Banoffee Biscuits

Banookies

Love banana.
Love caramel.
Love dark chocolate.
Love them together.

Incidentally they do exist in nature as an entity; the famed Banoffee Pie.

Hate pie.

I think that admitting is the first step on the path to acceptance.
The second step is trying to uncover the roots of my irrational, yet longstanding, hatred for pie. My mind is instinctively drawn to  a little box that is padlocked shut, deep in the recesses of my sub conscience. The box is labeled "Year 9 Mathematics" and contains the explicit instructions "In case of an emergency, still do not break open". Like most instructions that I encounter, such as IKEA DIY builds, recipes and technological guide books, I appreciate their existence and reserve the right to fully ignore them. With this in mind, I had no problem ignoring the Math box's warning and cracked it wide open. My brain was instantly assaulted with intense memories of confusion, frustration and calculated catastrophes of the numerical kind. The mathematical hater, who resides on the right side of my brain, causes a negative association with the word "PIE".

Observe this in action:

"Hayley; the square root of pie is..."?
"Umm...unhappiness?"

To me, understanding maths is like trying to shove a square peg into a round pie. So perhaps poor Banoffee is simply an innocent bystander who has become co-literal damage. Alternatively, it is possible that my issue with Banoffee predates Year 9 mathematics class and originates from my general aversion to creating shortcrust pastry.

Either way, I wanted to have my pie and eat it too, just not in the form of a pie. Enter the humble biscuit, willing to bare the burden of my cravings (and rapidly aging bananas) in the most simple form: the banana-caramel choc chip cookie, or as I like to call it, the Banookie. From my oven came wafting waves of banana, with a splash of caramel and a healthy dose of dark chocolate. Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, the Banookie is the cookie lovers (or pie haters) answer to the Banoffee Pie!

Banookie:

120g butter
100g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
100g tinned caramel (Carnation)
1 egg beaten
1 cup flour
1/4 ripe mashed banana
1 tsp baking powder
100g dark chocolate chips
1 pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees.

Cream the butter and caster sugar together until pale and creamy. Then add the mashed banana followed by the lightly beaten egg and brown sugar. Fold through the chocolate chips by hand, then return to using the mixer in order to incorporate the caramel (I know that this seems unorthodox as chocolate chips are usually added last, but trust me, it just works for this recipe!) Finally add the sifted flour, baking powder and pinch of salt, mixing until all the cookie dough comes together.

Dollop teaspoons of the banookie dough onto a lined baking tray, making sure you leave around 3cm for the biscuits to spread. Bake for 15 minutes (or until they are golden brown).

When they come out of the oven they will still be soft so gently lift them onto a cooling tray (they will harden as they cool). This beautiful banookies are best eaten on the day that they are made. The banana flavour becomes stronger the longer they are left in the container and it can cause it to soften in texture. My suggestion is any banookies that are not eaten within two days of baking should be kept in the freezer and eaten chilled rather than defrosted (crushed, cold banookies on vanilla ice cream makes for a decadent dessert!)