Banana Oat Chocolate Chunk Cookies

What do you do with a ripe banana early in the morning?

That was the question I faced on the first day of spring as I spied these two winter fruit stragglers hanging out in our fruit bowl. Yes, in our house bananas are winter only fruit, as in, fruit you buy when nothing else is in season in the dead of winter. You see the picture, so you know what I knew–these bananas needed to be used, and fast.

I thought banana bread was going to be the answer, until I decided to flip through my Martha Stewart’s Cookies book over breakfast. A scan of the index led me to this recipe, which promised to be a marriage of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. Intrigued, I asked Noel which one we should go for–bread or cookies. Is there any surprise that I got a resounding answer of COOKIES! back? What else should I have expected from my cookie monster husband!

And now, the thing you should know about these cookies before you make them. These have a certain, addictive quality that may render you unable to resist their call. What is it? Salt. Coarse sea salt to be exact. Salt that holds up through the baking process, giving you tiny bursts of saltiness as you eat each cookie. It’s not enough to make these salty, but it is enough to add a whole other flavor dimension that takes these cookies from good to fantastically yumlish. And trust me, that’s a good thing.

Banana Oat Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies

So, no joke, the other night I had a dream that I was Martha’s long lost niece. Somehow, my subconscious made it work because there are Stewarts in my family. Yeah, that’s it. But in the dream, Martha was such a fan of my baking. I’m taking that as a sign that my subconscious was happy with these cookies. Because my conscious self certainly was, and so was Noel, and all of my coworkers. They’re not too banana-y, with enough chocolate and oatmeal to give good balance.

Ingredients:

• 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 or chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix butter and sugars with the paddle attachment until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low, the add egg and vanilla and mix until combined. Mix in banana. Add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Hand stir in oats and chocolate chunks.

Use a cookie scoop or a spoon to drop rounded balls of dough onto cookie sheets (parchment helps with clean up but isn’t necessary). Bake cookies, until golden brown, 12 to 13 minutes. Let cool for a minute or so on the sheet, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

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