Soft and chewy without being the least bit cakey! These healthier double chocolate banana cookies are vegan and refined sugar free, but so fudgy and flavourful that you’d never be able to tell they were healthy!
I should probably just change my blog name to Running with Bananas and Chocolate at this point, seeing as pretty much every single recipe I’ve posted this month has been made with either bananas or chocolate. Or both.
What can I say? I’ve been on a huge chocolate/banana bender for the past little while, and I like to post recipes made with the foods that I’ve been loving, otherwise it’s a little hard for me to get excited about them. I mean, how can I try to get you guys excited about something when I’m just kind of “meh” about it myself myself? I can’t… hence all the bananas and chocolate.
Don’t be mad. Have a cookie.
I’d give you a glass of [almond] milk to go along with that, but I dropped my favourite milk jug (aka photo prop) on the floor the other day and it shattered into a million pieces. Sorry about that.
But let’s talk about these cookies! These wonderfully soft and chewy double chocolate banana cookies that I’m pretty sure aged me at least 6 months thanks to all the frustration I experienced while making them.
Let’s talk about how they’re called double chocolate banana cookies not only because they’re made with a double dose of chocolate (cocoa + chocolate chips), but a double dose of banana too. I started out by just adding an entire mashed banana to the batter, but that was a disaster decided to make things a little more interesting by only mashing half and slicing in the other half.
Brilliant idea. Those perfectly caramelized banana chunks are kind of to.die.for… especially when they’re paired with melty chocolate chips.
Next, let’s talk about how bananas may very well be one of the most annoying ingredients to work with as far as cookies go. They give a wonderful flavour and sweetness, but they will fight you tooth.and.nail if you’re trying to make a soft and chewy cookie. TOOTH AND NAIL! For cakey, pillowy, muffin top type things? Bananas are your man. But for cookies with even a hint of chew? Bananas will be a thorn in your side. A very delicious thorn, but a thorn nonetheless.
It took me three trials to get these guys right.
Trial #1: too much cocoa, too much mashed banana, too little oil, and oats tossed in on a whim. Result? Dense, black, pillowy puffballs with jagged edges that looked like they would cut your gums if you bit into them. Moving on…
Trial #2: less cocoa, no oats, same amount of mashed banana, and slightly more oil. Result? Equally as dense, slightly less black pillowy puffballs that looked like they would be better to sleep on than eat. Thankfully no more jagged edges. Moving on…
Trial #3: less cocoa, no oats, less mashed banana, slightly more oil, honey to replace the sugar, and baking soda to replace the powder. Result? Nailed it.
Finally, let’s talk about how these cookies are vegan, nut-free, refined sugar free, and sooooo ridiculously soft and chewy that it hurts. The dough requires a little bit of chilling time prior to baking to make it easier to handle, but it’s only 30 minutes and I promise you that it’s so worth the wait.
Oh, and speaking of wait… these cookies are similar to banana bread in that they taste better the longer they sit. They’re sweeter and fudgier on day 2 and 3, but I double [chocolate and banana] dare you to get them to last that long…
I’d love to know if you make this recipe! Leave a comment and rating down below to let me know what you think, and subscribe to our mailing list to receive new recipes in your inbox!
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Double Chocolate Banana Cookies
- Total Time: 52 mins
- Yield: 12 cookies 1x
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (90 g) whole wheat flour**
- 2 Tbsp (10 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 medium ripe banana, mashed (50g or 1/4 cup)
- 1/4 cup (80 g) brown rice syrup***
- 2 Tbsp (30 ml) coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup (60 g) vegan chocolate chips
- other half of the banana, cut into small chunks
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, mixing well to ensure that no clumps of flour or cocoa remain. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, brown rice syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and banana chunks, giving everything a final stir before covering the bowl and placing it in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 325ºF (163ºC) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a non-stick baking mat. Using a rounded tablespoon, drop the dough onto your prepared baking sheet, and use your fingers to flatten them slightly. The cookies won’t spread too much, so make them roughly the shape you want them to be before baking.
- Bake for 10-14 minutes, depending on the final texture that you want. Less baking time will result in a slightly softer and fudgier cookie.
- Remove your cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool completely. You can press additional chocolate chips into the tops to make them a little more presentable. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
Notes
* prep time includes chill time. ** you can make these cookies gluten-free by replacing the whole wheat flour with an all-purpose GF baking flour. If your mix doesn’t have xanthan gum, add 1/4 tsp to the dry ingredients as well. *** you can easily sub this for honey if not strictly vegan.
- Prep Time: 40 mins
- Cook Time: 12 mins
Looking for more healthy cookies recipes? Try one of these!
Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Oatmeal Cookies
Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Flourless Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
Chewy Flourless Oatmeal Cookies
Grain Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Why is honey not vegan it comes from flower nectar
Very true. But it’s the bees that make it, so it’s technically an animal product.
yum!! I love the banana chunks!!
