{recipe, kind of} I Tried Those Healthy 2 Ingredient Banana Oatmeal “Cookies” So You Don’t Have To

Wouldn’t it be great, amazing, stupendous even, if you could make delicious cookies using only bananas and oats? It would, right? You could eat like 10 cookies but in reality all you ate was a banana and half a cup of oats. Because you are so smart and so healthy and good at life.

Sadly, I’m here to report that this is another one of those recipes going around Pinterest that seems too good to be true, and really isn’t good at all. It’s hard to believe, because recipes like this engender so!!! Many!!!! Comments!!! With!!! So!!! Many!!! Exclamation points!!!!!!! extolling their virtues.

I don’t know what it is about me and silly Pinterest recipes that call for only bananas, but I can’t stop trying them, even though I know in my heart of hearts they will fail miserably. Much like the one-ingredient banana ice cream debacle, I had a feeling that these would be doomed from the start, but I went ahead and made them anyway. I had to try them for myself to confirm that–shockingly–bananas and oats smushed together and baked in the shape of cookies do not actually become delicious cookies. Apparently I put way too much faith in the magical powers of flat, circular shapes and 350 degrees, thinking that somehow, just maybe, subjecting bananas and oats to these conditions would have transformative effects. But all this process turns out is flat, chewy little wads of banana and oats.

I think I’m worried that I could be missing out on something that is really delicious and healthy by not giving these kinds of recipes a try. But they never work. I mean, don’t get me started on the time I tried this chickpea cookie dough dip (what was I thinking?) which was probably the grossest thing I have ever tasted (and that includes the time I sort of accidentally attended a nose-to-tail dinner and the dessert involved, nay, featured, the lungs of some poor farm animal.)

I tried my darnedest to doctor these up, in hopes of a better result. So I made three varieties- original recipe, vanilla and cinnamon, and ginger molasses. Fail, fail, and fail. Still gross. It’s mostly the texture that is so unappealing, followed closely by the taste. I used so much ginger that the ginger molasses “cookies” were actually pretty spicy, and yet still unsalvageable as something you’d actually want to eat.

However. 

There was one person in my house who loved all three flavors and devoured the whole batch in a day. He is all of 11 months old, so as you can imagine, his palate is highly refined in terms of both texture and taste. I mean, we are talking about a person who literally chews up a Goldfish cracker, spits it out as a slimy trail of orange goo, and then scoops it up and eats it again. Kind of like a dog! So, I bet dogs would like these too.

If curiosity is killing you, or you just want to train your small child to eat terrible-tasting cookies for breakfast, here is the recipe:

• Smash up a very ripe banana in a bowl.
• Add 1/2 cup quick cooking oats and mix well.
• Why? Why are you making them?
• Add mix-ins as an attempt to make them edible. It probably won’t work but have fun with it anyway.
• Form into cookie shapes on a cookie sheet that is greased or covered with parchment.
• Seriously. Stahp.
• Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
• Taste one. Feed remainder to toddler or dog. If neither is available, throw in the compost bin.

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• I Tried That One Ingredient Banana Ice Cream Thing and Here Is What I Think About It
• Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread Recipe 
• Caramel-y Banana Upside Down Cake Recipe
• Bananas: The Atheist’s Nightmare