Peanut Butter Power Balls (lactation boost edition)
Although I am breastfeeding and made these to up my milk supply, my entire family has been helping me demolish them. They’re not just for milk-making.
After we had gotten home from our long stay at the hospital/nicu (more about that on a later post), we quickly learned that Sage had a sensitivity to soy and dairy proteins. Therefore, all the milk I had pumped and froze while at the hospital and coming home (just short of one month’s worth) was no good for him anymore. Luckily, we have a friend who just adopted a baby who was born shortly after Sage and I have been able to give my milk to her. However, my backup stock became non-existent and I got low-key paranoid about that. So I reached out on my Instagram story to all the mamas out there who have made lactation cookies/treats/snacks of any kind and I got LOADS of responses. When I made and showed them on my IG story, enough people asked for the recipe, I figured I could share a post about it.
A fellow breastfeeding friend sent this recipe to me. IF you’re breastfeeding, eat these with some caution. The friend who sent me the recipe let me know that her boobies are super sensitive and she instantly gets engorged/clogged milk ducts and easily develops mastitis from it. I haven’t had this experience, but everyone’s boobies are different. The ‘active ingredients’ for the milk making are oats, flaxseed meal, and brewers yeast. If you’re making/eating these for making milk, everyone said not to omit the brewers yeast for effective milk production, so keep that in mind. If you’re making these just for kicks, no milk-making in the works, you can omit the brewers yeast.
My friend sent me the recipe from this website and I tweaked it only a tiny bit.
What you need:
2 cups rolled oats (Gluten-free works too. I get ours from Trader Joe’s.)
2 heaping tablespoons of brewers yeast (I got ours from Amazon)
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy- whatever you prefer)
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips (or more…)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons coconut oil
sprinkles of cinnamon to your own liking (I added this last minute because it sounded good.)
What to do:
Combine oats, brewers yeast and flaxseed.
Mix the rest of the ingredients. It will be sticky and thick.
Take chunks of the dough and roll them into balls. Make them as big or small as you prefer. For my first batch, I made them just smaller than a golf ball. This last batch, I made them smaller (about half that size). With the smaller size, I felt they were easier to pop a few in my mouth and go. And I could eat more with more satisfaction, if that makes sense. Let’s be real- no one wants to eat just one ball.
Set them on a cookie sheet and leave in the fridge for about half an hour. Once they’re hardened more, you can store them together in a freezer bag or container and keep them in the fridge.
I have no idea how long they last past a week because we ate the first batch in about 3 days, so storage time will have to be at your own discretion.