Low fat banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies – a Holiday version, with sprinkles! 🙂
These have been my favorite oatmeal cookies this year! I like them to be on the chewy side (vs. cakey), and this recipe fits the bill, thanks to the old-fashioned (or rolled) oats, bananas, and Greek yogurt!
Only 2 tablespoons of oil are used in this recipe, and, instead, very ripe mashed bananas and Greek yogurt make these cookies moist, sticky, chewy, and very well put together, if you ask me! 🙂
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Since we’re in the middle of the holiday season, adding sprinkles seemed like a perfectly good idea, especially because I don’t have anything else right now to decorate the cookies. And, because the sprinkles are the easiest way to dress up a cookie! Now, I can rightfully call them my holiday cookies! 🙂
Remember, if you want the cookies to remain thick as they bake, chill the cookie dough for about an hour before baking. If you want them to be flatter – you don’t have to chill the dough.
This recipe has long been my favorite – give it a try – it might become your favorite, too!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cup flour, sifted or aerated (see important note below!)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon regular salt (or 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt)
- 1 ripe banana
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup regular granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 and 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- sprinkles, for decorating
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, mash the banana. Add the egg, oil, brown and granulated sugars, yogurt, and vanilla and whisk to combine.
- Add the banana-egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in the oats, then fold in the chocolate chips.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Take a tablespoon of dough, form a ball and drop the cookie dough ball on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat, spacing the cookie dough balls about 2 inches apart. At this point, I would refrigerate baking sheets with cookie dough balls for about an hour to chill the dough. This will ensure that cookies, when baked, will not flatten out, and that they will remain tall, so that we end up with thick and chewy cookies!
- Bake for 12 minutes until cookies are slightly golden brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
- There are two ways to do it.
- The first method is to form cookie dough balls, let them bake for half the time (5 minutes), quickly remove the baking sheet from the oven and sprinkle the sprinkles on top, then put the cookies back into the oven to let them continue baking for another 5 or 7 minutes.
- The second method is to add sprinkles to the cookie dough as you are forming the cookie dough balls. I personally prefer the first method, as it results in better texture and better looking cookies.
Notes
Adapted from Woman's Day
Important note about properly measuring flour using measuring cups:
The proper way to measure flour using measuring cups is to aerate it first. This is done either by sifting flour, or aerating it by fluffing it up and whisking it well, then spooning it into the measuring cup, then carefully removing any excess flour with a knife. If you just stick that measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop some out, you will get a lot more flour than what the recipe calls for. Do aerate the flour, or you will end up with dry dough!
Oh drat! I think I messed these up. I had a tin of steel cut oats, so I used those. I’m not sure…
Steel cut oats are probably to rough for these cookies. The cookies might still be ok but a little too much chewy. 🙂
Here are 2 good articles on the differences between old-fashioned (rolled) oats, steel cut oats, and quick oats:
http://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-steelcut-138355
http://vegetarian.lovetoknow.com/Difference_Between_Rolled_Oats_and_Steel_Cut_Oats
I just made these and after finding the recipe on pinterest. I was recently diagnosed with gallstones so I have to be very careful of my fat intake to avoid agonizing stomach aches. I love that this recipe is lower in fat and still tastes pretty great. I added a splash of flax seed to mine. I think next time I’ll go for a finer salt instead of kosher. I kept getting big, crunchy grains of salt in every other bite which I didn’t really like. Otherwise a great recipe. Thanks!
I got to say I am not a big fan of using too much salt in baking myself. I just updated the recipe to include regular salt because I think it just works better in this recipe (or no salt at all! :)). Very glad that otherwise you liked the recipe! 🙂
oooh I love that these are chewy, and those melty choc chips-MMM!
Have I been eyeing on rainbow sprinkled desserts on your blog lately? I need to use some bright decorations in my desserts like yours! Hope you had a wonderful holidays! Wishing you a Happy New Year, Julia!