Imagine all of the goodness of banana nut bread baked into chewy Banana Nut Cookies! These cookies boast warm banana yumminess, toasted pecan crunch, crisp edges, and chewy centers that create a perfectly unique dessert experience. Even better, you can mix all of the ingredients in one pot by hand – no electric mixer or endless dishwashing needed!

So don’t wait! Gather your ingredients now!

Choosing the Right Baking Banana:

You’ll need 1/3 cup mashed banana, which is about one small banana. But make sure to measure! Adding too much banana creates extra moisture that could cause the cookie to fall apart or have a cakey texture. And of course, notice the banana pictured is very ripe. The banana must be over-ripe to get the nice banana flavor and the coveted chewy-in-the-middle-crispy-on-the-outside cookie texture. Of course, it’s tricky to just happen to have a perfectly over-ripe banana at the exact moment the urge strikes to bake Banana Nut Cookies. Check out this post on freezing over-ripe bananas so they’re available at a moment’s notice.

Once you have the perfect banana, the rest is a breeze!

Ingredients:

• 10 tablespoons of butter, divided
• 1 cup of coarsely chopped pecans, or whole if the pecans are tiny (sub chopped walnuts if you prefer)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/3 cup over-ripe banana, mashed
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Step by Step:

First, melt one tablespoon of butter over medium or medium low heat. Add the pecans and toast them for 2-3 minutes, or until deliciously fragrant.

Remove the pot from the heat and add the remaining nine tablespoons of butter, preferably chopped into chunks. The cool butter will melt completely and, at the same time, help the pecan mixture to cool so that other ingredients can be added.

Once the butter has melted, stir in the mashed banana and vanilla extract.

When the mixture is at or near room temperature, stir in the sugars and egg yolk until thoroughly combined.

Pour salt, baking soda, and baking powder into the flour and stir to combine.

Add the flour mixture to the dough and stir just until combined. Over-stirring can affect the gluten and, in turn, your final cookie.

Your dough will be very soft, so pop that pot of dough in fridge for an hour to harden up!

After the dough has firmed up in the fridge, roll into two tablespoon balls. I measure the first one and then eyeball if from there. Otherwise, my dough balls can get pretty generous – and I end up with fewer cookies.

Make sure your cookie sheet is covered in parchment paper to ensure that none of your cookies stick to the pan, while avoiding all the hassle of greasing pans! Bake these yummies in a preheated oven at 350℉ for about 13 minutes. They’ll look only lightly browned, but also cakey and puffed at that point. Don’t worry though!

The cookies on the left just came out of the oven. Um… excuse me… what a disaster. These cakey-looking-misshapen-stuck-together cookie blobs are not ok. Well, just follow the quick tips here for Achieving the Perfectly Round Cookie. Then let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet. And boom! The cookies on the right will appear before your eyes! Enjoy – and don’t forget to share!