Oatmeal Peanut Butter Banana Sandwiches

Hello again, friends of the baking community! It's been awhile, I know, and I wanted to give you an extra special gift for being patient! These are oatmeal peanut butter cookies, that happen to be gluten free, made into a sandwich that has pureed frozen banana in the center. 

I was not looking for a gluten free recipe but I came across this one which is lower in fat content and has no flour so I decided to try it out!  Be careful not to overcook these as they will get a weird consistency after cooling down but still yummy nonetheless. 

To update you on my life I have about one more week of classes, finals, and then I am finally headed home for a nice long summer which I am so excited about!  It has also been gorgeous weather in Portland, which is hard to believe, but it is so hard to sit inside and study when it is 75 degrees out!

My friends and I are huge Pinterest people and love to freeze pieces of frozen banana, throw them into the food processor or blender, and make it into a creamy ice cream that has just one ingredient: the bananas themselves! 

Beware: if cookies are just out of the oven they will be impossible to resist and sandwiches will be very messy.  So bring plenty of napkins. 

I used the peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe from Ambitious Kitchen, which you guys should check out if you are interested. 

Ingredients:

This recipe makes 15-20 cookies.

1 cup creamy peanut butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1.5 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 oats
1 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup chocolate chips
2 sliced frozen bananas 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a small bowl combine oats and baking soda.
3. In a separate larger bowl mix together peanut butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla with an electric mixer.  Then, add the dry ingredients and chocolate chips and mix until combined.

4. Roll into 1.5 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.  Press down lightly to flatten slightly before placing in the oven for 9-11 minutes.  Remove when the edges start to turn golden brown. 

5. While your cookies are baking, make the banana puree.  You should already have 2 frozen sliced bananas that have been in the freezer for at least 4 hours.  Place in a food processor and blend until creamy! 

   

6. Place between 2 cookies and INDULGE! 

These are not difficult at all so I hope you try it out and make again! Happy baking! 

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Heath Bar Cookies

It was a late night.  I could feel the need for baking rushing through my blood.  I spotted the Heath Bar bits in my freezer, the Quaker Oats staring me in the eye from the pantry, and the smooth peanut butter not far off.  The combination was meant to be! 

I quickly looked up some sort of recipe that I could go off of to get me started but exchanged the Heath Bar for the chocolate chips that were required in this recipe: Simply Scratch.

Right now I am sitting in my living room drowning in Kleenex and wishing that I could be going for a run in this beautiful California weather.  But I can't because I have one clogged ear, two runny nostrils, and a burning throat.  To top it off I was blessed with this state while on vacation in Cabo San Lucas with my mom!  I have to return to school in 2 or 3 days and really hope I am better because flying with this monster was no fun the first time around! 

Anyways... I would love to bake right now but everyone is afraid of me so sadly I guess that won't happen until I am healthy (it's probably for the best).  

So yes, these cookies were delicious and easy and fabulous and you must try them and I am sorry for my lack of imagination today as I am not feeling very zippy. 

Here we go:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of Quaker oats

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 cup smooth peanut butter

3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

3/4 tsp. vanilla

1 cup Heath Bar bits (or more if you want)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl: oats, flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt.

Combine butter, peanut butter, and sugars in an electric mixer and mix until fully incorporated (a few minutes).

Add eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla.

While mixing on low speed, slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined.  

Stir in Heath Bar bits.

Form round spoonfuls of cookie dough onto a lined cookie sheet and place evenly apart, allowing room for expansion. 

Press lightly down on each ball of cookie dough to flatten slightly.

Bake for 10-13 minutes and remove from the oven to allow them to cool on a rack.

Enjoy with milk while warm and gooey! Happy Baking and next time you hear from me it will most likely be from Portlandia!

Banana, Oatmeal, Chocolate Chunk, and Reeses Bars

Let me start by saying these were gone in 24 hours.  I do live in a dorm with tons of hungry teenagers, but still, they disappeared in the blink of an eye. 

It was hard to come up with a title for these.  Technically they were made in a 9x13 pan and should be called bars.  But they were moist and had a more fluffy texture so it was more like bread than a bar.  I guess it falls somewhere it between.  

There is a plethora of wonderful ingredients in here but some of them include: oats, overripe bananas, chopped Reeses, and chocolate chips.  Can't get much better than that can it? 

After it was done baking, I melted some chocolate chips with a few tablespoons of heavy whipping cream and drizzled it over the top.  A must do.  

I am on "Fall Break" right now, which is just a few days off of school and it is quite nice to have a mental break.  I'm at Willamette University right now visiting my boy, and it's his 20th birthday next week! Because I can't be here with him on his special day we are going to make a cake together and have a pre-birthday celebration.

Back to the recipe... I made this in between classes one day and it was really simple so if you are in a crunch it's a good one to do!  I had 2 seriously overripe bananas that I'd bought and was trying to figure out what to do with them (I hate wasting food).  Breakfast muffins?  Chocolate chip muffins?  Banana bread? Smoothie?

I finally arrived at this!

This recipe was inspired (but changed a bit) by the Bon Appetit cookbook.

This was the sad last piece left!

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup oats

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 very ripe bananas

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2-1 cup chocolate chips

4-6 Reeses cups, chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350. 

Take two bananas that look like this:

And turn them into this: 

Mush up thoroughly with a fork until you reach a smooth consistency. 

