The kids will enjoy the flavors of the holiday season with these fresh cranberry breakfast cookies, and mom will love that they are gluten and refined sugar free!
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The week before Thanksgiving, my husband came home with 2 of the biggest bags of cranberries I had ever seen!
“They were on sale” he says, “Have fun with them!”
He knows me too well – challenge accepted!
I used one of the bags for fresh cranberry sauce for all of the Thanksgiving gatherings we had in the following week, and then I set to work figuring out what to do with the rest.
The last thing we needed in our house was another dessert after a week of pumpkin pie slices and Thanksgiving indulging, so I knew I wanted to make something practical.
Something that I could actually use (that was also quick prep!), and that I could feel good about giving the girls to eat. The holidays can be a tough time to keep things healthy. I want my kids to enjoy the holiday season, but I also want to keep them healthy and robust so they can enjoy it all too!
Sugar has a huge impact on the immune system.
It feeds the viruses and bacteria in the body, and causes inflammation which makes the body have to work harder while it’s trying to “put the flames out”. Keeping the sugar down gives your kids the upper hand at staying well – especially this time of year when we are more cooped up inside and the bugs are passed easily.
Keeping the sugar down doesn’t have to be a drag though!
Blending dates into the batter gives the cookies a natural fruit sweetness, while adding a vitamin and mineral punch to the cookie. 5 dates spread amongst almost 2 dozen cookies is pretty low sugar – and they are mildly sweet for young palates (you can add an extra date or 2 if you have older kids used to sweeter food to ease them in). And I cannot tell you how amazing these fresh cranberry breakfast cookies make the house smell!
Pack a nourishing punch in a fun, holiday season breakfast!
We still have a pretty long month of school this December, and I want my kids full and focused for their morning of school work. We do breakfast cookies on Fridays, and while they are always super fun mornings, I have big goals for my breakfast cookies. I want them packed with fat and protein to fill them up!
These breakfast cookies are loaded with fat and protein from 2 different kinds of nuts, coconut shreds, grassfed collagen, and butter. We usually have a side of hard boiled eggs and glasses of raw milk to go with our Friday breakfast cookies! So YES, dear friends, there is a “method to my madness” when choosing a variety of ingredients for my breakfast cookies. These aren’t just a treat – this is part of a meal!
Eat some, freeze some!
These fresh cranberry breakfast cookies freeze up fantastic! I am planning on having them out on Christmas morning! While I love to make a big fancy breakfast on Christmas morning, my kids are just at an age where presents are more important than food! Having a plate of breakfast cookies out while they are opening gifts will keep the “hangries” away, and then you can have a nice brunch later in the morning.
Blender Batter Fresh Cranberry Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup pecans
- 1 cup walnuts I like to use soaked/dehydrated walnuts and pecans for best digestion
- 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
- 1/3 cup grassfed collagen
- 1/4 cup coconut shreds
- 3 eggs If you are egg free, 3 flax eggs plus 1 TB apple cider vinegar will work as a replacement here for the binding and rising - they won't puff up quite as much as the eggs but they still work well!
- 1/4 cup softened butter (If you are dairy free use softened coconut oil
- 2 tsp aluminum free baking powder
- 1 tsp almond extract vanilla extract works too
- 5 dates pitted (I get medjool dates from Costco)
- 1 cup fresh cranberries I get mine at Costco
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Put the pecans and walnuts in your food processor and blend until made into a fine meal.
- 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 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!
- Scoop the batter onto silpat or parchment paper lined 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. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 16 minutes. Let the cookies cool 5 minutes before handling.
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