Banana coconut carob chip cookies

One of my favorite blogs told me if I want to reach my goals, then I need to show up for them every day. Today, I did just that. I am going to try to make a new batch of cookies every day, either a new recipe, a tweak on an old one, or a total make over for something that didn't go very well. Here is what I did today.  They were inspired by this blog post, which had a good starting point, but I changed it up quite a bit.

*Disclaimer* I am not promoting that you make this recipe...It's not perfected and needs tweaking. I want to just keep a blog of my recipes, so that I can grow and learn from my "mistakes". Although, I do not think that this recipe was bad, just not GREAT. Yet. :)

Banana Coconut Carob Chip Cookies

1.) I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

2.) I gathered the ingredients:

Ingredients

Dry
1c. brown rice flour
2/3c. sweet white sorghum flour
1/3c. potato starch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthum gum
8 Tbsp. carob chips
1/3 c. coconut flakes

Wet
1 mashed, ripe banana
3 TBsp. agave nectar

Step 3. Dry ingredients

3 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup melted coconut oil

3.) I combined all of the dry ingredients and whisked them together, except the carob chips and coconut flakes.

4.) I mashed the banana and added it to the wet ingredients in my mixing bowl. I mixed them on hi for 2 minutes, until it was smooth.

Step 4. Mixing the wet ingredients

5.) I slowly added the dry to the wet in the mixer, and mixed on hi until a nice textured ball formed. Then I added the carob chips and the coconut flakes. This is what it looked like.

Step 5. The combined wet and dry ingredients.

6.) On parchment paper, I made the dough into a long log, and then wrapped it up, and covered it with saran wrap. I put it into the freezer for 15 minutes to cool.

6.) The wrapped cookie log, ready to be cooled.

7.) After it was cool enough to slice, I unwrapped it, and began slicing it. I got around 32, half dollar sized cookies.

7.a) Unwrapping the cooled cookie log.

7b.) The uncooked cookies.

8.) Baked them for 8 minutes at 350. No longer, or else they would burn.

8.) Baked cookies, which look similar to the unbaked ones.

9.) I let them cool, then we all enjoyed them!

9.) The cooled, ready to eat, cookies.

My son and mom trying the cookies. He loves them.

 Thoughts and Reflections:

Okay, so I will admit, I found this recipe this morning, while still waking up for the day, so it was a bit of an impulsive endeavor. I had two over ripe bananas, so I wanted to use them up.

In the original post, she uses almond flour, with no starch, baking powder or xantham gum, but I couldn't find my almond flour, so I used what I had, adding the BP and XG because I know the brown rice flour needs a little bit extra to make it "cookie texture".

The taste was a bit doughy and almost like a biscuit. There were hints of sweet, but not enough for an avid cookie lover. I will redo this recipe tomorrow, and use the almond flour to see how it turns out. I think I might also add more agave and some natural applesauce. Everything else seems right, but I think that the brown rice flour makes it a bit heavy, and therefore more oil would be needed. I want to avoid adding any more oil, so I will use the apple sauce instead, I think.

I have numerous cookies leftover (It made 32...c'mon, I can't eat all of these), so let me know if you would like to try one. I will be toting them in my car, so I can always stop by and drop one off. Plus, I would like the feedback on how the taste, texture and quality are.

Nutritional remarks:

each cookie has: 81 calories, with 1g of fiber, 1 gram of protein 8 grams of natural sugar and 10 grams of healthy fats.
*Disclaimer- I was shocked that these were the values. Honestly, I am not okay with the amount of calories, but the amount of fat was what really made me mad. I know that coconut oil is a healthier fat than butter, margarine, canola or vegetable oil, but it might defray some people. Only 2 grams of saturated fat, and that comes purely from the coconut oil. Medium Chain Triglycerides are the fatty acids in the coconut oil, and any baker, chef and nutrition savvy joe would tell you that this is a GOOD fat and that your body NEEDS it. If you read the link that I tagged for MCT, it will tell you the benefits.

Comments are always welcome :)


...Amelia...