— Robert Frost
September blessings —
sunrise walks ♡ with temperatures in the 110 range, early morning is the time to move. loving the symbolism of stop in this photo. Pause, notice, breathe… gold is the hardest hue to hold.
other September blessings —
cinnamon spice breakfast cookies ♡
going, going, gone!
(the poem may actually be about these cookies)
made from 100% whole oats (old fashioned + oat flour), nuts, seeds and fruit, these breakfast cookies are like little bundles of baked muesli. Subtly sweet, mostly soft with some nutty texture and filled with fall flavor. Wholesome, portable and yummy any time of day.
Ingredients I would Not change in this recipe
Flaxseed — apart from its powerful health benefits, flaxseed performs an important role in this recipe, absorbing fluid. If you don’t use it, your batter will be too wet and won’t gel together. While I haven’t tested it, my hunch is that chia seed might be a suitable replacement.
Coarse Grain Sugar — I would not use a ‘liquid’ sugar here (maple syrup; honey); same issue, too much wetness. The way the recipe has been developed, the coarse grain is helpful for texture and creating bulk. Use any coarse grain you like: turbinado, demerara, coconut palm, etc.
Fat Content — the yogurt contributes protein as well as creaminess and fat to the texture of the cookies. If you use a zero fat yogurt, the texture and taste will change; you can possibly offset this with a bit more olive oil but this risks making the batter too wet.
Ingredients you can play around with
Walnuts/Pepitas — both the walnut and the pumpkin seed are fully swap-able – just try to keep the weight measurements equivalent. Pecan would be delicious here, almond works too. Hemp and sunflower would be my top seed sub choices.
Raisins — sub any dried fruit equivalent: cranberry, apricot, cherry (so good but expensive), blueberries, etc.
Banana — although I like the taste and texture of the banana version best, I have tested this recipe a couple times using 1/2 cup apple sauce instead of banana and it works!
Variations
I’ve made these breakfast cookies a lot and each time they come out looking (and tasting) a little different. You may have a similar experience. Many things can contribute to variations including the size, type and water content of the banana and egg, altitude differences, oven temperature differences, and of course ingredient changes. Each bake is unique (but we haven’t thrown out a batch yet, hah!)
For best results, it’s always a good idea to weigh ingredients in baking (something I’ve resisted most of my life).
Make-Ahead
The cookie batter is ideal for make-ahead — allowing it to chill overnight in the fridge helps it solidify nicely while concentrating flavor.
Given them a try? MacGyvered a successful swap? Let me know! x
- Dry Ingredients
- 135 g (1 + ½ cups) rolled oats (certified GF as required)
- 50 g (1/2 cup) oat flour (certified GF as required)
- 1 tsp baking soda, sifted
- couple twists of salt (about ⅓ tsp)
- 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed (aka: flaxmeal)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp pumpkin spice (for diy, see Notes)
- 60 g (1/3 cup) brown sugar (or more to taste, see Notes)
- 80 g (generous ½ cup) golden raisins
- 80 g (3/4 cup) chopped walnuts
- 10 g (1 Tbsp) pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
- Wet Ingredients
- 45 mL (3 Tbsp) olive oil
- 110 g (1/2 cup) whole fat yogurt (I'm using Siggi's 4% vanilla yogurt, 12 g protein, 8 g sugar - if you are using an unflavored yogurt, add 1 tsp vanilla extract)
- 1 very ripe banana, mashed (use back of fork) you can use a banana thawed from frozen
- 1 egg
- Oven temp 350F
- Line a baking sheet with parchment or a non-stick baking mat.
- In a roomy mixing bowl, combine: rolled oats, oat flour, baking soda (I use a mini sifter to avoid lumps), salt, ground flaxseed, cinnamon and pumpkin spice - whisk together.
- In the same bowl, add the remaining dry ingredients: brown sugar, raisins (or dried fruit of choice), walnuts and pumpkin seeds (or nut/seeds of choice), mixing to combine.
- In a separate smaller bowl, combine: olive oil, yogurt and mashed banana, whisking by hand to combine (don't worry about little banana lumps, they're welcome). Crack in the egg and whisk again, just until well combined and fluffy (you don't want to over-whisk).
- Add wet ingredients to dry, using a spatula or wooden spoon to combine. The batter will be moist/wet.
- If the batter is merely moist (not too wet) let it set at room temp while you warm oven.
- If the batter is on the wetter side, allow it to set in fridge for about 20 minutes (the flaxseed will absorb some of the liquid and the batter should set somewhat while still being moist)
- You can also prep the batter the night before and leave in fridge overnight.