Blend the dry ingredients in a separate medium sized bowl: flour, oats, baking powder, and salt. 

In a large mixing bowl combine the butter and sugar with an electric mixer.

Then, add both eggs, one at a time.

Beat in the banana mush mixture, followed by the vanilla.

Stir the flour mixture slowly into the wet ingredients.

Stir in the chocolate chips and Reeses cups (determine the amount yourself based on how much chocolate you want).  

Pour the mixture into a pre-greased 9x13 baking pan.  

Bake until the top is golden brown at 350 for about 35-45 minutes. 

Once they have been removed from the oven allow to cool completely.

I took some chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) and a few tablespoons of whipping cream to reach a thin consistency and drizzled it over the top for some added oomph. 

If you like bananas and chocolate I can guarantee you will LOVE these.   

Sidenote:

I am from San Francisco and am a huge Giants fan.  The NLDS can be summed up in one word: torture.  Not only are we the first National League team to come back and win the series from an 0-2 deficit.  The Cincinnati Reds had not been swept 3 games in a row at home all season.  Let's go Giants and let's continue to kick some butt in the NLCS. 

Happy Friday and Happy Baking!

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

White chocolate... delicious.  Dried cranberries... delicious.  So let's combine them and see what happens! Oh wait... I just did.

These may possibly be the best cookies I have ever had.  That being said, I may be biased, as white chocolate trumps all in my world.  And I don't know what it is about oats in desserts but they are just so darn good.  They are able to add that perfect amount of crunch... mmmm.

Too bad this batch only made about 18 cookies because they disappeared so fast in my house!  I would strongly recommend to anyone making this to double the recipe.

Ingredients: 

This recipe will make about 18 decent sized cookies (2 pans of 9).

5/8 cup whole wheat flour (this is 1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup... sorry for weird measurements)

5/8 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

pinch of salt

1/2 cup salted butter 

1/2 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup oats (I used the Quaker quick oats because it was all I had at the moment but I think it was actually better because they were finer/smaller but normal oats are perfectly good as well)

3/4 cup chopped dried cranberries

3/4 cup white chocolate chips (I love the Ghiradelli white chocolate chips but of course feel free to buy Lindt or some other high quality and chop it up)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.  Beat butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla.

In a separate medium-sized bowl combine whole wheat flour, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until it is well combined.  Finally add oats, then chopped cranberries, then white chocolate chips.

Make decent sized cookie dough balls and spread them out evenly on a pre-greased cookie dough sheet. You should be able to easily fit about 9 on one sheet.  Bake for about 10 minutes at 375 or until you see the edges just starting to get brown (don't overcook them!).  Make sure to eat a warm freshly baked one- they are the best!

Enjoy! Feel free to comment, follow, ask me anything, share with your friends, and try this recipe out! I promise you won't regret it, it's simple yet decadent. Happy baking!

Somewhat Healthy Blackberry Oat Bars

My sister and I found an awesome spot to pick blackberries at when we went on a nice afternoon summer hike the other day.  So she decided to go back and get a bucket full of blackberries the next day.  Then, with the remaining ones that she didn't munch on, on the walk home I decided to make these!

They are SO delicious and because I worked out for an hour and a half I did not feel the least bit guilty about eating them.  They were a hit for the family as well! Hooray!

Ok so what you have to do for these is first make the blackberry filling/jam/whatever you want to call it.  

Then you make the "crust" (aka the top and bottom layers) while the filling is cooling in the fridge.  I had a great little helper in the kitchen with me!

Ingredients:

This recipe will make about 15-18 servings

For the blackberry filling:

4 cups of whole blackberries (washed)

1/2 cup granulated sugar (plus about 1 tbsp or so)

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 tsp corn starch

For the "crust":

3 cups oats (for mine I used 2.5 cups oats and 1/2 cup of this honey granola and it turned out great but its totally up to you)

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup slivered almonds (feel free to use any kind of chopped nut you prefer)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2/3 cup butter (or margarine if you prefer)

2/3 cup soy milk (I used soy milk because I have some allergies in my family but I'm sure regular milk, almond milk, etc would work out fine as well)

2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Filling: 

First you want to measure out the lemon juice, water, and blackberries (I mashed them a little with a fork before) and put them in a medium size pot over medium-high heat.  

Let the mixture come to a boil. 

Then turn down the heat and let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes (until blackberries are soft).  Then add the sugar and bring mixture to a boil for about 7-8 minutes.  

When you notice that it is thickening remove from heat, mix in cornstarch quickly, put it in a glass bowl (heat proof container), and place it in the fridge. 

"Crust": 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Combine dry ingredients (oats, flour, brown sugar, almonds, baking soda, salt and cinnamon) in a very large bowl. 

In a small bowl melt the butter and mix in milk and vanilla.  

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well until you have a dough-like consistency.  

Take about half of the mixture and place it into a pre-greased 12x8 pan.  Put it in the oven for about 10 minutes or until you see the top starting to slightly brown.  

Take it out of the oven, pour the chilled blackberry mixture over the first layer, and crumble the remaining crust mixture on top to get an even layer.  Place back into the oven and cook for another 15-20 minutes (the top should be browning).  

The best way to eat it is to let it cool for awhile once its been taken out of the oven but for it to still be a little warm when you cut it up (even though it's a little messy).  It's just so good warmed up! And some vanilla ice cream on the side is a must. 

Great summer dish for everyone! Hope you try it out :)