Banana-Oatmeal Cookies: banana bread in cookie form

After getting back home to Texas, my mom had been persistently asking me to bake her a healthy dessert. When thinking about what to make her, I recalled a recipe that a friend of mine sent me a while back for banana-oatmeal cookies. The recipe was so simple and required few ingredients, consisting of nothing but bananas, dates, vanilla extract, oats, and some vegetable oil. I'm not sure why it took me so long to make them, especially after I tried one. They turned out to be more delicious than I could have ever imagined them to be and are definitely one of the healthiest baked goods I have ever made.

True to form, I did make a mistake while baking them, being that I made the cookies larger than I believe they were intended to be. This, like my last baking venture, resulted in a significantly increased cooking time. After adding on additional time, the cookies were still very, very soft. I worried they would fall apart even after cooling and should have kept them baking longer, but the incredible aroma wafting out from the oven was tantalizingly good. My mom and I simply couldn't wait any longer, so I acted on impulse and pulled them out of the oven before we felt they were ready.

We let them cool for a few minutes and then transferred them over to the refrigerator to speed up the cooling process, but we ended up letting them cool overnight. This defeated the purpose of pulling them out early, but that decision inadvertnely worked out in our favor! The next morning when we went to try them, we were taken aback. Because they were so soft, the cookies took on the texture of moist banana bread. They tasted just as amazing as the homemade banana bread my mom used to make when I was growing up, and before making these cookies, I didn't think anything could ever come close to competing with it. Light, fluffy, and naturally sweet, I definitely recommend making these yourself; not only do they make for a healthy and delicious treat, but also for an awesome on-the-go breakfast as well! For the recipe and instructions, click the link here!