Banana Oat “Monster” Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3 very ripe bananas (the browner, the better)
• 1/3 cup (90 g) applesauce
• 2 cups (160 g) oats, uncooked
• 1/4 cup almond milk*
• 1/4 cup (40 g) raisins
• 2 Tblsp (28 g) dark chocolate mini chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F).
• In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until gooey (the mashed bananas should resemble baby food).
• Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl.
• Use a spoonula to mix all the ingredients until well combined.
• Line a baking sheet (or two) with parchment paper.
• Drop tablespoon-size mounds of dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet(s).  [Note that these cookies don’t spread during baking, so you can place them relatively close to one another on the sheet if you want.]
• Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes.
• Cool on a rack, then eat!  [Don’t worry, these cookies cool in a matter of minutes.]  :)

Makes 24 cookies.

Nutritional information per cookie: 51 calories, 1 g fat, 10 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 4 g sugar, 1 g protein.

My army of cookies.

The first serving.

Cookies posing for their close-up.

My Notes:

• I used Silk unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
• If you want to make these cookies vegan, you can either use non-dairy chocolate chips, or omit the chocolate all together.

The ratings:
Mental Cost (ingredient availability): Completely aggravation-free. (Read: super low.)
Financial Cost (ingredient cost): Recession-friendly low.
Emotional Cost (cooking skill level): A five-year-old-can-make-this low.  (Or even a mature 4-year-old…)
Time Cost (recipe preparation):  Oh-crap-I-need-to-make-something-for-tomorrow’s-potluck low. (Read: wicked low.)
Life Cost (clean up time/effort): The-same-five-year-old-can-do-clean-up-on-his/her-own low.  (The kid will have fun crumpling and throwing away the parchment – bonus.)
Worth It? (rate from 1-5): 4.9019

Miscellaneous suggestions, insights, and/or thoughts:

• It can be difficult to tell when the cookies are actually “done” baking – so just do your best.  If the cookies are still a little undercooked in the middle, it’s no big deal.
• These cookies are likely to spoil in a day or two – so if you, your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. don’t eat them all within 24 hours of baking them, I’d recommend storing the leftovers in the fridge or freezer.  (I stored my leftovers in the freezer.  When I wanted to eat one, I microwaved it at 40% power for 15 seconds.  Worked perfectly.)
• The cookies taste a lot like a chocolate-chip banana bread.  Yum.
• Future variations of this recipe could involve cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips, going chocolate-free, adding nuts, using dried apple pieces instead of raisins…
• I adore that these cookies have zero refined sugar in them – and yet still satisfy my desire for a sweet dessert at the end of a meal.  Awesome.

Stef