These look absolutely perfect; you can’t go wrong with a healthy dessert! Anything with chocolate looks great to me 😉
I love so many things about this post: your descriptions of your cookie trials, your generous use of idioms, and the fact that there are caramelized bananas in these cookies. Speaking my language!!
Team soft and chewy! (I’m actually a fan of that slightly underbaked texture.)
These are great – I made my RunningWithSpoons-A-Week recipe 🙂 I am not sure I LOVE the chunks of banana, but these are so good! Thanks for the share 🙂
Um yeah, you definitely nailed it! These little non-jagged edge pillows look perfect! 😉
That sucks about your milk glass. I know those can be hard to find too. Hopefully you can replace it soon because you HAVE to have milk with your cookies!! 🙂
If at first you don’t succeed, try try again, and I’m glad you did! These look really yummy.
Whoah I’ve never seen a cookie like this!!! Right up my alley. You’re the best dessert recipe creator 🙂
Aww thanks lady. I blame the raging sweet tooth 😆
These look amazing! Leaving banana chunks in the cookies is genius! I love carmelized bananas.
It’s the biggest game changer! I love how much sweeter they are.
That first shot is money.
While you know my love of double chocolate isn’t super high (despite have made a few double chocolate recipes of my own), the thought of caramelized banana slices in here has me salivating. The Hubby on the other hand will adore all the chocolate and guess who has a birthday coming up this weekend. 🙂
Even though my love for the chocolate -is- super high, I will admit that it’s the banana that totally makes this recipe. I think your hubs would love these!
Oh, sniffy! I’m so sorry about your milk jar! ☹️ And lol, I heartily agree with the Running with Bananas and Chocolate!! ? Those are two of my favorite foods (especially chocolate, of course), so I am totally loving your current recipe kick! I’m definitely bookmarking these to make…and soon. Just need those bananas on the counter to ripen… (I’m not as good as some people at predicting how many I’ll need and staggering the banana ripening process. #seriousfoodieproblems ?)
That reminds me… I seriously need to make another trip to the store because my banana stash is dwindling — I’m down to two bunches 😆
YOU GO GLEN COCO! Way to stick it out with these, because they look FANTASTIC!
Lolol! Thanks, Britt <3
Stop it. I cannot wait to try this – not to mention, my son will have a conniption when I make them!!
Dying over the fact that you managed to throw “conniption” in there 😆 Hope you guys like them!
I love when I come across recipes that I already have all the ingredients for. Cant wait to try these gluten free!
I hope you like them, Liora!
Chewy cookies are so much better than cakey. Although Oreos are best for milk. Maybe your new flavor obsession could be savory? Hmm…what about garlic? Everyone loves garlic!
My stomach doesn’t, unfortunately 🙁 It’s one of the biggest triggers for me as far as stomach pains go. That and onions. Ouch.
I have to try this recipe! Never had a chocolate banana combo in a cookie. Sounds amazing!
I may be slightly biased, but I think it’s pretty fantastic 😉 Hope you like them, Olivia!
Running with bananas and chocolate…quite catchy! haha 🙂
Ha! Quite the mouthful too!
Hey Amanda – jagged edges or not – the cookies from all your trials sound darn good to me – but these are phenomenal! Wow! My mind is blown! When I saw these on IG – I thought those were chunks of nuts or white chocolate – I was blown away when I found out they were banana chunks! BTW – nothing wrong with Running with Bananas and Chocolate! 🙂
I don’t have a new flavor for ya – I’m loving your banana and chocolate creations!
They do look a little bit like nuts, don’t they? But as much as I like nuts, I’d have to say that I’m a sucker for bananas. Thanks, Shashi!
Soft and chewy!!! The chewier the better too!
#truth
I was excited when I saw chocolate and chocolate chips, but then got to the caramelized chunks of banana. Wow, and yes please. Hiding the last bananas so they don’t get eaten before I can whip up a batch of these. They look amazing!
I’m gonna have to agree that that’s what totally makes this recipe! Plus I feel like it helps keep them nice and soft too.
Sometimes it takes three tries to achieve the perfect recipe and you’ve totally demonstrated that with these cookies! I’m so glad you didn’t give up because we would never be able to enjoy them 🙂
And other times we’re lucky when it’s only 3. Eep. Cookies seem to be the hardest to get right.
Nothing gets wrong with banana and chocolate 😉 But what`s your opinion on caramel? Salty soft caramel or toffy are my new guilty pleasure.
Oh man! It’s been forever since I’ve had a good salty caramel. I really used to love them, though!
Haha! Maybe that’s why I keep reading your blog, because you incorporate two of my favorite things to eat!
And here I thought it was for my razor sharp wit 😛
banana and chocolate are made for each other how is it no one had made it into a cookie before! probably because of the frustration you had coming up with this delicious sounding recipe! i cant wait to try this out on our house-sitter…i give him money and dessert to watch our house and puppies, keeps him coming back 🙂
Dessert and doggies?! I’d work for that 😉
See, I could eat your cookies for breakfast and feel righteous about it.
