Recipe: Monkey Nut Cookies

These are probably the nicest looking cookies I've ever baked. And I actually made the full 48 cookies!

As one of my snow day traditions, I like to bake when I'm cooped up at home during a storm. I had a very ripe banana (I wasn't even sure it would last another day), so I looked online for recipes that only called for one banana (most banana breads call for two or three, etc.). So when I came across this recipe by Joseph Feiertag on Snapguide, I thought it was perfect.

The way this recipe is presented is very annoying: nowhere are the directions in one place. They are all spread out, step-by-step, with pictures to match (with his own commentary sprinkled in). So you have to keep scrolling between the long pages of steps just to get to the bottom to see the list of ingredients; I like to double-check my measurements before I put any ingredients into the batter, and it's more helpful to have the ingredients and instructions all on one page. I guess this is just how Snapguide does things.

So to make it easy for YOU, I have written them all in one place here (along with my own commentary):

Ingredients

1	Cup Butter
¾	Cups Brown sugar
¾	Cups Granulated sugar
2	Eggs
1	Tablespoon Pure Vanilla extract
1	Small, ripe banana
2½	Cups all-purpose flour
3	Tablespoons Cornstarch
1	Teaspoon Coarse salt
1	Teaspoon Baking soda
1	Cup White chocolate chips
1	Cup Milk chocolate chips
1	Cup Walnuts or any other kind you prefer

Directions

1. Gather ingredients (My commentary: Brilliant, genius.)
2. In the mixing bowl: butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla.
3. Cream together. (Does this need to be a separate step? Shouldn't it be with #2?)
4. Add eggs one at a time and mix until we'll [sic] blended (Nice apostrophe, dude.)
5. Add the other egg and blend (Again, this is a bit redundant from #4.)
6. Slice the bananas.
7. Add bananas and blend until somewhat smooth ("Somewhat" is clearly a technical term.)
8. Add the dry ingredients; flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda.
9. Mix just until the flour is almost in blended in. (In, in,inininin....)
10. Add the white chocolate, milk chocolate chips and the walnuts.
11. Scoop cookies onto parchment or onto non-stick cookie sheets. (Well, we're actually scooping cookie dough, since they aren't quite cookies yet...)
12. Bake at 350f for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Perhaps this was his first time actually writing a recipe down, but he made a few mistakes:

1. He never says to preheat the oven. You don't even know what temperature to heat the oven until you reach the end of the recipe. Rookie move!

2. He says to "slice the bananas," as in plural. But the recipe only calls for one banana. Would it be that difficult to proofread and remove the s? And he uses semicolons instead of colons. It's confusing.

3. When he says to add the dry ingredients, he left out the step to actually mix those together in a separate bowl beforehand. As an experienced baker, I know to do this, but what if I were a beginner?

4. He never explains how to cool the cookies. Do you immediately remove them from the cookie sheet? Do you let them rest a few minutes before moving them to a cooling rack? Do you even use a cooling rack?

Here are some things I did differently:

- I didn't use walnuts. A lot of people don't like nuts in desserts, so I didn't bother. I also used a little more than a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and just under a cup of white chocolate chips. (That's what I had in the house!)

- I keep my butter in the freezer, which can make it really hard to mix into a batter. So I melted it first. Most recipes don't call for you to do that, but it makes the mixing a lot easier (but does make the batter wetter). 

- I DID preheat the oven, and as for cooling, I left the cookies on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.

These cookies are VERY yummy, and while they are golden on the outside, they're soft on the inside. I think these might be a new favorite!