Banana Cookies

I had some bananas that were getting too ripe.  I didn't want banana bread.  Behold, cookies!  They're the fluffy kind, like pumpkin cookies.

Based on this recipe.  Makes about 18 cookies, maybe 20 if you don't eat any dough.

1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted, and whipped
1.5 eggs (I used 1 egg and a half egg's worth of egg replacer)
2 bananas (mine were small)
3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients.   Add the butter.  Add everything else.  Put them on cookie sheets -- they'll roughly double in size.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes.

I frosted half of them and left the other half plain.  I haven't tried the frosted ones yet because I'm waiting for them to dry.  For the frosting, I used 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tbsp half-and-half, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and powdered sugar until it came together.  It covered 8 cookies.

They're very basic when they're plain, but I like them.  You could add raisins, pineapple, nuts, cherries, peanut butter frosting...

Frosted above, unfrosted below.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

Everybody makes oatmeal raisin cookies.  But I want to make good oatmeal raisin cookies.  So here's an attempt at that.  Based on this recipe.

1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup oats
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
2/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 shot spiced rum
2 shots water

Mix raisins, rum, and water in a pot.  Put on medium low heat so it steams & smells delicious.  If I were doing this again, I'd only use 1 shot of water so more of the rum goes in the raisins, or I'd plan ahead enough to just soak the raisins in pure rum without heat.  Meanwhile, mix together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a small bowl.  Mix together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon in a big bowl.  Once the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, drain them and mix everything together in the big bowl.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes or so, just until the bottoms start to brown a little.  Use a silpat so they don't stick and an airbake pan so they don't get crunchy.  They don't really change shape in the oven, so squish them into cookie-like shapes before baking.

Edit:
Another attempt, this one turned out great.  Based roughly on this and this.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of ginger
scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups oats
2/3 cup raisins, soaked in hot apple juice

Microwave some apple juice in a bowl until it's steaming.  Put in all the raisins (they should be covered) and set aside for a while.  In a smallish bowl, cream together butter & sugars.  Mix in egg & vanilla until well combined.  In the big mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the oats & raisins.  Barely combine the dry ingredients and the butter mixture; add oats, strain raisins (discard liquid) and add raisins.  Mix together & stick in the fridge for 15+ minutes.  Then form into balls and bake at 350 for about 6 minutes.  These ones also don't reshape much in the oven, so shape them accordingly before baking.

Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies

I checked a gluten-free Christmas cookie cookbook out of the library.  Most of the recipes had ingredients I didn't have (particular flours) and/or were just normal cookie types, gluten freed.  These ones caught my eye though -- they weren't like cookies I'd seen recipes for before.  They're delicious.  Like little bites of cornbread, with a crispy outside & a fluffy inside.  I tweaked the recipe to work with what I had around.

3/4 cups dried cranberries
1/4 cup Southern Comfort
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 cups corn starch
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
2 eggs (or egg substitutes)
4 tbsp milk (I used almond milk)
1 tbsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla

Put cranberries & SoCo in a bowl together so the cranberries can soak it up.  When I did this, I accidentally put in a half cup of SoCo -- when it came time to add the cranberries to everything else, I fished them out with a fork & left behind some cranberry infused SoCo (which you could use for mixed drinks).  I think this resulted in the cookies having slightly more than a quarter cup of SoCo.

Put the dry ingredients (cornmeal through salt) into a food processor; process until they're mixed & the cornmeal's as finely or coarsely ground as you want in the final product.  I didn't have a big enough food processor, so I put in everything except the corn starch & mixed in the corn starch afterwards.

Add the chopped up butter to the food processor; pulse a couple times to chop it in.  Again, I have a small food processor, so I did this by halves.  Pour into a bowl.  Add wet ingredients (eggs through vanilla); mix until it makes a nice dough.  The recipe as written above is what I made; it includes 2 more tablespoons of milk than the original recipe, because my dough didn't come together well with just 2 tablespoons.  I also didn't realize how much moisture the cranberries would add -- if I were making them again, I might just do 3 tablespoons at this point & only add the 4th if there was still dry mix after adding the cranberries.

Add in the cranberries & mix to combine.  If you only used 1/4 cup SoCo, add any remaining liquid in the bowl to the cookies as well.

Form cookies on a silpat lined cookie sheet.  These cookies don't really grow much, so you can put them pretty close together; they also don't change shape much, so if you put them in with little spiky bits of dough sticking off, the spikes will still be there when they get out.  Bake for 20 minutes or so at 350 until they get a little golden brown around the edges.  Best as dough (note: boozy dough) or when fresh & warm out of the oven.

The original recipe calls for rum rather than SoCo, but I was lacking in the rum department, so I ate a couple cranberries and sniffed different liquors while I was chewing them so I could imagine what the final result would taste like (rejected possibilities: Fireball whiskey & cinnamon spice Kahlua, because I felt both would overpower the other flavors).

This was also my first use of fresh orange zest -- I happened to have an orange around, so I zested it then ate the rest.  I ended up with slightly less than a full tablespoon, but I feel like the cookies had enough orangeiness to them with just that.  And it made the kitchen smell very fresh.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

This is the second batch -- the first batch had those little spiky bits I mentioned.

