Midknight Snacks: Healthy Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

Almost everybody loves cookies but the guilt afterwards isn’t as appealing.

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Photo mckayle mcgoldrick

Healthy peanut butter chocolate cookies.

McKayle McGoldrick, Staff Writer
May 24, 2023

Cookies are my favorite kind of dessert, but I have been wanting to find an easy and guilt-free recipe that included ingredients I already had.

I found this recipe while scrolling on TikTok.  I was interested to see if there was any difference quality-wise between this recipe and previous ones I found via Google. So after converting measurements, I got to baking.

Ingredients:

  • One banana
  • 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
  • 1 cup of rolled oatmeal
  • 1/4 cup Peanut Butter (or any nut butter of your choice)
  • 1/4 cup of milk
  • 1/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
  2. Mash one banana in a bowl until it’s paste-like.
  3. Add in your wet ingredients (milk and peanut butter.)
  4. You can now add in your dry ingredients like cocoa powder, oatmeal, and chocolate chips if you want.
  5. Bake these cookies for 8-10 minutes and then let them cool.

The only tweak I made to this recipe was that I chose not to add chocolate chips because it seemed to kind of defeat the purpose of them being healthy. However, after trying them, I believe I probably should have due to the disappointing outcome.

The taste of these cookies was extremely underwhelming. With practically zero flavors, I could compare the taste of them to putting a spoon full of unsweetened cocoa powder into your mouth. Unfortunately, the only sweetness these cookies had to them was from the peanut butter.

I was also very disappointed in the texture of these cookies. They probably would make more sense in a chilled breakfast-bar form because after you let them sit out, they become soggy. I do think the sogginess makes sense given the banana-oatmeal combination added in so I really can’t be that upset about it.

I wouldn’t recommend this recipe if you are used to regular sugar-filled cookies; you will likely be just as disappointed as I was. If I end up being stubborn enough to attempt this recipe again, I will add either maple syrup or honey to sweeten it along with also adding baking powder or baking soda to make them firmer after baking.