I’m an avid baker. I helped bake my very first pie as a toddler (my mother had a few awesome recipes that I would try again and again as I was growing up), and finally having a decent kitchen has woken my semi-dormant baking side. I bake bread at least every other day, cake or pie at least once a week; however, until recently, I had never baked cookies. Not once.

As I’m blogging and surfing the web for inspiration (and following a few fellow homestead bloggers), I keep bumping into cookie recipes. One more delicious-looking than the other. So, with the right amount of encouragement, I tried my first batch a few weeks ago… and haven’t stopped since.

My favorite home-baked cookies so far are these double chocolate banana cookies. Why?

• They are delicious. Just very, very tasty.
• They contain no refined flour – and since they’re full wheat, they are quite filling. A perfect snack for when you’re hungry (but have a sweet craving as well).
• Talking of sweet – there’s no refined sugar in it (except for the sugar in the chocolate – but you could use sugarfree chocolate if you prefer). There’s honey (I use raw honey from a local organic beekeeper, best honey I’ve tasted yet) – and banana of course. Life is just a bit sweeter with the right amount of banana.
• There is no butter either – I use olive oil from the local “cooperativa”, where we sold our olives last year (our olive harvest wasn’t big enough to make our own oil then). It feels nice to think there might be a tiny olive of ours in the oil I use for baking.
• The cookies freeze well; I usually make a big batch and whenever I have unexpected visitors, I magic a ziplock bag of cookies from the freezer. A few minutes on a low temperature in the oven if you don’t have the time to wait for them to defrost, and they’re a hit every time.
• They’re soft and chewy (if you want them to be)
• These cookies are easy to make as well. I’d say a child could make them… my inner child loves it!

A little disclaimer though: the original recipe isn’t mine – it’s from an awesome baking website called Running with Spoons. Here’s a link to the recipe… I haven’t changed much (but you can try and make both recipes to see which one’s the best!). Just substitued a few ingredients with others I have better access to (or like more).

Now on to the recipe!

How To Make Double Chocolate Banana Cookies?

Ingredients (for about 30 small-ish but thick and spongey cookies):

• 180 gr (1 1/2 cup) full wheat flour
• 3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 ripe bananas
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 120 gr (1 cup) of dark chocolate, chopped
• 40ml / gr (1/5 cup) of olive oil

Combine all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and chocolate chunks) in a bowl.
Dice the banana and mix with honey and olive oil.
Spoon the banana mixture into the dry ingredients bowl, and mix (I do it with a fork) until combined.
Put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When you take it out of the fridge, roll balls from the dough (wash your hands first!). I like little balls because that means more cookies! Use a table spoon to chunk off pieces of the cookie dough. You can use that table spoon to scrape molten dough from your hands at times, and mix it back in with the cold dough.
Place the cookie balls on a cookie sheet (I use baking paper or a silicon baking sheet), and flatten them with your fingers. I like them not too flat, so they’re still soft and chewy!

Bake at 160 degrees Celsius (320F) for 10 minutes; I like to leave them in the oven for a few more minutes (with the oven turned off). They’re supposed to be soft and chewy, so don’t overbake them. Let cool… although they’re yummie when warm as well!