Breakfast (or brunch) is a huge thing in Portland. It is really a city-wide pastime. It is such a big deal that an author friend of mine actually wrote a book on eating breakfast in Portland, and it is on its third edition! If you want any hope of getting into some of the city’s most popular breakfast places, you have to get there early and be prepared to wait.
My daughter is a native Portlander and at 9 years old, she is true to her Portland roots. Breakfast is her favorite meal of the day. She can out-eat me at breakfast time, although, she might only pick at food the rest of the day. Like her father, she is all about the bacon, eggs, and sausages. She also loves pancakes and waffles at any meal.
While my husband and daughter really embrace breakfast and it’s their happy time of day, I’m less enthusiastic. Probably because I am not a fan of eggs when they are the star of the dish (my only exception is quiche!). When we go out for a weekend breakfast, my menu is pretty limited–corned beef hash (sans egg), oatmeal, French toast, waffles and pancakes. Basically, I just eat the sweet stuff.
As you can imagine, weekday breakfasts get a bit tricky for me. I can’t eat waffles and pancakes every day. My husband is nice enough to offer his morning oatmeal to me, but our oatmeal tastes differ enough that I usually decline. He’s all about creamy and packed with raisins, almost a porridge. I’m like my oats al dente with butter, maple (or brown sugar) and berries.
I recognize the value of a morning meal (I don’t skip), but I do like something small, quick and filling. Enter the breakfast cookie.
The idea of a breakfast cookie isn’t new. You can buy commercially made versions at the grocery store. However, my cookie takes inspiration from the monster cookies I remember my mom and neighbor making when I was a kid. They were such a big batch, it would take both women to mix them. They had everything but the kitchen sink in them. While they had plenty of M&Ms and chocolate chips, they were also filled with eggs, peanut butter and oats. I think there were even some nuts in there. DELISH! My mom would take her half of the batch and freeze them. Then for a breakfast on the go, we’d pop them in the toaster to defrost and warm, wrap them in a paper towel and head out to catch the 6:45 am bus to school.
While I’d love to make a batch of those childhood monster cookies and have them for breakfast every day, the sugar and calories would be a waistline killer. However, I used some of the healthy ingredients (natural peanut butter, egg and oats) as a starting block for my breakfast cookie recipe.
My first experimental batch of breakfast cookies were delicious, but boy were they dry. Hockey puck dry. As tasty as they were, you really needed a cuppa something to wash them down. I also used whole pistachios (which I love) in that first batch, but they where what my husband described as “mealy.” My husband and I finished the batch anyway and I went back to the kitchen.
My challenge as I worked on the recipe was to create a cookie that had enough moisture, but wasn’t full of refined sugars or overly sweet. I considered a number of ingredients, but quickly ruled them out. I finally settled on an underused ingredient–molasses–to get some extra moisture into the cookie. I also reduced the amount of oats, since they’d absorb any additional moisture during cooking. My husband was right about the mealiness of the pistachios, so I changed to pecans.
After some tweaks and changes, the result was a cookie that was healthy, satisfying AND delicious. I still miss the M&Ms of those childhood monster cookies, but I also know my waistline will thank me for leaving them out.
Healthy Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
Course: BreakfastCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy12
servings10
minutes25
minutes256
kcalBreakfast on the go just got a lot tastier! These healthy oatmeal breakfast cookies are easy to grab as you are running out the door. They are free from refined sugars and with a generous serving of heart-healthy oats and 7g of protein per cookie, they are sure to keep you full longer.
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup Bourbon barrel aged maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup creamy natural peanut butter
1 tbs molasses
1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more for garnish
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup Craisins
2/3 cup pecans, chopped
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325F degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together butter, maple syrup, vanilla, eggs, molasses and peanut butter until smooth.
- Stir in sea salt, cinnamon, flour, baking powder and oats until just combined. Fold in Craisins and nuts.
- Measure out a 1/4 cup of dough. Roll in hands to form a ball. Place on cookie sheet and gentle pat down to a 1/2-inch thick “disk.” Sprinkle a small pinch of sea salt on top of each cookie, if desired.
- Bake one sheet at a time at 325F for 12-15 minutes, or until set and starting to brown. Cool on sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Serve with a cup of coffee, tea or a glass of milk. Enjoy!
Notes
- This dough is wet, wet, wet. I just roll with it, even though it is a bit messy to work with. You can do a 30-45 minute chill between steps 3 and 4 if you prefer to cut down on the gooeyness.
- When I bake at 325F, that is the actual oven temperature, not what is displayed on my oven controls (which for my oven is 350F). I keep a thermometer in my oven to measure actual temperature. If you do not have an oven thermometer, set your oven to 340F just to be safe, and check at the lower time range.
- I love the Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup by Crown. However, feel free to substitute any real maple syrup you have on hand.
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