This is a great way to use up unattractive, over ripe bananas. The base of these simple ‘cookies’ combines just two ingredients – bananas and oats. Then be creative and add other things to jazz them up if you like such as dried fruit, orange zest, grated carrot or cinnamon. They’re best eaten on the day you make them but will keep for a day in a sealed container.
Skills Check
Follow a recipe; follow food safety & hygiene rules; tidy away; mash; use weighing scales; beat ingredients together.
Equipment
Baking sheet, greaseproof paper, large bowl, fork, weighing scales, measuring spoons, spoon, use an oven with adult supervision.
Allergens (Please note the allergens listed are indicative only. Allergens vary depending on brand; check the labels on the products you use)
Gluten (gluten free oats are available)
Ingredients (makes approx. 15):
- 160 g oats (any kind)
- 2 large bananas – the riper the better!
- 2 level tsp ground ginger (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC /Gas Mark 5-6 and put greaseproof paper on the baking sheet.
- Unpeel the bananas and in a large bowl, mash them well with the fork.
Add the ground ginger if using and mix into the bananas. - Add the oats and stir well so there are no dry bits.
- Put spoonfuls of the mixture onto the lined baking sheet in the size you want the cookies to be and flatten if necessary (NB - they will stay the same size and won’t rise).
- Bake for 15 mins until golden.
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes before eating.
So thinking about banana and oat cookies ...
Bananas are a nutritious and filling fruit, providing an excellent source of potassium (good for blood pressure regulation) and vitamin B6, as well as being a source of fibre.
Oats provide starchy carbohydrate, which gives us slow-release energy, and are a good source of fibre, vitamins and minerals.
Nutritional Information
Energy | 239kJ/57kcal | 3% | |
Med | Fat | 0.9g | 1% |
Low | Saturates | 0.1g | 1% |
Med | Sugars | 2.9g | 3% |
Low | Salt | 0g | 0% |
per 19g serving
% of an adult's reference intake
Typical values per 100g: Energy 1239kJ / 293kcal
Notes
A traffic light system is used on nutrition labels to make it easier to see which foods and drinks are lower in calories, fat, sugar and salt. Try and choose more ‘greens’ and ‘ambers’ and fewer ‘reds’, and stick to smaller portions of ‘reds’.
Just because a recipe or a food has a red traffic light doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat it. Understanding why a food or recipe might have a red light can be helpful. For example oily fish is high in total fat and so any recipe containing oily fish is likely to be ‘red’ for fat. But it is recommended that we eat oily fish at least once a week because the type of fat it contains is beneficial for our health.
% Reference Intakes are also shown. Reference Intakes are guidelines about the approximate amount of particular nutrients and energy required for a healthy diet (based on an average-sized woman doing an average amount of physical activity). Most children will require less than these Reference Intakes. The contribution of one serving of a food or drink to the Reference Intake for each nutrient is expressed as a percentage.