Banana Chocolate Chips Cookies

Working from home today and just had to sneak into the kitchen halfway through work. Not gonna cook, because we are to meet couple friends for dinner. That leaves baking. Have a very scary looking banana on our fruit bowls. Banana bread? But I'll need more than 1 banana.

There is cooking science and baking science, yes? Let's just say if both are school subjects, I'd fail miserably in baking science. Give me any cooking ingredients and I will figure my way out - it won't be Iron Chef quality, but it'll be decent. Baking ingredients though, I just have no clue of where to start. Just can't comprehend the right ratio of things. Too many unknown entities for me. Low protein, high protein flour. Hard and soft wheat. When to use both baking powder and soda. Which make it so challenging and...can be fun.

That said, I don't know what I can do with beyond over ripe single banana. On top of that, a package of instant oatmeal that just happen to sit in our cereal bars container!! Also have little bit of brown sugar. Google can't even handle such odd search. :D Went through some of my cookies recipe archive. Diligently paying close attention to ratio of flour:sugar:butter:the adds on.

Therefore, the quest begins. Whoa..I saw a small ziploc bag of wheat flour. I bought some a while ago from those bulk stores - was going to use it for something, can't remember what but must be something healthy - whole wheat flour. Butter. Salted or unsalted? Unsalted should be better, maybe? Yet it costs me more per stick than salted, and without knowing how it'll turn out, I think I should save the unsalted ones for better use.

What:
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- a little bit less than 1/2 cup brown sugar (I only have that much, maybe about 3/8 cup)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 egg
- 1 packet instant oatmeal (from Quaker, and happen to be cinnamon flavored one)
- 1 banana, mashed
- a dash of vanilla essence
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips
How:
- Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add eggs and essence. Beat until mix thoroughly.
- With spatula, mix in mashed bananas.
- Mix together flour, baking soda, instant oatmeal and salt. Pour into sugar mixture. Mix with spatula.
- Fold in chocolate chips. Mix until just combined.
- Drop a full tablespoon of dough to baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes in 350 oven, until bottom is golden brown.


Hmm..the verdict...it was not bad!!! At first, I was about to toss it out when I see the bottom starts getting all nice and golden but with very spongy soft almost mushy top. Chewy cookies are fine, but soft mushy? No. Then I thought about how some cookies should be left to cool and will harden up on its own. Maybe this is one of those. One thing for sure though, our place was filled with such lovely smell. Took it out from oven and leave it to cool. I could not help but keep touching and poking it. Still soft!! Oh my goodness! Hm..is it thoroughly baked?! I am absolutely not an expert baker, but I am pretty sure it's thoroughly done. Just to be sure, I inserted toothpick and it comes out super clean.

Ten minute later, the top harden up and I carefully break a piece. Still soft/cake- like inside, but look quite okay to eat. :) I took a bite and almost did a cha-cha slide. Nawh. Not to that extreme!! But really, it was pretty yummy. Instead of cookies, I may have to think of it more of miniature banana bread with crusty outer layers. Most importantly, I got to use up the overripe banana and that one packet of cinnamon oatmeal and that small amount of brown sugar leftover.

Oh, this will be perfect cookies for young children, no? Not too hard in texture, loaded with good stuff - oatmeal, banana and whole wheat flour!!