Over a week ago I bought a bunch of bananas to make a bunch of banana “ice-cream.” I guess I was overzealous in my thoughts because after a week passed the bananas were still sitting on my counter only by then they were too brown to eat and past the point where I would want to freeze them for “ice-cream.” I’d unearthed some banana chips in my cupboard that I suspect are about a year old. I think I bought them with the intention of making some sort of Spirulina granola bar or something of that sort. In the same search where I unearthed those banana chips I also found two bags of almond flour/meal.
I took to Pinterest to try to find some recipes using banana chips. I was picturing peanut butter banana bread, to be honest. I found one recipe for peanut butter banana muffins. I’m not a muffin fan so I contemplated turning the muffin recipe into bread. But then I found a recipe for banana chocolate chip cookies and I was inspired to make cookies out of all the ingredients I had in my cupboard.
After finding the one recipe for banana chocolate chip cookies I perused a few more. I don’t normally go with the first recipe I see. I like to check out other recipes to make sure I’m going with the right one. What I found on the internet was a lot of either super thick or super thin cookies. Because of what I perceived the texture would be for the cookies (thanks to the banana) I didn’t want to go with a super thick cookie. And, in general, I’m not at all a fan of super thin cookies. So I stuck with the original recipe that I’d found and tweaked and tweaked from there.
Tweaking a recipe can sometimes be a bust. It’s happened to me many times but you’ve not heard about it because … well … I don’t generally blog my mistakes (unless I heroically fix them, of course). But the tweaks I made for these cookies turned out to be spot on. One of the things I added to the recipe was malted milk powder. I don’t advertise “malt” flavor in the title of these cookies because I really don’t think the malt comes through. I do think it gives the flavor profile more complexity, however. And it makes me wonder if I should try adding malt powder to other cookie recipes.
ingredients.
- 4 c. almond flour/meal
- 2 c. oat flour
- 3 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 c. malted milk powder
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 2 T. corn starch
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 c. butter, softened
- 4 ripe bananas, peeled
- 2 c. brown sugar
- ½ c. peanut butter
- 4 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 c. chocolate chips, plus more for garnish
- 1 c. peanut butter chips, plus more for garnish
- 1 c. banana chips, plus more for garnish
directions.
- Whisk together the flours, malted milk powder, baking soda, corn starch, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Cream butter, and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add in peanut butter and vanilla extract, beat until combined. I dropped the bananas in whole, one at a time, and beat the batter at a high speed out of laziness (instead of mashing the bananas first). This technique seemed to work fine but you could always mash the bananas with a fork first if you are so inclined.
- Stir in the flour mixture just until combined. Stir in chips.
- Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375F. Line three cookie sheets with parchment paper or lightly spray with cooking spray. (I did both, actually.)
- Use a tablespoon to spoon batter out of bowl and roll the dough into balls in your hand. You should be able to get 12 to 15 balls on a sheet. Flatten the balls slightly with the bottom of a juice or rocks glass. Place bits of banana chip and chocolate chips on top.
- Bake cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or just until they start to turn light, golden brown on the bottom. Let cookies cool a few minutes on the cookie sheets before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.I baked one sheet at a time, letting one sheet “cool” while I was prepping a third sheet. If you don’t have three cookie sheets, you can make it work with only two.
These cookies taste like banana bread right out of the oven when you eat them still warm. That’s why I named them “banana bread” cookies instead of just … banana cookies. They taste best warm, in my opinion, so I’ll probably be reheating them in the microwave before eating them.
Food Snob 