- To shape the cookies, I'm using a 1 ounce (2 Tbsp) round ice cream scoop with release (trigger). You could also shape (or just drop) using about 2 Tbsp batter per cookie.
- Scoop batter into ice cream mold pressing it firmly against the side of the bowl to help the batter fully fill the scoop before dropping on the sheet - you could also use the back of a spoon or your palm (this will give the cookie a uniform dome shape) repeat with desired number of cookies you wish to make (I usually store half the batter in fridge for another time).
- Allow the cookies to bake in oven for 14-18 minutes (this really depends on how hot your oven runs) the cookies should have a nice golden glow but not be too dark, be sure to check on them.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes on a rack before enjoying.
- I find these cookies gather more flavor and a nicer texture with time. Once fully cooled, store them in an airtight container in the fridge. You can reheat if you like or simply enjoy cold.
DIY Pumpkin Spice: ¼ tsp ground nutmeg + ¼ tsp ground cardamom + ½ tsp ground ginger
How Sweet are these Cookies?: even with a ripe banana, this is a subtly sweet cookie -- you can increase sugar to ½ cup if preferred.
Apple Sauce instead of Banana? although I prefer the taste and texture of banana, apple sauce will work! Use ½ cup (125 g).
Can I sub other nuts/seeds/fruit? Yes, absolutely! See body of blog post for ideas.
Our new favorite breakfast! I use two bananas and cranberries instead of raisin, they work out perfectly. The cookies taste (and smell) so good and are a huge parent win, kids love them. Thank you so much for your healthy recipes!
What a great note to read! I’m delighted to hear these breakfast bites are being well received by the whole family, those parenting wins are huge :)) Appreciate you taking the time to drop in to let me know and thank you also for sharing your adjustments, helpful for all.
Really good!! The mixture was moist but not too wet (didn’t weigh so may have been more generous with dry ingredients?) I just left the mixture out on the counter at room temp to set while the oven was heating, didn’t need to refrigerate. Used a spoon to drop batter, shape not as round but worked fine. The cookie baked up nicely and is not very sweet which we like, perfect for breakfast. Like a healthy granola bar. Thank you for this recipe!
Yay! I’m so happy to hear these worked out well for you Donna and really appreciate your detailed feedback (updated the post to include your room temp set, love it) — they are a bit like a granola bar… all that oaty goodness really comes through :) thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience with this recipe, helpful to all. Wishing you a beautiful Sunday!
Helo Kelly! I’m Cata from Argentina!
I have a question… can I replace sugar with sucralose? in what proportion?
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe!
Good morning Cata and welcome, so nice to see your note this morning. The way the recipe is developed, the sugar not only provides sweetness but also helps bulk up the cookie (I suggest not using a liquid sugar for this reason) I haven’t done the experiment of using a substitute such as Stevia (or your sucralose/splenda) which would likely require rejigging the amount of flour to make up for the loss of bulk, so it’s difficult to say how successful that might be; you could certainly experiment and maybe refer to baking conversion tables to see what amount of the alternate sugar to use. Please let us know if you give it a try! I hope you love these cookies and thanks again for your note and for saying hello.
Love all of the ingredients here, making them into a cookie is genius. But can you stop at one?
I’m making these immediately! They look delicious. Also, that’s a beautiful surface and the plate is gorgeous too. Beautiful styling Kelly.
Oh yay! I’m so happy to hear that you’ll be making these Suzanne; I hope they turn out great for you. Thanks also for your kind words, those little bits of dark etch marks on the board are my favorite (i think i inadvertently created them by scrubbing out food stains, hah) plate was on the bargain table at world market, love that :))
Well this cookie monster is very pleased with what she is seeing here. These would make a perfect breakfast for me because I don’t like eating much in the morning, but yes, I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day; therefore, I need to eat something. :) Love the ingredients and all of the flavors. We are both oatmeal cookie fans so this version looks very pleasing.
Weigh your ingredients? Really? Oh how I too resist. A friend in Santa Fe always measures when she bakes and nags me to this day about not doing it. :) Sounds like to get good results from this recipe, measuring is a must. Thanks for the heads-up.
Fabulous sunrise photo and I too love the STOP. Hope you’re surviving the record breaking CA heatwave! We’ve got a cold front moving in. It’s suppose to be around 40F in the morning. Weird weather. Hang in there Kelly!
haha, yeah took me a while to come around to the idea that ‘cups’ may not be the most accurate measurement ;-) metric system was introduced in Canada when I was relatively young but I had already internalized imperial and still like it :) second heatwave and questioning our decision not to put in air conditioning (8 years in i feel like it’s part of my spiritual practice now haha) x. cookies are a nice switch-up from our usual bowl of oatmeal, hope you love.