Like so many other families, we found ourselves baking A LOT over the past two pandemic years. It was a fun activity that all three of my kids could participate in, and it resulted in something that disappeared soon after (unlike the gazillion craft projects that are still littering every corner of my house).
But to avoid brownie overload, I’ve been on the hunt for some, ahem, more nutritious recipes that I can legitimately pass off as treats but also, say, serve for breakfast without an ounce of mom guilt. And today I wanted to share a few of my finds that have impressed all the judges in my house. You can feel good about making and eating these recipes! Enjoy!
These cookie dough bites have been by far the most popular thing I’ve made for the kids in awhile. They combine protein from nut butter and chick peas with sweetness from dates and mini chocolate chips and come surprisingly close to tasting like raw cookie dough– only this version is completely safe to eat. We’ve tested them several ways and our favorite combination has used unsweetened almond butter and unsweetened almond milk. We’ve also gone nut-free with unsweetened sunflower butter and dairy milk (although you could use coconut milk if dairy-free too), and those were a very close second! Plus the kids can take that version to school for snacks in their nut-free classrooms. I found the dough way too sticky and slack to try to shape when it comes out of the food processor, so we scrape it into a bowl and let it chill in the fridge for awhile before attempting to roll it into bite-sized balls. If it’s still too sticky after the fridge time, I’ll drop it by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet, put it back in the fridge to chill again, and then roll the mounds into balls before storing them in an airtight container in the fridge. I recently purchased this set of cookie dough scoops and the smallest one is actually the perfect size to make little cookie dough mounds from chilled dough with no rolling required! FIND THE RECIPE HERE.
We made this for breakfast on a whim on one of those recent snowy weekend mornings. I was skeptical because the recipe uses half whole wheat flour and I’ve always been busted trying to sneak that into recipes for the kids before. But they gobbled it up! My youngest (4) enjoyed mixing up the batter with me, while my oldest (11) appreciated the opportunity to exercise his artistic skills by organizing the toppings (we used strawberries, bananas, blueberries and chocolate chips). This recipe made way more than we could eat at one meal, but we were able to keep the leftovers in the fridge and reheat them in the oven the next day. I will say that the bananas and strawberries didn’t fare as well in the fridge as the blueberries and chocolate did. Maybe something to keep in mind if you plan to make extra. FIND THE RECIPE HERE.
This one definitely took the most effort, but on the plus side the kids did most of the work! You see, in order to make these mini cookies, you actually have to make all these mini cookies. But the kids had fun rolling the dough into long snakes and cutting it into the bite size cookie pieces. It may look like dessert, but these cookies are made with whole-wheat flour and oats so they offer a respectable amount of fiber and protein. My kids seemed to enjoy them most when eaten in a bowl with milk (perhaps it was the novelty of cookies for breakfast?), but you could also use a batch of these as a satisfying afternoon snack (for everyone!). GET THE RECIPE HERE.
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