These banana chocolate chip cookies filled with brownie chunks are a pleasing combination that occurred recently out of a batch of over-baked brownies, a batch of chocolate chip cookies and an over-ripe banana. I have been trying to bake with less sugar and more whole wheat lately, but forgot that whole wheat flour needs more moisture than all-purpose, which resulted in a dry batch of brownies. I remembered that one of my favorite cookie shops serves a chocolate chip cookie with brownie chunks in it and thought that this was the perfect opportunity to try out that idea and hoped that the brownie chunks would absorb moisture from the batter.
To add more moisture and to use less refined sugar in the cookies, I decided to try adding a mashed banana to my chocolate chip cookie batter. This worked beautifully, adding a nice banana flavor and resulting in a cake-like cookie with a soft, rich hit of chocolate from the brownie chunks. This recipe will probably become a staple for using over-ripe bananas and I will be reserving some brownie chunks in the freezer from each batch now just for this purpose.
- 2-3 cups of ½ inch chunks of brownies, frozen*
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
- Cream together the sugars and butter in a large bowl.
- Mix in the mashed banana and the egg.
- Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt.
- Gently fold in the chocolate chips and the frozen brownie chunks.
- Scoop the dough onto a wax paper lined pan (I use a ice cream scoop) and flatten each mound of dough slightly. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Place the dough mounds on a parchment lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 15 minutes until the edges just start to brown and the cookies are softly set.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a rack to cool completely.
