butterfly bakery blog

I love banana bread (and I’m sure you do too), so I decided to turn them into cookies to create a single serving of banana bread with extra pools of chocolate and a slightly crunchy outside 🤭

I made these with all of you in mind – they are vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar free, so everyone can enjoy 🙂

JUMP TO:
• What you’ll need
• The history of banana bread
• Recipe

What you’ll need

• Bananas – For a perfectly sweet and flavourful cookie you will need overripe bananas, the ones with a bunch of brown spots.

• Vegan butter – It’s important to use block butter as this contains less water compared to the spreadable kind. I like to use Flora or Naturli. You can also use coconut oil or regular butter if preferred.

• Coconut sugar – This is my favourite unrefined sugar as it has great depth of flavour and caramel undertones. This can be subbed for regular brown sugar.

• Flax meal – This is just ground up flax seeds, they offer extra structure in the cookies.

• Almond flour – This is NOT the same as ground almonds, so be sure to not substitute. I don’t recommend subbing any other flours as almond flour contains natural oils keeping the cookies soft and moist.

• Oat flour – You can make your own by blending up oats into a fine power. You could also use regular flour.

• Baking soda – This will help the cookies spread. You can replace it with double the amount of baking power.

• Corn starch – This is important for the structure of the cookie as it contains no gluten or eggs. You could also use arrowroot.

• Salt – I like to use fine sea salt in the dough and a little extra flaky salt to top them off.

• Chocolate – To keep the recipe vegan and refined sugar free I recommend using Hu chocolate, my favourite is their cashew butter. Another great option is Raw Halo – they are both sweetened with coconut sugar.

The history of banana bread

Alexandra the Great, the former kind of Macedonia, conquered parts of India in 327 BCE and it is said that he ”discovered” bananas. However, Archaeological records indicate that the banana had been cultivated a long time before that but this was the first written record of any trace of them. 
Banana bread first started to become popular in America and made its way into many American cookbooks in the 1930s. It began gaining popularity after the popularization of baking powder and baking soda in 1930. The origin of the first banana bread made is unknown, but many believe that it was created by housewives in the 18th century that were experimenting with pearlash. Home baking became popular again in the 1960s and many people realised how simple the banana bread recipe was, and the recipe began to blow up in popularity. 

Banana bread was a very common recipe during the Great Depression (1929 – 1939) since it costs very little to make and uses very common ingredients. 

In 2020 as the covid-19 lockdown began, the popularity of banana bread increased by 525% in the UK. Since people were very bored during the lockdown, there was a baking craze from 2020-2021. Most people were getting stocked up on food and they found themselves with many leftover bananas and flour. This is why it became extremely popular, once again.

Wholesome vegan & gluten free banana bread cookies
prep time: 15 mins / serves: 12 / cook time: 11 mins

Ingredients:
• 2 bananas, overripe
• 55g vegan butter, softened
• 120g coconut sugar
• 2 tbsp flax meal
• 200g almond flour
• 65g oat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 60g vegan chocolate, more for topping
• flaky salt for topping

Method:
• In a large bowl mash the bananas until a puree.
• Add the vegan butter and whisk to fully combine.
• Add the coconut sugar and flax meal, whisk again to combine.
• Add the almond flour, oat flour, baking soda, corn starch and salt. Fold to fully combine.
• Add the chocolate chunks and fold again to combine.
• Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
• In the meantime preheat the oven to 180c / 160c (fan oven).
• Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Scoop the dough into 12 balls and place 6 on each sheet leaving room for each to spread.
• Top with extra chocolate chunks and bake for 11 minutes.
• Bang the baking sheet on the counter and let cool.
• Top with flaky salt and enjoy!

Storage – you can keep the dough in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for 1 month. The baked cookies will stay good for up to 3 days if they are covered at room temperature.