Recently I have been trying to cook as healthily as possible, constantly looking for ways to remove white carbohydrates and sugar and to replace them with better options. This is not always easy, given that I have a bit of a sweet tooth and my guilty pleasure is definitely chocolate (one of my favourite treats is what I like to call ‘hitting the Nutella jar with a teaspoon’ – in other words, eating Nutella directly from the jar, something I would never encourage my children to do).
A few days ago I was trying to use up some overripe bananas and decided to look for a healthy cookie option that could make a good mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. The recipe that follows is one I stumbled upon a bit randomly – a heavily adapted version of a recipe I found on the internet. Despite mine and my husband’s initial skepticism, the cookies turned out so nice that I thought it would be a shame not to share this recipe with others as well…
INGREDIENTS
1OO g quick cooking oats
50 g oatmeal
40 g wholewheat flour
1 mashed banana
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp stevia powder for a bit of added sweetness (if desired).
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, whisked lightly
5 tbsp milk (plus another splash if the mixture feels a bit dry)
50 g dark chocolate (70% or 85%), chopped small
METHOD
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 325 F / Gas 3. (I actually cook in an Aga, so this step doesn’t fully apply to me).
1. Mix together the oats, oatmeal, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and said. Add in the stevia powder if using.
2. Mix together banana, vanilla and egg, then stir in the milk.
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until they are well incorporated.
4. Fold in the chopped chocolate.
5. Use about 1 tablespoon of the mixture per cookie and flatten each cookie into shape a bit with the back of the spoon. (I got 15 cookies out of my mixture).
6. Bake for 9-11 minutes (I had to bake my cookies for about 13 minutes, as I put them into the baking oven of the Aga, and that is at around 150 degrees Celsius).
7. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely (We actually sampled them warm because they looked better than we had expected and we couldn’t resist!)
7. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee!! 🙂
DISCLAIMER (I think it would be unfair I didn’t add this): My kids haven’t actually wanted to try these, but that might be to do with the fact that they are a bit fussy (aka skeptical of all things new) and that I had baked them big sweet chocolate chip cookies on the same day… I see no reason why older / less fussy should refuse them; they are genuinely tasty cookies.
woodsofwhite 
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