Adventures in Baking: Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I told you I wouldn't stay away too long!! I have so many great recipes to share so you will be seeing a lot more of me. I'm totally addicted to Pinterest these days so I am finding new food blogs and recipes all the time; as well as fun baby things, home decor ideas, and DIY projects that I'm dying to try. Back to the food... I had some ripe bananas and now that I have the opportunity to spend more time in my lovely new kitchen I figured rather than waste them and throw them away I should use them. I perused Pinterest where there were plenty of banana bread recipes but then I came across this cookie recipe and I had to try it. Bananas and oats and chocolate chips just sounded so damn good. I gave it a shot and I have to say my first attempt at making cookies from scratch was totally successful. Ok, ok, I'll admit they were a bit spongy and some got a little dark on the bottom but I think that's easily fixed by cutting back the baking time a bit. I also may have over mixed my dough but quite frankly, the Kitchen Aid Mixer and I just started dating so we are still getting to know each other. Now that I know her a little better I'm sure they'll be close to perfect next time.

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

About 1 medium banana, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lg egg
about 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups old fashion rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup semisweet choc chips (I really like a cookie with lots of chocolate chips so I suggest adding 3/4 to 1 cup)
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine first 5 ingredients, through vanilla extract, in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Add egg, beat well.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl stirring with a whisk. Add flour mixture to banana mixture in bowl, beat with mixer at medium speed until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Coat baking sheets with cooking spray. Drop batter by the tablespoon onto cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until cookies are golden. Cool on pans 2 minutes them move to wire cooling racks to finish cooling.

recipe adapted from myrecipes.com

Summertime Sweet Treats: Berry Cobbler

Summertime makes me yearn for fresh fruits and vegetables in all shapes and forms. As we all well know, I'm not much of a baker or dessert maker, but I've been wanting to make a cobbler for quite some time. A couple years ago we went to dinner at a friends house and she threw together a delicious berry cobbler for desert. She assured me that it was really easy and so, only about 3 years later, I finally got around to trying out my own cobbler. I found a recipe on epicurious.com that looked easy enough and the topping (the "baking" part) involved just a few simple steps thus I figured there was no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that I could mess it up! And lucky for us... I did not! It was incredibly easy and incredibly delicious.

Mixed Berry Cobbler

1 cup plus 1 tsp packed brown sugar
 2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
2 3/4 lb mixed berries (I used blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries)
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup whole milk
1 tsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stir together 1 cup brown sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Add berries and toss to coat. Transfer to a shallow baking dish and bake until hot, about 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add butter and blend with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal with some roughly pea size butter lumps. Add milk and stir just until dough comes together.

Remove baking dish from oven and drop large tablespoons of dough onto hot berry mixture. Stir together remaining teaspoon brown sugar and granulated sugar. Sprinkle sugars over dough and bake cobbler until topping is golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool about 20 minutes. Serve warm.