Recipe: Fluffy Banana Cookies

Recently I made banana muffins (read that blog post here), and once again I faced having too many bananas going ripe at once. I have made so many banana breads and muffins (see that list in that blog post, too), so I wanted to try something else. I found this "easy kids' recipe" on the All Recipes website, and I'll try any recipe with "easy" in the title! And it really was that easy!

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas, mashed, or more to taste
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup white sugar, or more to taste
• ¼ cup butter, melted
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts (Optional)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar

Directions

·      Step 1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

·      Step 2

Place bananas, flour, 1/2 cup sugar, butter, walnuts, egg, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Mix until well combined. Drop 3 tablespoonfuls of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheet. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar on top.

·      Step 3

Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown and edges are set, 15 to 20 minutes.

Unlike most of the recipes I make, I actually followed this one to a T. The only thing I changed was that, instead of using walnuts, I used chocolate chips. Otherwise, this recipe is so simple that there's no need to try to use tricks or cheats to make it easier! I do feel like there should have been another step in the directions: how do you cool the cookies? I left them on the pan for a few minutes after removing them from the oven, and then I used a spatula to move them to plates. I didn't want to put them on wire racks because the bottoms did stick to the parchment paper a little and I thought that might be messy.

These cookies are fluffy, and they remind me a little of pancakes. They are not very sweet, so if I made this recipe again, I would probably use more sugar (and more chocolate chips). The texture is spot-on, though! Because the directions say to make 3-tablespoon-sized cookies, they are kind of big, and therefore you don't get as many cookies as you might with another recipe (I only got 17). That could be good or bad: you get fewer yummy cookies, but then you also don't feel obligated to eat so many yummy cookies.

This recipe is worth a try, though, especially if you are baking with kids or you are a beginner baker yourself!