Banana, peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies

This Banana, peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies recipe is easy to bake and delicious to eat. The cookies stay soft with a little crunch from the chocolate chips. Amazing cookie flavour combination, that’s so good, you might find it difficult to share them with others!

Why make this recipe?

• Fab flavour combination
• Great breakfast alternative for busy mornings or a perfect snack
• Quick & easy to bake

My top tips

• Don’t overmix the dough
• If you have the time, leave the dough to chill in the fridge for 10-30 minutes before baking to prevent your biscuits from spreading too much

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

Bananas

It’s best to use slightly ripen bananas, as these have the best flavour. I know it’s sometimes tricky to work out how much bananas to add to the recipe as no banana is the same. If you have the really small – baby bananas – I would use 2.

If you have large bananas, use just 1.

If you are not sure, add whatever you think is right and leave some mashed banana to one side. At the end of your dough mixing you should have a fairly soft dough (but not too runny). You should be able to form a firm(ish) scoops of the dough to create your cookies. If they are too firm, you can add a small amount of mashed bananas at the end to soften the texture.

Chocolate Chips

Make sure you use bake-stable chocolate chips, otherwise you’ll end up with your chocolate melted in. You can use dark chocolate or milk chocolate chips, it depends on what you prefer and how sweet you want the cookies to be.

Peanut Butter

I tend to use smooth peanut butter, but this recipe will work with either smoot or crunchy peanut butter. I have to admit, that if I use peanut butter for baking, I use the cheaper stuff – nothing fancy, as I keep the good stuff for my smoothies.

I’m only saying this, because some of the better quality peanut butter can be quite oily. If you are using one of these, I would leave out the unsalted butter and just add the combined weight in peanut butter.

Flour

I’ve used plain flour with this recipe, but you can also use Gluten-Free or All-Purpose Flour. If you are using gluten-free flour don’t forget to add a 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum (unless it’s already mixed in for you in your flour mix).

Sugar

White or Golden caster sugar works best with this recipe. Anything stronger than that might overpower the subtle flavour of bananas.

Baking powder

Baking powder will give you an even rise with this recipe. If you want to keep this recipe gluten-free, just double check that your baking powder is also gluten free.

Butter

I’ve used unsalted butter, but if you use salted butter, don’t add any extra salt.

Salt

A large pinch of salt will help to balance out the flavours in this recipe.

Milk

You might need some milk to bring the cookie dough together to achieve a soft (but still firm) consistency). You can use a dairy-free milk or any kind of milk for this recipe. A watered down white yoghurt, cream or buttermilk would also work with this recipe well.

Egg

If you are after a vegan/vegetarian version of this recipe, use one tablespoon of chia seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons of water and left for about 1-24 hrs to soak up before you use it. The longer you leave the chia seeds the better, as they soak up the water and turn into jelly like consistency. You can use ground chia seeds or regular (non-milled chia seeds).

Normally, you can also use 1/2 banana to replace 1 egg, but since we are already using bananas in this recipe, I thought it would be better to keep to a chia seeds egg replacement if you needed to swap things around.

MORE BISCUITS RECIPES

How to make Banana, peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies

• Preheat your oven to 350°F (180C for fan oven).
• Line a couple of cookie sheets with baking parchment paper.
• In a large mixing bowl measure out the flour and add the unsalted butter (cut up in to small pieces). Using your hands, work the butter into the flour until the butter gets absorbed in the flour.
• Add the peanut butter and work it into the flour, either with your hands or a wooden mixing spoon.
• Add the sugar, pinch of salt and chocolate chips and mix well together.
• In another bowl, mash the banana with a fork.
• Add the egg and mix it into the mashed bananas.
• Add milk to the banana mixture and mix well together.
• Add the wet ingredients to the flour ingredients and mix them together. There is no need to cream or overmix the dough, just bring it all together. You should get a fairly soft dough.
• Using a desert spoon, scoop the dough and drop on your baking tray, making sure that you leave good space between each cookie. Use more trays if needed as the cookies will spread a little.
• At this point you could choose to chill the trays with the ready cookies for 30 minutes or so. This prevents them from loosing their shape when they are baking. It’s not completely necessary, but it helps especially in the summer or if your kitchen is very warm.
• Place in the middle of your oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies are nicely turning golden with a lightly brown edges.
• Using the greaseproof paper, lift your cookies from the baking tray and slide them on the cooling rack. Leave to cool down completely.

MORE BISCUITS RECIPES

Batch size

It all depends on how big you make your cookies, but I find that I usually make about 20 medium size cookies from this dough batch. If you are making your cookies smaller, they will bake quicker, so bake them for only about 7 minutes.

Scaling up or down this recipe

You are welcome to make 1/2 the recipe (providing you have 1/2 egg – e.g. leftover from another recipe or add an extra 1/4 of a banana).

You are welcome to double or triple this recipe to make more cookies if you are baking for a school bake sale or planning a party. These cookies freeze well, so you can make a bigger batch and then freeze them for later.

How to store cookies

It’s best to store your cookies in an airtight container like a plastic tub, cookie jar or large glass jar. They will be also perfectly fine in a plastic bag for about 3-5 days.

You can freeze Banana, peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies on the day you’ve made them and keep them in the freezer for up to 3 months. Defrost in a room temperature, leaving the freezer bag open to prevent the biscuits from absorbing too much moisture.

MORE BISCUITS RECIPES