These are my best banana cookies so far, in my opinion. Taste tester #1 fully endorses them and says the amount of cinnamon is ideal. Taste tester #2 is away at school, so I don’t know what she would say — she doesn’t like bananas, but I think mixed with the peanut butter you can’t really taste the separate banana taste without looking for it; however, she often claims to taste bananas when I can’t. I’m gonna guess that she would give a thumbs down on this recipe, but if I dropped one banana and increased the peanut butter, her thumbs would go up. Taste tester #3 is not allowed to sample these because chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but I’m sure she would lap it up if I let her.

Now I just need to perfect them by replacing the nasty highly-processed high-sodium pancake mix with “scratch” low-sodium ingredients. Let’s just call this recipe the “prototype”, almost-from-scratch version.

We spent a week at the beach, and some guests brought some Krusteaz Light & Fluffy Buttermilk Complete Pancake Mix (just add water), which they left behind and I ended up taking home. This mix has a whopping 610 mg of sodium per 1/2 cup (geez louise, Krusteaz!). If I’m gonna use this mix, it’s gonna be as a small part of something else, not as pancakes.

Today, I had three very ripe bananas, so it was clearly time for some banana cookies. I recently bought some almond flour, just to try it out and see how it worked. So I figured I’d balance out the mix with the almond flour and whole oats. And of course, chocolate morsels are a must in any cookies I make.

The results were light and fluffy, delicious, and not too sweet. (But watch out — with all the nuts and banana, it’s high in fat, though it’s the “good kind” of fat).

Banana Nut Pancake Cookies

Makes about 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 3 over-ripe bananas
• 4 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 cup Krusteaz light & fluffy pancake mix
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 2 tsp sodium-free baking powder
  
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 6 oz dark chocolate morsels

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper.
2. In large mixing bowl, mash the bananas.
3. Mix in the peanut butter
4. Mix in the egg.
5. Stir in the almond flour, pancake mix, oats, and baking powder.
6. Stir in the dark chocolate morsels.
7. Drop spoonfuls onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. (Makes about 2 sheets of 12 cookies each).
8. Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool.

Servings:	8	Serving size:		3 cookies
DASH Food Groups per Serving
Grains	Vegetables	Fruits	Milk Products	Lean meats, fish, and poultry	Nuts, seeds, and legumes	Fats and oils	Sweets and added sugars
1/4	–	1/2	–	1/8	1	–	1
Nutrition
Calories		Sodium		Fat g		Sugar g
321		196		12.9		12.5

Note: I wasn’t sure how to count almond flour towards DASH servings, so 1 is an approximation. Also, half the sugar is from the bananas, so only about 1/2 of the sugar grams really count, since sugar from fruit is supposed to be “free” according to the American Heart Association. I’ve been searching for numbers on how much total sugar is acceptable per day, but all I can find is a max for “added” sugar (outside of fruits). If anyone finds a reliable source on this, please let me know.

Françoise