I guess it’s officially s’mores season even though a. it’s a million degrees right now and b. any season can be s’mores season if you believe it enough in your heart. I actually make any season s’mores season by going the broiler s’mores route: just line up the crackers and chocolate and marshmallow stacks and broil away. No campfire involved, probably no pants, and a whole tray of s’mores to myself.
And then I went and took these s’mores to the next level by taking the graham cracker out of the equation and putting banana oatmeal cookies in their place. Banana oatmeal cookies are exactly what they sound like: oatmeal cookies with mashed bananas in them and the flavor we get is something very similar to a dried banana chip with addition of toasty oats and I am living because they give me life.
They give me sort of oatmeal cream pie vibes (of the little debbie variety) with a chunkier build, think me in a sweater, which means that yes my head has already gone in the direction of banana oatmeal cream pies and we’ll be discussing this at some point later this summer.
For this Post I teamed up with Revol, creator of some fiiiine cookware and bakeware, to serve and showcase the s’mores. We’re playing with their porcelain Color Lab collection today because if there’s anything more on brand for me I’d like to know about it. I went with all the yellow options because branding and also I knew I wanted to make something with bananas for whatever reason you want to think up in your head.
I highly suggest you make a batch of these for your next bbq/gathering/night in alone watching netflix because everyone loves s’mores and they cookies are far superior to the graham cracker with their soft chewy glory.
Don’t @ me.
Banana Oatmeal Cookie S’mores
Makes 32 cookies/16 s’mores
For the Banana Oatmeal Cookies:
2 1/3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup mashed banana, about 2 large bananas*
1 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
For the S’mores:
A few bars of chocolate
1 bag of marshmallows (NOT the jumbo ones that are the size of a baby’s fist)
*mash the bananas up with a fork, be cool if they’re not 100% mashed and you have some small chunks in there, then measure it out just to make sure it’s the right amount. Banana bread is fine if there’s a little more or less but cookies tend to be less forgiving. Also for me I actually preferred to not have super super ripe bananas with these. I made them with slightly green, a couple brown spots, and then that lizard skin week old situation and because of the extra sugar that’s happening with the super ripe ones it made the cookies a little too sweet and less soft and chewy.
Preheat your oven to 350ºF and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk the bananas together with the sugars, then the butter and vanilla (warm butter + bananas might give you a not lovely sudden shade of brown bananas). Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold it together with a rubber spatula just until the dough’s combined.
Scoop the dough out with a medium sized cookie scoop onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving a couple of inches between the cookies, I managed to fit 8 on a half sheet pan.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 10-11 minutes, until the edges and tops of cookies are a light golden brown (don’t worry if they look a little underdone they’ll continue to bake on the cookie sheet). Remove the cookies from the oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes while the other sheet bakes. After 10 minutes transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely. Continue this until all the cookies are baked. If you just want the cookies and no s’mores I totally get it, just keep the cookies covered at room temp and they’ll be good for a couple days.
If you want to go the s’mores route turn your broiler to high and let it heat up for about 5 minutes. Lay the cookies out on a foil lined sheet (make sure it’s small enough to fit under the broiler if your broiler’s in the bottom of the oven) and top with a square or two of chocolate followed by a marshmallow and broil for about a minute, making sure nothing catches on fire or burns too too much. You could also go the blowtorch route if you want but the issue I usually find with that is that it torches the marshmallow but doesn’t actually melt it or the chocolate so you’re left with a cold marshmallow, hard chocolate, and a disappointed heart.
Serve like an open-faced sandwich (my favorite with these if the cookies are a day old) or if the cookies are super fresh and soft smash them together and go to town.
Special shout out to Revol, creator of high quality porcelain since 1768, for sponsoring this post and helping keep this site/me moving/shaking/twisting.
