How many cookies can we cram into one recipe?

I had some overripe frozen bananas chillin' (most literally) in my freezer, left over from the banana butterscotch cupcakes. The banana butterscotch cupcakes are seriously good, by the way. One of BJ's friends, Sam, whom I especially like to feed because he always gives me lots of compliments on my baked goods, said something like, "These probe pleasure centers in my brain that I was never aware I had."

See why I like to feed him?

So anyways, I needed to figure out something to do with the rest of the bananas. I've made plenty of banana bread and banana muffins so I was on the lookout for something different. I settled on a recipe from Martha Stewart's website, which is a great place to turn for unique ideas. The recipe was for banana cookies, kind of in between a chocolate chip cookie and banana bread. Sign me up!


These originally called for walnuts as well, which I thought I had but didn't. Or couldn't find, it's quite possible that I just couldn't find them in the black hole that is my kitchen. But anyways, they were fine without them, the recipe also had oatmeal in them which made them taste nutty regardless.

I really liked these. I added an extra banana and I still felt like the banana flavor could be stronger so I added some sliced bananas on the last few batches. The bananas oxidize and turn ugly but they taste better with the extra boost of banana flavor, I think. I ate two just to be sure. For scientific purposes only, obviously. Next time, I'll probably leave out the chocolate because it overwhelmed the banana a bit and banana oatmeal cookies sound pretty good on their own, no?

Also, I must make small cookies because I always get tons more than the recipe calls for. The recipe said it would make 3 dozen cookies but I came out with at least 4.5 dozen. Yikes. I'll try to feed some to my coworker tomorrow.

Recipe from marthastewart.com

INGREDIENTS:

Makes about 3 dozen

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch chunks
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (about 2 ounces), toasted

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl; set aside. Put butter and sugars into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in banana. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.
2. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown and just set, 12 to 13 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool completely. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers up to 2 days.

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So according to the storage instructions, I have two days to consume 50+ cookies. Excellent.

Tomorrow is Joe's birthday so I'm prepping for that as well. Our school's production of Sweeney Todd opened today and Joe is playing Toby, one of the main rolls. He's been crazy busy rehearsing the last couple of weeks so I'm going to make him an extra awesome meal for his birthday since he was so nice to me when I was stressed around midterms. Not only was I stressed, I took it all out on Joe. I think an appropriate description of my behavior would be, oh, monstrous psycho bitch? So sorry, Joe, here's a cake...?

Lots more on that tomorrow after I make everything. His dessert will be a trifle consisting of a brown butter vanilla birthday cake, chocolate berry pudding, layered with mixed berries. Dinner too but that's top secret at the moment!