And for lunch and dinner and feel equally as righteous 😀 And then probably get sick of cookies altogether 😆
Your recipes lately are speaking to my soul. And yet again have all ingredients on hand. Baking session to commence!
It must be all the bananas and chocolate 😉 I hope you like them, Gianna!
Look at all the naner chunks!! So beautiful 🙂 I have got quite the plethora of bananas stored up right now [and no husband around to yell at me for eating cookies all day long] so I am so whipping a batch of these up! These things look way too fudgy and pillowy to be real – I’ve got to try them and see for myself! 😉
Ohhh, oh oh! I hope you love them! Let me know 😀
I don’t think I could ever be a straight food blogger bc I do not have the patience for multiple recipes to figure out what works. I think you would find me crying on the floor covered in batter of some kind.
Not gonna lie — definitely been there. And it seems to happen with cookies more than anything else.
Chewy cookies are the best! Banana and pumpkin both have that (sometimes annoying) tendency to make things cake-y, but it sounds like you took care of that here. I mean, caramelized banana chunks in cookies sounds amaaaazing and if you add chocolate, I’m totally sold!
I’ve definitely had that problem with pumpkin cookies too! Great for breads and muffins, but tough in cookies.
i say change your name to running with a spoonful of chocolate? haha. kidding. or maybe how run with the MOST EPIC BANANA BAKING RECIPES EVER! like that? love you.
Love that. Love you. Love spoonfuls of chocolate. xo
Ummm we need to rename these cookies to little pillows of gooey happiness–> just look at these beauties!! Lately I’ve been obsessed with the apple, cinnamon & coconut combination especially in my yogurt bowls. Potential cookie combination perhaps?
I’ve actually been on an apple, cinnamon, oatmeal kick, so I don’t see a problem with transferring that to cookie form!
These look so delicious…my only problem is, like with my fudge brownies, they taste better after being in the fridge overnight but who can wait that long?
Right?!?! I was lucky because I had 3 batches on hand, so that pretty much guaranteed leftovers.
I am a-okay with the chocolate and banana recipes. One question, is there a reason you’re using vegan chocolate chips?
Mostly because the recipe is egg-free and dairy-free to begin with, so I just took it a step further and made it entirely vegan for SEO purposes. Any kind of chocolate chips work 🙂
Well I wasn’t craving chocolate earlier today… ?
I’m glad I could help you out with that problem 😉
These do look really good. I agree that I’ve always found bananas and greek yogurt to make cookies or any baked goods more moist. I like the texture a lot, despite hating raw bananas.
I didn’t know you didn’t like raw bananas! I actually used to hate them as a kid, but somewhere along the way they grew on me.
YUM. These look incredible!
Thanks Courtney!
I’m all about chewy cookies 🙂 I was planning to bake with bananas this week until my kids decided they were the perfect ripeness for them and ate 6 in a day between the 3! Bananas are so unpredictable around here.
I can’t say I struggle with that, but finding ripe bananas is definitely tough. And can you believe that I used to hate bananas as a kid and never ate them?! Craziness.
My younger son hates banana and I want to add bananas in his diet and couldn’t figure out a way…so stumbled upon your recipe on google..
Can’t wait to try it !
P.S can we use any other oil instead of coconut oil and also do these cookies taste like bananas
Another oil should be fine in place of coconut, and I wouldn’t say they taste too much like banana – the chocolate hides them pretty well. I hope you and your son like them!
Ouch, wow and mmmh. Ouch because I’m now scared of trying to create any chewy banana baked goods myself ;), wow for your dedication on wrangling with the beastly bananas to create – mmmh! – these delightful cookies. Send me a few?!
Deal! They’d “age” perfectly during the mailing process.
Wow. These look absolutely amazing. My goodness.
Thanks, Emily 😀
‘pillowy puffballs with jagged edges’ – almost made me snort on my water.
I admire your patience in making several trials on a recipe. I’d give up after the first fail. Which usually isn’t my nature, but recipes, I don’t know…..they don’t fly with me and I am happy to have you guys around me who create this genius stuff.
So, as for August, I just send you a list of what to bring, k?
I have good days and bad days when it comes to recipe testing… there are plenty of times where I just give up and come back to it when I feel less homicidal about t 😆
How many cookies does this recipe make and approximately how many calories are in each cookie?
It make 12 cookies, and I don’t calculate the nutritional info for my recipes, but you can use an online calculator like this one to figure them out – http://www.myfitnesspal.com/recipe/calculator
Soo these were undeniably delicious BUT way too cakey to be cookies. Instead I scooped the batter into tiny cupcake liners and made them little muffin bites and they were a total hit at my office party (all non-vegans). I also mixed up some peanut butter, cinnamon, and honey, microwaved it, and lightly drizzled it on top of the muffins. I’m not kidding, this sh**** was f*****king good.
I would give the recipe five stars because it *nailed* the flavor, but I just couldn’t call these nuggets cookies :'(