Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a real life addiction to cookies. It's almost ridiculous how much I love them. I tried to give them up for lent one year but that just led to a full on cookie overdose and me reasoning that Nilla Wafers don't count as cookies because they're called wafers. It was pretty bad.

Though I'm not quite as cookie crazy as I used to be, I still absolutely love baking them up and sharing them. My sister on the other hand likes to claim half the batch for her own personal stash. These Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip cookies I made over the weekend definitely had her wanting to keep ALL the cookies for herself. Maybe the cookie addiction is genetic!

I found this recipe on How Sweet It Is and immediately knew I had to try it. I even made a double batch which is why it looks like I have way too many ingredients below. This recipe is bringing together all the big flavor names, Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Bananas, and puts it in cookie form. COOKIE FORM. These combinations go great when paired together but putting all three together? It's everything you've ever wanted in a cookie.

The recipe itself is very easy to follow and pretty much fail proof! I always have a hard time baking chocolate chip cookies because they flatten out too quickly and look more like chocolate chip pancakes. I've researched the heck outta why this cookie curse always befalls me and the answer is always the same. It has to do with the temperature of the butter. With this recipe you're already using melted butter that's been cooled so that takes care of that! My cookies turned out looking like real cookies!

We're only using the egg yolks in this recipe so save those egg whites for a quick breakfast! As with most recipes involving bananas, make sure your bananas are ripe or even better, over ripe. The more ripe, the better the banana flavor so don't toss those sad looking bananas just yet! If you have too many over ripe bananas you can freeze them for another day or you can whip up some Banana Ice Cream!

I can't be trusted to make cookies evenly sized so I always resort to using my handy dandy cookie scoop. It makes for some mighty nice looking cookies if I do say so myself! 

At the bottom of the recipe, Jessica, the owner of How Sweet It Is, mentioned adding bacon to this recipe the next time she tried it. This type of idea either disgusts people or makes people think, "Why didn't I think of that?!", you can guess which type of person I am. I added bacon bits to about six of my cookies. I can't even describe how infinitely better these cookies got with the addition of the bacon. You can never go wrong with the sweet and salty combination. I'm taking her advice and only making these with bacon from now on, except for my vegetarian friends, I guess.

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

(source: How Sweet It Is)

makes about 18-20 cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted and cooled

6 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter, melted and cooled

1 cup loosely packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 ripe medium bananas, mashed

1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together cooled peanut butter and butter with both sugars until combined. Whisk in egg yolk and vanilla extract until smooth. Add in the mashed banana and mix until combined – mixture will not be smooth. Gradually add in the dry ingredients, mixing with a large spoon until a dough forms – I even use my hands to bring it together sometimes. Fold in chocolate chips.

Shape the dough into the size of a golfball (or size of your choice) and place on a nonstick baking sheet about 2 inches apart from each other. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the middles are puffy – do not overbake! Let cool completely then dig in. I suggest letting these cool completely before storing them in a sealed container or bag, and they will stay very soft because of the banana.