Sneaky Cookies
You know how we roll on this blog when it comes to pre-recipe chitchat, so let’s dive right in.
Ingredients:
2 bananas
1 cup oats
1/2 cup chopped blackberries (or any add ins you want)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allulose baking blend (optional if you have an extra sweet tooth like me)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Mash the bananas.
Stir in oats, cinnamon, allulose, and blackberries.
Drop about 2 tbs of dough per cookie onto prepared baking sheet (makes 16 cookies, or somewhere in that neighborhood)
Bake for 15 minutes.
Gratuitous macro shots:
The benefits of this banana-oat cookie dough base are manifold. First, it’s insanely simple with minimal measuring and darn near impossible to mess up. Second, they’re gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan-friendly (let’s face it - it’s a herculean task to find something that most people can eat these days). Third, the options for add ins are endless. Some possible combinations are:
coconut flakes and chocolate chips
2 tbs powdered peanut butter and chocolate chips
blueberries and 1 tsp of lemon juice/lemon zest
white chocolate chips and dried cranberries
diced dried mango and coconut flakes
your imagination is the limit - get a little crazy with it
And finally, even if you eat half the batch right out of the oven (which I may or may not have done), you’ve essentially only downed a banana and 1 serving of oats. Both of which are “green” foods if you happen to be Nooming. Feeling a little bloated after Thanksgiving and Christmas? With New Years right around the corner this is a great treat to add to menu if one of your resolutions is to eat more whole foods/eat healthier in general. To be on the extra safe side, you may want to scrap the allulose. It just happens to be the only sugar substitute I find tolerable. Who knows what horrifying side effects they’ll discover down the road, but for now, I’m enjoying it.
When my Bear learned that I was making cookies but didn’t intend to make any with chocolate chips, he gave me a very sad bear face. I caved and whipped up half a batch with my one spare banana and threw in some espresso chocolate chips (yes, these exist - we live in a glorious day and age) to create a cinnamon mocha variation.
Half a batch makes 8 cookies and if you noticed that the above pic only has 7, that’s because I couldn’t even be bothered to wait to enjoy one until after taking a picture.
Happy baking!