Breakfast time around the holidays can be festive and fun, as well as healthy with these date sweetened cranberry breakfast cookies!
Product links in this post are affiliate links. It does not cost you anything and helps maintain the free information on this site, as well as answer the questions of “what brand do you use?” Please know I never personally recommend any product I wouldn’t use on my own family.
A tradition over a decade in the making!
That matching Christmas jammies picture in front of the tree every holiday…it gets me every time! The effort it takes to get all 3 to smile at these ages is well worth the memories, and the tradition too! The thing about this itty bitty age is that basically the world is sort of their oyster. I discovered that on Christmas morning, they didn’t give 2 flying flips about eating a healthy breakfast to make sure their moods were great…they just wanted to have fun! And so one year I decided just roll with it, and create a healthy breakfast that could also be handheld and easy to eat while they opened gifts.
Fun breakfast concept with ingredients that count!
Because no one wants to have a hangry, crabby toddler on their hands on any morning, let alone Christmas. These cranberry breakfast cookies are packed with thoughtful ingredients with a purpose. They will keep blood sugars stable, and that is a recipe for a happy morning!
Date sweetened?!
Not that there is anything wrong with a little honey or maple syrup! But if there is an opportunity to sweeten something I’m making with a fiber rich piece of whole fruit, I’m always hopping on that train. The dates pack a nutrient dense mineral punch in addition to the fiber, and give the cookies a great sweet taste. You could absolutely taste the cookie dough and add a bit of honey or maple syrup if you think the kids will need them sweeter.
Eat some. Freeze some!
I’m all over those under a dollar bags of cranberries at the grocery store once they hit the shelves in November and December. These cookies freeze up great to eat all winter long. Talk about getting ahead on your breakfast meal plan!
The Method :: The cranberry breakfast cookie dough
This entire cookie dough can be made right in your food processor. A blender would work too. Just blend up the nuts, dates and butter into a sticky paste, and then blend in the flour. You can either fold in chopped cranberries and orange zest, or pulse it right into the dough. I tend to like the convenience of just letting the food processor chop the cranberries right into the cookie dough.
The Method :: Preparing the cranberry breakfast cookies to bake
Once your cookie dough is mixed up, use a cookie scoop to evenly distribute the cookies on a sheet tray. These cookies do not spread, so you need to press them down into the thickness of cookie that you like. They do puff up a little bit. I like to use the palm of my hand or the bottom of a mason jar to press the cookies down. The dough is a little sticky, so it helps to get your hand or jar wet with a little water to prevent sticking.
Serving ideas for everything from a school morning to Christmas brunch!
Those school mornings leading up to the holiday break can be *so* hard! Having a fun breakfast change up like these breakfast cookies can be helpful, and also create those lasting memories. My teenagers were so excited to come home yesterday and see these made up. You can serve your cranberry breakfast cookies on a school morning with a side of eggs and/or bacon or sausage. A bowl of yogurt would work too! On Christmas morning, these breakfast cookies are a great pre-breakfast snack to eat while the kids open presents. They would also be a great addition to a brunch scape.
Blender Batter Cranberry Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup pecans
- 1 cup walnuts
- 15 Noor dates pitted (If using larger Medjool dates use 7)
- 1/4 cup softened butter If you are DF use softened coconut oil
- 1 cup Cassava Flour
- 1/3 cup grassfed collagen
- 1/4 cup hemp hearts See Notes for swap ideas
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp aluminum free baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup fresh cranberries See Notes for tips on using dried cranberries
- 1 tbsp orange zest Optional but so fragrant and delicious
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a large baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper.
- Put the pecans, walnuts, dates, and butter in your food processor and blend until a sticky paste-like dough forms.
- Add the rest of the ingredients except the cranberries, and blend to combine. It gets sticky, and you may have to scrape down the sides a couple times.
- Add the fresh cranberries and orange zest and pulse/blend until the cranberries are the size pieces you want. You can alternatively chop them separately if you wish and fold them in, but I have found the food processor to do a fine job and it's quick!
- Use a cookie scoop to evenly distribute the batter onto the prepared baking sheets, flattening them out a bit to the size cookie you want – the cookies will puff up but don't spread out much as they bake. It helps to get the palm of your hand slightly wet with water so the cookie dough doesn't stick.
- Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes, until the edges are golden and the cookies are set. Let the cookies cool 5 minutes before handling.