Fruity Thumbprint Cookies

I have too many kinds of jelly in my fridge, so I decided to make these thumbprint cookies.  I only made a half batch, which made exactly 23 cookies -- considering I ate some of the dough, that's just about right.  I made some tweaks to make these easier & use the ingredients I had.  The cookie part ended up tasting basically like a butter cookie -- I suspect that if I'd let them sit for a day or two, the citrus flavor would've opened up, but I don't have that kind of patience.

1/4 cup jam or jelly (I didn't measure this, just used the spoon to scoop it directly from jar to cookie)
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 egg's worth of egg substitute
1 1/2 tsp dried orange zest
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix butter & sugar together until it's a little light & fluffy.  Mix in egg substitute, orange zest, lemon juice, and vanilla; mix until it's combined & fluffier.  Mix together dry ingredients, add to the wet mixture.  Put a silicone mat on a baking sheet.  Make 1 inch balls of dough, put them on the sheet -- they'll only expand a little bit, so leave a little space but you probably only need about an inch between cookies.  If you have a round 1/2 tsp measuring spoon, it works really well for making the "thumbprints" -- otherwise, just use your thumb!

I stuck the whole first tray in the freezer for about 10 minutes once I'd assembled it, and that worked wonderfully.  The second batch didn't work out as well. I just made balls of dough & put them back in the bowl in the fridge until the pan was free again.  What I didn't realize is that this dough gets really solid when it's chilled, so I couldn't shape it until I'd let it warm up a bit on the pan.  Even then, the cookies cracked, which led to the jelly spilling out of some of them while baking.  Maybe use two pans & stick one in the freezer while the other is baking?  Or find another way to shape the cookies before you chill them?

Bake for 6 minutes at 350, then take out & add your jam/jelly to fill the divots (if you used the measuring spoon, now's the time to use it again -- 1/2 tsp is the perfect amount of filling for these cookies).  Bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the bottoms just barely start to brown.

Cool on racks & enjoy!

First batch turned out beautifully

Second batch was less beautiful but still good

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies

While visiting home for the holidays, we baked some delicious vegan banana oatmeal cookies.  We had just a few too many bananas around the house, and these were a super delicious way to use them up.  We added raisins to the last batch of them, and those were good too; I'd guess you could add any pretty much any chopped dried fruit to these and they'd be tasty.

Based off the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-oatmeal-cookie/

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg (could be doubled)
3/4 tsp cinnamon (could be doubled)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 cup mashed overripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.  Add everything except the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Add the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Place cookies on a greased/silpat'd/parchment papered cookie sheet & bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until they look done.

Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

These tasted basically like Oreos, but with the texture of a normal cookie.  Pretty tasty, very easy, and a great way to use up the stale Oreos that were in my cabinet from my last Oreo baking adventure.  I didn't have any mini chocolate chips, so I skipped them.  The cookies still turned out.  I have no idea what makes them rise, but they don't fall flat like I was expecting them to.

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/03/22/oreo-cheesecake-cookies/


½ cup butter (or margarine), softened
3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (or straight out of the fridge & tossed in with your slightly-too-melted butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup Oreo cookie crumbs

Mix together everything but the Oreo bits.  Make little cookie dough balls, roll them in the Oreo bits, put them on a baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for about 12 minutes.  I could tell they were done because when I took one off the tray, the bottom was golden brownish.

The first batch before baking.  They don't change size or appearance much after baking.

The second batch after baking.  I had a little less than a cup of Oreo crumbs, so I ran out before the end of the dough, but they still turned out well!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have you ever been eating a chocolate chip cookie and thought to yourself, "You know what would go really well with this?  An Oreo!"?  Well, you should've.  It's fantastic.  Putting Oreos into other things is often delicious: cookies 'n' cream milkshakes/candy bars, deep fried Oreos, and, as it turns out, chocolate chip cookies with Oreos in the middle of them.  These are delicious and ridiculously decadent.  Each cookie has between 2 & 3 normal chocolate chip cookies' worth of dough around it, with an Oreo in the middle.  I ate half of one and now I have a sugar high.

picky-palate.com/2011/01/06/oreo-stuffed-chocolate-chip-cookies/

As usual, I halved the recipe; I only got 9 cookies out of it.  I also ran out of brown sugar, so I substituted white sugar + molasses.  I used half real Oreo cookies and half Simple Truth brand chocolate sandwich cookies (which are like Oreos but with an ingredient list that contains mostly things I'm familiar with).  The real Oreos got softer & squishier, while the Simple Truth cookies kept their shape a little more; if I hadn't eaten them side-by-side, I probably wouldn't have known the difference.  It's also possible that these differences are what happens when you eat one fresh out of the oven and one 15 minutes later (despite the knowledge that you'll probably feel sick after eating the second one -- to be fair, I only ate 1/2 of each).


1 stick butter, softened (half melted)
1/8 cup brown sugar
7/8 cup white sugar
1 tsp molasses
1 egg (or 1 egg substitute)
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
5 oz chocolate chips
9 Oreos (give or take a few)

Mix everything but the Oreos together as if you were making normal chocolate chip cookies.  Take each Oreo and completely cover it with cookie dough.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Coconut Cookies

Coconut was on sale at the grocery store this week, and I haven't made cookies in a while.  These are tasty little things.  I took the comments' advice and doubled the vanilla.  They're very soft with a slightly crunchy outside.  I also made a few with dried berries added to them, which were good.  These seem like cookies that would be easy to throw other random stuff into, too.  Nothing to write home about, but still a good, simple cookie.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chewy-coconut-cookies/

The lighter ones are better & chewier.