Healthy Banana Blueberry Maple Cookies

Fat free, wholemeal flour and no refined sugar to boot!! Yup, you're on the right blog ;-)

I am so pleased with how these turned out. It wasn't my intention when I started these to make a 'healthy' cookie. I simply had some blueberries that I wanted to bake with and thought cookies would make a nice change. I started off with my standard raisin oatmeal cookie recipe but decided to swap the white and brown sugar in that with maple syrup. Then, I figured I might as well go all the way and omit the margarine, making them fat free and swap the white flour with wholemeal.

Even though this was a total experiment they turned out fantastic! They are certainly sweet enough and nice and soft in the middle with a crunchy topping and edges, the blueberries in there are particularly good! In my second attempt I baked them in a jelly roll pan and sprinkled with demerara sugar. My first attempt I made them cookie shaped and dipped them in maple sugar - a hard to find and expensive yet delicious addition. Although, my husband felt the maple sugar was a bit too big and crunchy and distracted from the cookie I did like the taste with them. Again, demerara could be substituted or you can just leave the top plain as they are sweet enough anyway.

'Cookie' version with maple sugar on top

I'm so glad these turned out, we have all been wanting to cut down on our sugar intake, particularly refined sugars and I'm happy to report even the 8 year old loved these!

Makes 12 cookies or bars:

85g mashed ripe banana, about 1 small-medium

80g fresh blueberries

60ml maple syrup

1/2 tsp almond extract

70g plain wholewheat flour

70g rolled oats

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp fine sea salt

maple sugar or demerara sugar (optional)

Mash the banana in a large bowl until well mashed. Slowly whisk in the maple syrup then beat well, whisk in the almond extract. In a seperate bowl whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to the banana mixture and beat with a rubber spatula till it comes together. Add the blueberries and gently fold in until incorporated being careful not to burst them. It's best to buy the smallest berries you can find here, if they are too big you may want to cut them in half although that may give you purple cookies....not that that's a bad thing!

If making cookies take about 1 tablespoon of mixture and roll it in your hands and flatten, dip into either maple sugar or demerara (or leave plain) and place on a sheet lined with baking paper.

If making bars, gently press into a foil lined jelly roll pan and sprinkle with the sugar. I used a jelly roll pan which was 7.5 x 11 x 1" but only filled it half way, double the recipe to fill the whole pan.

Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 12 - 13 minutes. They should be golden at the edges and a little puffy. Let cool on the sheet then transfer to a wire rack .

♥

Nutritional Analysis: per cookie

Calories: 68

Fat: 0.3g

Sat Fat: 0.1g

Protein: 1.6g

Fibre: 1.7g

Carbs: 15.8g

Sugars: 5.5g

Sodium: 41mg

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