some supermarkets keep it in their brewing section (down the soft drink aisle) and there are actual home-brew shops around too.  On the upside, one pack goes a long way.

Here is the recipe with a bit of extra info to help.  I didn't find the recipe crumbly at all - almost gooey in fact - but I left that text in case your batch is different.  I beat the butter and sugar till it was creamy and had changed colour and added an extra half-a-cup-ish of sultanas coz you just cannot get enough of them, especially if they caramelise on top.  I also went easy on the yeast, just in case it works really well: My supply only needs a bit of a boost, not a complete resurrection. (Fenugreek tea has been working well, but I don't like the taste very much.)

One generous tablespoon of dough gives a reasonably sized biscuit in 8 mins.  There's no need to shape the dough on the tray.  I made a few large ones (6 to a tray) thinking I'd use them as breakfast cookies, but then changed to small (12 to a tray) in case I didn't like them!

For the most part, they taste like regular oat-and-sultana style cookies, but there is definitely a background flavour of yeast and the flaxseed meal gives it an almost peppery after-taste*.  I'll try to report back on the their effectiveness too.  I've had one so far...

Lactation Cookies

• 4 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp flaxseed meal
• Half an apple, grated
• 1 cup (250g) butter or margarine
• 1.5 cups (270g) brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tspn vanilla
• 2 cups (300g) flour
• 1 tspn baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
• 1 tspn salt
• 2-4 tbsp of brewers yeast (be generous)
• 3 cups oats, thick cut if you can get them
• 1 cup or more of 'stuff' - chocolate chips/sultanas/almonds/macadamia nuts (whatever takes your fancy)

Preparation time is around 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F).
1) Mix together the apple, flaxseed meal and water. Set aside.
2) Cream (beat well) butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mix well.
3) Stir flaxseed mixture and add with vanilla to the butter mix. Beat until blended.
4) Sift together dry ingredients, except oats and 'stuff'.
5) Add to butter mixture. Stir in oats then 'stuff'.
6) Scoop or drop onto baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment. 
Bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on size of cookies (1-2 tbsp).
Makes approximately 6 dozen cookies.

Update:

Jaffa variation: Substitute the water and apple with the juice & zest of one large orange, and use dark chocolate chips as 'stuff'. Oh my goodness.

These are excellent cookies.  Do not use raisins - they're too big and the cookies breakup too easily.

*The apple is an addition with this update and counteracts the peppery aftertaste.  

Day 2: Double Choc chip cookies

I was always disappointed with bikkies. They're never as good as the bought Monte Carlos or Tim Tams. But this recipe changed me. It's the first one where I've used melted chocolate in the dough, and by George Clooney it makes a difference. It's from the Chocolate book of the Donna Hay Essentials range.

I don't make them as big as they ask. You get huge cookies when you only make 16 - I've always gotten about 20 even when I used the amount per cookie I think I should. Today I doubled the recipe and made 70 so they'll go further. I don't need that much in a cookie this rich anyway. Husband has other ideas and would prefer seven enormous cookies - enough to last him a week. Yes, my love, when you expect *all* the cookies you will need big ones so you can share them with me :|

Double Chocolate Cookies

• 110g unsalted buter, softened
• 130g (3/4 cup) brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g (1 cup) lain flour, sifted
• 30g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder, sifted
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 125g dark chocate, melted
• 280g dark chocolate, extra, roughly chopped (this is heaps, I just use what's left in a pack of melts - about 100g)

Preheat oven to 160C (320F).

Place butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 minutes of until light and creamy.

Add the egg and vanilla and beat for a further 3-4 minutes.

Stir through the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and melted chocolate. Add the extra chopped chocolate and stir to combine.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into rounds. Place on baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper, allowing room for the cookies to spread (they're about 3" across), and flatten slightly.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until slight cracks have formed.

Cool on wire racks. Makes at least 7.