Chocolate Banana Cookies

Over the past two and a half years of parenting, there is one thing I have learnt, when travelling with a toddler, carry lots of food and lots of distractions ( read books, toys, coloring books and more toys.) While we are extra cautious about not forgetting the latter, sometimes we buy but forget to pack the perishables at the end. During a recent trip, that is what happened with a bunch of bananas. They simply got forgotten. So we returned home to a bunch of overripe bananas, seeking immediate attention. With Google at service, I soon found a million ways to use those and that is how these Chocolate Banana Cookies came to being.

The original recipe is Elise's granny's. Since chocolate makes the good taste divine, and baking healthy is fun, with a little adjustment here and a little there, I upped the old-fashioned banana cookies with a double dose of chocolate, substituted the butter with olive oil, half of the flour with whole wheat flour and  the egg with applesauce and we were good to go. Though I had expected chocolate to take precedence, my favorite thing about these cookies was the spices. The mace did a wonderful job of camouflaging the smell of overripe bananas and the cloves added flavor without overwhelming the taste buds. Overall these cookies were quite a treat and I can see myself baking them quite often. 

Chocolate Banana Cookies

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Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes

Prep time: 15 minutes                                                         Cook time: 13-15 minutes (per batch)

Yield: 26

Ingredients

• ¼ cup +2 tbsps olive oil
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ cup apple sauce
• 2 overripe bananas, mashed (or 1 cup mashed bananas)
• 1 cup minus 2 tbsps all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsps cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 mace (or ½ tsp ground mace)
• 10 cloves (or ½ tsp ground cloves)
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Cooking Directions

1. Center a rack and preheat oven to 375 °F.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and keep aside.
3. Put olive oil, sugar, mashed bananas and applesauce in a big vessel and using a electric hand mixer beat them for about 3 minutes until a smooth batter is formed. Allow the batter to rest for a couple of minutes.
4. Meanwhile, using a dry grinder, grind the mace and cloves into a fine powder.
5. Sieve the flours, baking soda, cocoa, salt and ground spices into a large mixing bowl.
6. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, fold the flour mixture into the banana batter. Mix until just combined. (Do not over-work the mixture.)
7. Finally fold in the chocolate chips. Drop heaped tablespoons of the dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes. (I baked the whole lot in 5 batches.)
8. Let the baked cookies rest on the baking tray for 5-10 minutes before removing them. Cool completely before serving.

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