Cooking with Littles: Banana Cookie Recipe with No Added Sugars

This week, @athomewithastghik shows us how to make nutritious and naturally sweetened banana cookies:

This cookie recipe doesn’t contain any added sugars. I used a banana to add flavor, and as a result, you can taste the banana when you eat these fluffy and fun-to-make treats. They’re also a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen. They can use their favorite cookie cutters to cut the cookie dough into fun shapes and decorate them with yogurt + their favorite fruit.

These can be served in many ways: on their own, as they are, spread some yogurt and garnish them with diced fruit, turn them into cookie yogurt fruit parfaits (scroll down for instructions), and much more! 

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I like to use unbleached flour)
• 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal or ground flaxseed
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon of oil, I used avocado oil
• 1/4 cup of milk, I used whole milk

How to make banana cookies:

• Preheat the oven to 350F
• To a bowl, add the flour, flaxseed meal, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix it with a fork to combine and set it aside. These will be our dry ingredients.
• To a separate bowl, mash the 2 ripe bananas. Add the egg and whisk it to break down the egg and to help it combine with the mashed banana. Add the vanilla extract, oil and milk. Mix in a whisking motion to combine.
• Add the dry ingredients (the flour mixture) to the banana mixture in 3 batches, mixing in between each batch. The mixture will slowly come together and thicken up. Initially mix it with a fork and later use your hands to help form a dough.

Note: If the dough feels a bit sticky, sprinkle some more flour and knead the dough to combine.

• Flour your work surface and place the cookie dough on your work surface. Also flour the surface of the cookie dough and your rolling pin.

• Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch in thickness. Add some flour to the corner of your work surface and tap your cookie cutter into the flour a few times to help it coat with some flour. (This will help ensure the cookie dough doesn’t stick to your cookie cutter)
• Use the cookie cutter to cut out fun shapes or circles. Transfer the cookies to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, making sure the cookies aren’t touching one another and having space between them.
• Bake it in the oven for about 12 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown (or about 8 minutes for smaller-sized cookies).
• Allow the cookies to cool slightly and transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
• Enjoy or once they’ve cooled completely, you may spread some yogurt and garnish them with your favorite diced fruit.

Served in the Grip Dish 3 with diced kiwis, halved blueberries, and diced strawberries:

These cookies can also be turned into Cookie Yogurt Fruit Parfaits! Simply break the cookies into small pieces, dollop some yogurt, sprinkle some diced fruit, and serve, or can turn it into a two-layered parfait by repeating this process once more.

The fruits I used for the parfait:

• Small diced strawberries, 
• Small diced kiwi
• Halved or quartered blueberries. 

You may also drizzle on some honey if you wish. Just a friendly reminder, no honey for children under the age of 1.

Love to bake? Get creative with Astghik's checkered spinach cake with flaxseed raspberry jam!