I like to eat a banana most mornings, but I like my bananas more on the green side before they turn to what I like to call “banana bread bananas”. Derek & my dad like to exaggerate this preference and say that I like bananas when you could use them to drive a nail. This makes it very hard for me to buy enough bananas to last a week and not have them ripen too much – even when I buy bananas in a variety of ripeness
This tends to leave me with a lot of ripe bananas that I need to either use or throw in the freezer. In fact, a recent New Year’s inventory of my freezer revealed approximately 15 frozen bananas needing a use. Fortunately, instead of throwing yet more bananas into the freezer, I thought of these yummy cookies!
This recipe comes from my mother-in-law and makes a soft, cake-like cookie. It’s almost like a muffin top. Soft cookies, with oatmeal and bananas make it somewhat reminiscent of banana bread, especially with the addition of cinnamon. And although I am using fresh bananas today, it is a great way to use up any extra frozen bananas you might have taking up space.
Here’s what you need:
We’ll start by creaming together shortening and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Leave this running on medium until is light in color and you can see the sugar is fully incorporated. Then stir in an egg.
While the sugar and shortening are creaming, mash your bananas. I like to use a flat pan to do this, like this 8×8 glass pan I have here.
Beat the mashed banana into the creamed mixture.
Stir in a mixture of flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
Finally, stir in some oatmeal.
Scoop these onto parchment lined cookie sheets. I used my medium OXO cookie scoop (#EarnsCommission) which yields 1.5 Tablespoon scoops.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are a light golden brown. You can cook them a little darker if you like but not too long, you want them to stay nice and moist. They will look blonder than most traditional cookies.
Cool on pan for 2 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to completely cool. Store in an airtight container.
- ¾ c shortening
- 1 c sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 c mashed banana (about 3)
- 1 ½ c flour
- ½ t baking soda
- 1 t salt
- ¾ t cinnamon
- 1 ¾ c oatmeal (I used quick cooking oats)
- Preheat oven to 350
- Cream shortening and sugar together in a stand mixer on medium.
- Beat in the egg.
- Beat in mashed banana.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
- Stir into creamed mixture.
- Stir in oatmeal.
- Scoop 1.5 T portions onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.
- Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes and then transfer to wire rack.
Worst cookies EVER, I followed the directions with the exact ingredients, and it was A MESS. I was better off making banana bread. The was also nothing special about the taste adding brown sugar would have been better
I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t like the cookies and it sounds like they didn’t bake up well for you. As I mentioned in the post, it’s an old family recipe from my mother-in-law that we’ve made and enjoyed many times. I do agree with you that the molasses in the brown sugar would have added a nice complexity but in this case, I wanted to stay true to the traditional recipe and simplicity of ingredients.