banana snickerdoodles

After tackling the banana apple pie I decided to go ahead and use the bananas some more since I got over-zealous and bought 2 bunches of bananas. I hate wasting bananas, therefore I decided to immediately make banana snickerdoodles. That is, replacing the shortening in the snickerdoodle recipe with mashed bananas.

First I began to mix together the 1 cup of mashed bananas with the 1 1/2 cups of white cane sugar. Then I realized I should be letting the mixer do this for me and I dumped it all into the mixer and got the 2 eggs ready. Next each egg went into the mix one at a time, mixing it well between each egg addition.

While the mixer was blending the above ingredients, I got a separate bowl and mixed together the 2 3/4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar and the 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I didn't use whole wheat flour but I wouldn't say this is one of those recipes that would be scary to use whole wheat. Especially since the bananas keep it super sticky, the wheat wouldn't have a chance to crumble the batter. 

 

Once the powdery mixture was well mixed, I began stirring it into the creamy mixture little by little. If I dumped it all in there at once the mixer would probably explode.

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• After a bit the mixture was nice and doughy, although still very sticky due to the bananas. I had another smaller bowl ready with the other 2 tablespoons of sugar and the 2 teaspoons of cinnamon - this is for rolling dough balls into. Actually, now I recall running out of that amount of cinnamon/sugar quicker than the time I made snickerdoodles with shortening. I think that was due to the fact of the amount of stickiness of the banana mix. So I would recommend upping it by at least double, if not more. I didn't keep record of how much I was adding.

• So normally while making snickerdoodles, you pull a small golf-ball sized amount of dough out of the batter and roll it into a ball with your palms and then roll them around in the sugar mix. This is easy when plastic, I mean shortening, is involved. With bananas that is not really possible. So I just scooped out a good portion with a spoon and dropped it into the bowl of cinnamon/sugar. It didn't slide off the spoon, so excess batter is expected to stay on the spoon. However, once the dough scoop was resting in the mix, it was easily rolled around and covered. Now they were capable of becoming round balls and not sticking to everything. Once rolled and covered, I put them across my parchment paper-lined baking pan. While I was still rolling them all out, I preheated the oven to 375°.

easily rolled

bake time!

• I tried to keep them at least an inch apart if I could since they sink down and expand some as they bake. I baked them for about 10 minutes, maybe 12, but no longer than that. Once they feel firm but not hard or burned, they are ready. It's always better to have moister, doughy cookies than dried hard ones [in my book]. Plus with bananas I was not sure what to expect. 

done

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• Trying them a while after they cooled, I have to say not bad. They don't taste like traditional snickerdoodles. They just taste like banana-flavored snickerdoodles. DUH. The consistency of banana nut muffins.
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