Banana-spice Cookies

[Roda]

Here is a good recipe to use up those ripe bananas and a nice change from banana bread!

This is a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 10th edition. These were a favorite of my family before going gluten free and just today tried them gluten free. Original recipe is as follows and changes I made are marked with an * and in parenthesis.

375 degree oven

1/2 cup margarine or butter *(I used butter)*

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour *(I used Tom Sawyer's all purpose gluten free flour)*

1 cup sugar

2 eggs *(I increased the eggs to 3)*

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

3 bananas mashed (1 cup)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

frosting *(can make your own vanilla or cream cheese frosting or ready made vanilla works nice also)*

Beat margarine or butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add about half of the flour, the sugar, eggs, baking powder, vanilla, cinnamon, soda and cloves. Beat till thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Beat in bananas. Stir in nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto a greased cookie sheet. *(I used parchment paper)* Bake in a 375 deg. oven for 8 to 10 minutes *(found 8-9 min. was good)* or till edges are lightly browned. Cool cookies on a rack. Frost.

It was getting late (Thurs. night) so I put the batter in the fridge over night and baked the cookies this afternoon. I don't know if that made any difference or not. Before gluten free they would bake up flat and I would have to add more flour to the batter. Gluten free version came out perfect. They did not run or get flat. They were nice and puffy. After I took them out of the oven I slid the parchment paper onto a rack and let them cool for about a minute or so and then peeled them off to finish cooling. I actually think they turned out better now and everyone still scarfs them down!

[Jenny (AZ via TX)]

Roda, these sound great! I'm going to make these as soon as my bananas ripen up a little bit. Thanks for posting.

[candrews]

Putting cookie dough in the refrigerator definitely improves gluten free cookies!

[GRUMP 1]

Ok did I mess up on this or what? Is it suppose to be as runny as mine turned out. I am thinking not, I just don't see how you would get it to stay in one place long enough to cook. I am assuming I messed up? How think or runny should this dough be? Help this dough dough out, lol.......

Thank you

Grump

[Roda]

  GRUMP 1 said:

Ok did I mess up on this or what? Is it suppose to be as runny as mine turned out. I am thinking not, I just don't see how you would get it to stay in one place long enough to cook. I am assuming I messed up? How think or runny should this dough be? Help this dough dough out, lol.......

Thank you

Grump

These cookies are a drop cookie and it is more like a batter. I put mine in the fridge overnight and it was much thicker than right after I mixed it up. Maybe your flour blend could have something to do with it. I have noticed with the Tom Sawyer if it sits longer it thinkenes up especially when I make pancakes. I think it is because it has geletan in the mix. I'm sorry yours didn't turn out. I had made over 100 cookies and the family and friends have almost eaten them all. Better luck next time.

[Roda]

  Roda said:

These cookies are a drop cookie and it is more like a batter. I put mine in the fridge overnight and it was much thicker than right after I mixed it up. Maybe your flour blend could have something to do with it. I have noticed with the Tom Sawyer if it sits longer it thinkenes up especially when I make pancakes. I think it is because it has geletan in the mix. I'm sorry yours didn't turn out. I had made over 100 cookies and the family and friends have almost eaten them all. Better luck next time.

Grump 1

I just double checked the recipe and everything is correct. If yours turned out too runny just try using the 2 eggs instead of increasing it to three. Or maybe add a little more flour. Before baking them gluten free I had problems with them running and turned out really flat. Butter likes to do that so I would add more flour. My mom says using margarine does not do that, but I prefer butter. The batter should be thicker than a cake batter and should not run off the spoon. Hope this helps!

[GRUMP 1]

Ok I am sure that I just did some thing wrong when I made these up. I did add more flour and they turned out great. I cooked up some of them then added some raisins to what I had left of the dough. That was really good also, then had to hide them so no one else could find them, lol.

Thanks again,

Grump

[JNBunnie1]

  GRUMP 1 said:

Ok I am sure that I just did some thing wrong when I made these up. I did add more flour and they turned out great. I cooked up some of them then added some raisins to what I had left of the dough. That was really good also, then had to hide them so no one else could find them, lol.

Thanks again,

Grump

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!

[mushroom]

  Roda said:

Grump 1

I just double checked the recipe and everything is correct. If yours turned out too runny just try using the 2 eggs instead of increasing it to three. Or maybe add a little more flour. Before baking them gluten free I had problems with them running and turned out really flat. Butter likes to do that so I would add more flour. My mom says using margarine does not do that, but I prefer butter. The batter should be thicker than a cake batter and should not run off the spoon. Hope this helps!

Ok, so I should have read this first. My first tray turned out like joined together pancakes which didn't bubble, even though I put the dough in the fridge overnight, so I added more flour (about 1/4 cup) and some more baking powder in case mine was a bit stale, and some more spice for...well, you know, more spice!!!

Next two trays came out fine, but I did bake a little longer as wll.

[*lee-lee*]

i have a question.

i've never used Tom Sawyers flour...does it have xanthan gum in it or should i add some if i'm using Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose mix? or will the baking powder and soda do the trick? i'm fairly new to baking (was never much of a baker before the days of celiac) so forgive my ignorance!

[mushroom]

  *lee-lee* said:

i have a question.

i've never used Tom Sawyers flour...does it have xanthan gum in it or should i add some if i'm using Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose mix? or will the baking powder and soda do the trick? i'm fairly new to baking (was never much of a baker before the days of celiac) so forgive my ignorance!

My flour mix doesn't have any xanthum gum in it and it holds together just fine. (I think that's what the gum is for; in this case the eggs are a binder)

[*lee-lee*]

thanks mushroom! now i have to hope to find some old bananas at walmart so i can make these tomorrow!

[mushroom]

I had three bananas in varying stages of over-ripeness. Fortunately I only had to use two because the third was a very gooey mess I would have used it if I had to though

[Roda]

  *lee-lee* said:

i have a question.

i've never used Tom Sawyers flour...does it have xanthan gum in it or should i add some if i'm using Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose mix? or will the baking powder and soda do the trick? i'm fairly new to baking (was never much of a baker before the days of celiac) so forgive my ignorance!

Tom Sawyer flour does have xanthan gum already in the mix. So when you use it in recipes you can omit the xanthan gum when it calls for it. As for Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose mix, I have no idea what the ingredients are. I have never used it.

[Roda]

I made these today. I hadn't made them since last year. I make my own sorghum blend now and used it instead. The first attempt was a complete failure because I added WAY TO MUCH xanthan gum. They were gross. So I did some digging and found that for cookies that you only need 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon per cup of flour. So I added 1/2 teaspoon to the batter and that worked out well. I also like them with this flour blend better. The ones I baked on the silpat came out and off the cookie pan the best.