Lactation Muffins

 

Yes, you read that title correctly. This recipe is for lactation muffins. You may find this odd for RT Baker Box, but R recently had a baby, and is trying her darndest to produce sufficient milk for him. In combination with regular pumping and healthy diet, it seems that R has been successful. As part of R’s diet, she has included some galactagogues. These are herbs or medications that increase one’s milk supply. Now, there are a ton of lists with different herbs or foods that all claim to fall under this galactogogue umbrella. I am no scientist or lactation expert so I encourage you to do your own research and find what you feel will work best for you. We’ve simply chosen a few ingredients from the array of lists and have incorporated them in our recipe.

 

I will note that I had intended to try a lactation cookie, but I felt that this option was more to my liking as there is less fat and sugar….less guilt.

 

The recipe is simple and quick, and did we mention its ONE BOWL. R needed a recipe that could potentially done one handed and wouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to put together and 20 minutes to bake. In her experience this is equivalent to the length of time baby takes before his first rouse from his morning nap. The base is a banana muffin recipe, where we’ve simply added our powerful galactagogues!

 

In this case, the milk friendly ingredients we’ve incorporated are

• Flax Seed Meal
• Fenugreek Tincture
• Oatmeal
• Debittered Brewer’s Yeast

 

These items may be found in your grocery store or certainly your nearest whole foods or organic market. The ones you may not be familiar with are Fenugreek and Debittered Brewer’s Yeast.

 

Fenugreek is part of the pea family and has very pungent and aromatic seeds. The tincture has a bitter taste and is similar to celery with a slight maple hint. It has little effect on the flavor in this recipe.

 

Brewer’s Yeast is an excellent course of protein and B-vitamins. It is produced by separating the yeast after fermentation during beer production. The yeast is then roller dried and debittered. I did was unable to find non-debittered yeast, but read to only use the debittered option. If you have ever had a very bitter beer you might understand why we don’t want that bitterness in our baking.

 

Once you find these special ingredients you should be ready to bake!

 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large or 3 medium over ripe bananas
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbs plain or vanilla yogurt
• 1 tbs vanilla
• 2 tbs fenugreek tincture
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup large flake oats
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ cup flaxseed meal
• ½ teaspoon salt

Optional

• ½ cup chocolate chips
• ½ cup walnuts
• ½ cup dried cranberries

 

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line a tray of 12 muffins with muffin cups. If you don’t want to make muffins you can also make this in a loaf pan.
3. In a medium size bowl, mash the bananas with the egg, yogurt, and vanilla. Mix until well combined.
4. Add the sugar to the banana mixture and mix until well combined.
5. Add the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, flaxseed meal, and salt. Mix until partly combined and add any of the optional chocolate chips, walnuts, or cranberries. Mix until there is no longer any dry flour in the bowl. Do not over mix or your muffins will be very dense.
6. 6.Scoop the batter into your muffin cups. I fill mine to the rim as they don’t rise to the point where they will overflow your tins.
7. 7.Bake for 15-20 min. I insert a toothpick into the largest muffin when i think they’re about ready. If the toothpick comes out clean (without any batter on it), then you’re muffins are ready. If you have more baking experience you can also do the touch test. If you lightly press on the top of the muffin and it springs back, then your muffins are ready.
8. Let cool and enjoy!

I enjoy these with a little bit of butter or just on their own. The best part about these is that even if you’re not lactating you can enjoy them. R’s husband eats them and isn’t any wiser to the galactagogues. R’s hoping to keep it that way!

 

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