Bready or Not: Healthy Breakfast Cookies
Cookies for breakfast. Healthy cookies. No refined sugars. Vegan. Also gluten-free, if you use GF oats.
Even better: they taste delicious.
This is one of my favorite breakfast recipes. I customize it based on my mood and what I have on hand. I’ve made this with macadamia nut butter, cashew butter, and almond butter–and combinations thereof. I’ve used apple butter, pumpkin butter, and date butter. Equally awesome with all varieties. I love to use golden raisins, but you could throw anything in. If you don’t have pepitas? Do sunflower seeds or other chopped nuts, or omit.
These cookies are cushions of goodness… like old-fashioned peanut butter cookies, but denser and better. I whip up a batch and freeze 2/3 of it right away. It takes care of my breakfast for weeks.
I often have two cookies first thing in the morning before I exercise, and I might have one more if I’m hungry afterward. They give me the perfect amount of energy to start the day.
Did I mention they are also delicious?
Modified from a recipe on Sally’s Baking Addiction.
Bready or Not: Healthy Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups quick oats not whole or old-fashioned oats
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon heaping
- 1 cup nut butter
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup or honey
- 3/4 cup fruit butter apple butter, date butter, etc
- 1 cup dried fruit raisins, cranberries, etc
- 1/2 cup pepitas shelled pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup ground flaxseed optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325-degrees. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment or silpat baking mats, or use seasoned stoneware.
- Combine all of the ingredients into a large bowl.
- Using a tablespoon or tablespoon scoop, drop dollops of dough onto cookie sheet. Note that it won't spread. Use fingers to gently tamp down top and press in stray oats on the sides; it will be a little sticky.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, until firm. Cool for several minutes before transitioning them to a rack to finish cooling.
Makes about 28 cookies at tablespoon size. In a sealed container at room temperature, cookies will keep for at least a week. They can also be frozen without any change in taste or texture.
OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Mini French Breakfast Puffs
Every so often, I like to mention how much I love the Pioneer Woman. I own all three of her cookbooks. I’ve followed her online for years and printed out many of her recipes. I’m also an enthusiastic watcher of her television show.
The original of this recipe was featured on her show a while back. The breakfast puffs reminded me greatly of a “mini muffin pan donut” recipe I tried a few years ago. It was one of those recipes that’s really good fresh, but goes stale by the next day. Since Ree Drummond emphasized that her version stayed good and was excellent to freeze as well, I figured I needed to give her variation a try.
This being me, though, I still had that old recipe on my mind. I modified her recipe to amp up the spice, cut down the coating (it made way too much!), and adjusted everything for a mini muffin pan.
This created puffs that were much more friendly for my husband to take to work and share with a lot of co-workers… and for me to try one without having to eat an entire big honkin’ muffin.
In mini size, this makes about 40. They rose beautifully, with the texture light and cakey. Unlike the old recipe, they were just as tasty the next day, and as promised, they froze and thawed wonderfully!
The perfect bite-sized breakfast muffin. Betcha can’t eat just one.
Modified from the original French Breakfast Puffs by Ree Drummond.
Bready or Not: Mini French Breakfast Puffs
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2/3 cup shortening
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk almond milk works
Coating
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350-degrees F. Prepare the mini muffin pan by using liners (highly recommend the liners) or spray thoroughly with non-stick coating.
- Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
- In a different large bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening. Add the eggs and mix again. Measure the milk. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk into the sugar mix until everything is just combined.
- Use a tablespoon scoop or spoon to dollop batter into each cup. It should be about 2/3 full. Bake until golden, 14-18 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and set aside as you ready the next batch.
- While that's baking, start the coating. Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in another bowl.
- Dip the warm muffin tops in the butter and then in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Keep in a sealed container at room temperature. They can also be frozen for later enjoyment.
OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Overnight Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oats in the Crock Pot
In recent years, we’ve been trying to eat more healthy stuff.
That means I’ve been trying more alternative grains like quinoa (okay), amaranth (bleh), and steel cut oats. What are steel cut oats, you ask? They are oats that haven’t been processed as much. They take longer to cook and they have more texture and more nuttiness to them.
That whole texture things means they are awesome when slow cooked in the crock pot.
It takes maybe ten minutes to throw everything together the night before. I don’t bother peeling the apples. Just chop, combine everything, put the lid on, close the pot.
In the morning, give it a good stir. Most of the liquid will have soaked it. It will be soft, though my crock pot creates some crunchy bits, too–which are my favorite, to be honest. Dish it up, and then add whatever topping you want– nuts (pecans are awesome), maple syrup, agave nectar, honey, more milk, more spices…
Keep the crock pot on “warm” and the slow-to-rise people can get their food, too!
Really nice thing? The leftovers. Stash them in the fridge, and for several days–maybe all week–you can scoop some out, zap it in the microwave, and go about your day.
Modified from Jamie Cooks It Up.
Bready or Not: Overnight Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oats in the Crock Pot
Ingredients
- 2 medium-sized apples cored, unpeeled, chopped
- 1 cup steel cut oats uncooked
- 3 Tb brown sugar packed, or substitute with xylitol and a drip of molasses
- 2 Tb butter
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
- 1 Tb ground flax seed
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups vanilla almond milk or any kind of milk
- 1 1/2 cups water
Topping options:
- milk
- chopped nuts
- maple syrup/agave nectar/honey
- more spices
Instructions
- Spray the inside of your crock pot with cooking spray. Pour all ingredients (except the toppings) inside. Stir.
- Cover and cook on low for desired length of time, like 10 hours.
- Dish up oatmeal and add desired toppings.
OM NOM NOM all week long!
