BANANACOOKIE!

When I say the name of this recipe I always think of minions… 

I’ve seen a number of recipes for baked goods that insert smushed banana in place of the usual fats that make baked goods delicious: fats such as butter, milk, or cream. The bananas also take the place of refined sugar.

Curious (and very skeptical) I finally decided to try one out.

Look, I won’t lie to you. Bananacookies are not as rich and decadent as normal cookies. At the same time, they’re not bad. They have a spongy, more cake-like texture and of course they taste distinctly of banana, so if you don’t like banana you won’t like them. However, if you do – they’re a really nice little treat that has roughly the same nutritional impact of eating a portion of oatmeal and half a banana.

Sitting down with a little plate of cookies and a cup of tea makes me feel very psychologically satisfied, so they actually do trick my brain into thinking, “I’M HAVING COOKIES!” without the calorie and fat consequences of actually having cookies. I’m by no means anti-cookie, I just can’t have them three or four times a week and still expect any weight loss. A batch of bananacookies? I can.

I make my cookies with mini semi-sweet chocolate morsels (which I’ve found I can have in the house without binging on them… regular sized morsels I cannot – weird, huh?) and shaved coconut. You can have yours with whatever add-ins you would like. I’ve put many suggestions below.

The “dough” is a bit slippery, but easy to sculpt and work with. You need to form your cookies into whatever final shape you want them to be when you place them on a baking sheet, as they will not spread out like fatty dough does. You also need to spray your sheet with something before you bake them, they really stick.

Two bananas and a cup of oats generally makes around 12 nice sized cookies (for me, four portions of three cookies each). I find them to be a very satisfying treat without wanting to hork down the entire batch in one go. Since they don’t actually contain my binge-triggers of refined sugar combined with fat, they don’t set off binging behavior for me at all.

Here’s the recipe!

Oatmeal Banana Cookies

Yield: 12 large cookies (4 servings)

Ingredients:

2 large ripe bananas

1 cup of oats (I've used both instant rolled and instant steel cut)

2 packets of artificial sweetener (omit if you're anti-chemical, I just like my cookies SWEET)

Possible Add-Ins (3-4 tbsp):

-Chocolate Chips

-Crushed Nuts

-Cinnamon

-Raisins

-Black Currants

-Craisins

-Shredded Coconut

Mush the bananas and mix together with the oatmeal, then fold the add-ins in. Since all bananas are different sizes, the needed measurements can vary. If it seems too runny and the cookies would flatten out too much, add in more oatmeal. And make sure to not add in TOO many mix-ins as the cookies won’t hold together very well.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes on a GREASED cookie sheet.