Notes
- You can swap the hemp hearts for shredded coconut or ground flax seeds, or more blended nuts.
- If you do not have access to fresh cranberries, you can swap for 1/2 cup dried cranberries. Just be mindful of the ingredients as many dried cranberries are full of oils and sugar. You can find them though! THIS was the best priced one that I could find at the time of writing this post. Sometimes people can find frozen cranberries, and I think I would just thaw and drain them first before using!
- Dried figs swap for the dates very well in this recipe and taste so good! I have found both the dates and dried figs at Costco for great prices.
- These breakfast cookies freeze fantastic. Double or triple up when those cranberries come out in November for Thanksgiving! This is also helpful for prep ahead over the holidays so that you can pull them out Christmas morning without having to cook!
Love these, Renee. Sharing today on FB. <3 🙂
Thank you Megan!
These look delicious! We love your Ultimate Breakfast Cookie recipe and make them regularly at my house, so these look like an awesome variation. But darn, I’m betting these wouldn’t be near as good made nut-free by subbing seeds?
Hi Kimber! I know it – this one has quite a bit of nuts. Here’s what I think I would do – how about try just subbing some gluten free flour – they won’t be grain free but if you can handle the grain it should work. I would do something like sorghum and maybe buckwheat (buckwheat is a seed anyway so it is grain free!). I wouldn’t use exact measurement swaps but how about start with halving it and see what the batter feels like. Let me know if you try anything that works out!
So yummy! Love all of those beautiful fresh cranberries in there! Perfect for this time of year!
Thank you Emily!
Hi! Can these be made up ahead of time and sit over night for baking in the morning? Thank you!
Just made them now to try.. My girls love them!!! Very good!! 🙂
Hi Jennifer – I think that would work! I very often put all the dry ingredients together the night before then just add it all in to blend in the morning!
Just curious if you wouldn’t mind sharing on how you healed your gut I saw a few things back…everything seems to bother me more and more and stomach always hurts even switching to raw dairy products. Would love to know how to heal mine and get some relief! Thank you so much for y’all your great info…love your Instagram page!!!! -Sarah
Hi Sarah! I think everyone’s gut healing journey is a bit different. It really starts with avoiding trigger foods for a period of time (some of which you might not “react” to in the sense you might be thinking like tummy aches. Some foods are just plain inflammatory in nature such as dairy, sugar, and eggs), and then sealing the gut lining back up while you avoid those foods. Things like grass-fed collagen and a really good probiotic have helped me.
These were a lifesaver for me as a new mom!! I never knew nursing would make me SO hungry. All the time. I had these in the freezer and they were perfect to grab and thaw in the microwave in 20 seconds. They fixed my hunger each time. 9 months later and I found myself wanting them again (must be because it’s cranberry season!) But I had no collagen and our grocery budget was tight for the month. I made them without the collagen and used coconut flour instead of shreds since that’s what I had on hand. I threw in an extra egg to help with the consistency issues as well. They still tasted amazing and still had the same hunger fighting power as the original recipe. The texture wasn’t as amazing without he collagen but they still turned out! I’m glad it wasn’t a flop :). Thank you for an amazing recipe.
Could you substitute the walnuts and pecans with almond flour?
Hi Nicole! That should work.
I love batters you can make in a blender, saves me the cleaning up and is much faster. These are super lovely cookies, can’t wait to make them again.
MMM, I can never say no to cookies for breakfast, especially a healthy one like this! Can’t wait to make these. They look delicious!
Love these cookies. They look so delicious and just the right size for a lovely afternoon tea with cookies!
Mine were a litttttle dense… I think I over-measured my nuts when soaking and drying and I didn’t bother re-measure when making the recipe! OOPS. I added an extra egg and a tablespoon of Avocado oil (I was out of coconut) to help. They baked up with a nice texture and full of protein. My husband loves cranberries and loves that part! The older girls may have drizzled a little honey on theirs 🙂
Wondering what your thoughts are on using died cranberries as it’s what I’ve got. Would you reduce the amount?
Hi Jasmine! Dried cranberries work good too! You can half the amount.
Thanks for your reply! Also I have only found tapioca starch which smells kind of cheesy and cassava flour. Which should I use? Blend of both?
Hi Jasmine! Only use tapioca in this recipe. Cassava flour behaves differently in baking – it is super super absorbent. So you will get a very different result. Even though tapioca is from the cassava plant, it is just the starch so it bakes differently