Brown Butter Banana Cookies malt, toasted oat & chocolate chunk
The jumbo chocolate chunk cookie rebuilt around two overripe bananas cooked to an amber paste, with the banana bread's malt and toasted oat flour. Proven 19 September 2026.
- Yield18 cookies
- Oven350 °F
- Bake15–17 min
- Pull188–192 °F
- Chill12–24 h
- Scoop75 g
- Per sheet6
- 130 g
finished banana paste, amber and jammy. Weight and color.
- 220 g
browned butter, from 265 g raw, re-solidified to ~65 °F before creaming
- 12–24 h
chill. The oat flour, malt and banana are all still hydrating at hour four.
- 350 °F
not 375 °F. Banana sugar, lactose and dark brown sugar brown fast.
Prep ahead ~1 h, mostly cooling
Butter first, in a wide 10–12″ skillet. Reduce the banana in that same pan — don't wash it.
Browned butter 265 g → ~220 g
Medium, swirling, 7–10 min. Pull at amber. Scrape into the stand mixer bowl, fond included.
Then re-solidify it: fridge, or 10–15 min in the freezer, stirring the edges in, until opaque and it dents under a finger without your finger going through. About 65 °F.
Banana paste 2 bananas → 130 g
Roast in the peel at 350 °F, 15–20 min. Judge by the peel, not the clock — black, glossy, split, slumped. Cool 10 min, slit, strain; expect 30–60 g liquid.
Fruit and liquid into the butter skillet, medium-low, stirring and mashing, 8–12 min, until it darkens to amber, turns jammy and pulls away in a mass. Start weighing at minute 7. Color of apple butter, holds a furrow. Cool to room temp.
Over-reduced? Whisk milk or oat milk back in to 130 g. Never another banana.
Toasted oat flour 50 g → 40 g
Steel-cut oats, 350 °F, 8–12 min, stir once. Cool completely before grinding. Grind 45–60 s, sift, re-grind the tailings.
Ingredients tap to check off
Fat and sugar
- Browned butter, re-solidifiedfrom 265 g / 2⅓ sticks raw220 g
- Dark brown sugar, packed200 g1 cup
- Granulated sugar60 g~⅓ cup
Wet
- Large egg1
- Large egg yolks2
- Vanilla extract6 g1½ tsp
- Banana paste, cooled130 g
Dry
- All-purpose flour305 g~2⅛ cups
- Toasted oat flour40 g
- Malted milk powder, plainCarnation or King Arthur25 g
- Baking soda½ tsp
- Baking powder½ tsp
- Kosher salt7 g if your butter is salted8 g1½ tsp
Chocolate
- 70% baking chocolate, choppedbars, not chips227 g8 oz
- 60% chipsoptional — two chocolate textures200 g
- Flaky salt, for the topmore than feels rightgenerous
Method tap a step when done
- Cream. Re-solidified butter, fond and all, plus both sugars. Paddle, medium-high, 4–5 min, until pale and aerated. Scrape once.
- In a small bowl, whisk the egg, yolks, vanilla and 130 g banana paste until smooth. Combine these off to the side so the banana goes in pre-diluted.
- Add to the mixer in three additions, on high about 1 min total, scraping halfway. Slightly curdled is fine.
- Chop the chocolate. Shake in a colander to drop the fine grains. Reserve 15–20 of the best chunks.
- Whisk the dry together, breaking up malt clumps. Add all at once, low, ~30 s, stop while a few streaks remain.
- Fold in the chocolate by hand. The last streaks go with it.
- Two reserved chunks in the bottom of the scoop, then pack 75 g and release onto a small tray.
- Chill 12–24 h, uncovered the first hour, then covered. Not optional.
- Oven to 350 °F. Flaky salt on top. 6 per sheet, 15–17 min. From frozen, add 2–3 min.
- Pull at 188–192 °F at the center if you want the honest gauge — the center looks wet past done.
- Cool on the sheet 5 min before moving. Fragile hot.
Notes
Portion and bake table
| Portion | Prep | Per sheet | Time at 350 °F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 163 g | Scoop, don't flatten | 4 | 21–23 min |
| 150 g | Scoop | 4 | 20–22 min |
| 75 g | Scoop — validated | 6 | 15–17 min |
| 88 g | Flatten to ½″ | 6 | 16–18 min |
| 70 g | Scoop | 6 | 15–16 min |
| 40 g | Scoop | 8 | 13–14 min |
These spread less than a normal cookie — thick and domed with a rolled edge. For a wider cookie, flatten the scoop to ¾″.
What banana does to a cookie
A cookie is low-water, high-fat, high-sugar. Banana is the opposite. So it's cooked to a paste first, and the recipe pays for what's left with less egg white, more flour, and less granulated sugar. Browned butter drops about 17% of its weight as water, which partly offsets the banana before anything else changes.
| What banana adds | What it does |
|---|---|
| ~180 g water | Steam and gluten — puffs, then reads cakey |
| ~45 g sugar | More spread, faster browning, softer set |
| Pectin, fiber | Binds and gels — pushes toward cake |
| Acid, pH ~4.8 | Fires the soda harder |
What changed from the original
| Original | This version | Reason | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Butter | 220 g creamed | 265 → 220 g browned | Nutty; drops ~45 g water. |
| Granulated | 100 g | 60 g | Paste brings ~40 g sugar. |
| Brown sugar | 200 g | 200 g | Held. |
| Eggs | 2 + 1 yolk | 1 + 2 yolks | Egg white turns moist into cakey. |
| Flour | 330 g AP | 305 AP + 40 oat + 25 malt | More dry to carry the banana. |
| Baking powder | ¼ tsp | ½ tsp | Lift for a heavier dough. |
| Salt | 7 g | 8 g | A lot of sweet in here. |
| Chill | 4–12 h | 12–24 h | Still hydrating at hour four. |
| Oven | 375 °F | 350 °F | Browns ahead of the center. |
Why each choice
- Two bananas is the recipe. Three is ~195 g of paste, and the flour and egg need rebalancing. Freeze the spare.
- The paste is not banana bread mash. Still pourable, not done. Still pale, not cooked.
- Wide skillet, not a saucepan. A saucepan steams the banana instead of caramelizing it.
- Bar plus chips gives dark shards and whole chips. Semi-sweet adds about 20 g of sugar — lean on the flaky salt.
- Oat milk for over-reduction — its sugar is maltose, the same as the malt.
- Bake one first. Judge a single cookie before committing the tray.
- Storage: 3 days airtight; softer by day two. The dough freezes better than the cookies — scoop, freeze, bag, bake from frozen.
Troubleshooting
- Paste hit 130 g but stayed pale: under-roasted, or reduced in a saucepan. Roast the full time, reduce in a wide pan.
- Dough crumbles: milk or oat milk, 1 Tbsp at a time.
- Thin and greasy: the butter wasn't cold and plastic.
- Cakey or muffin-topped: reduce the paste to 115 g, nothing else.
- Barely spread: expected at 75 g. Flatten to ¾″ for wider.
- Dense and dry: overbaked, or the paste went gummy. Pull at 188 °F.
- No banana flavor: check the roast and the pan, then try 25–30 g ground freeze-dried banana with the dry.
- Tops dark, centers underdone: 340 °F, add 3–4 min.
- Gritty: grind and sift the oat flour finer.
Gluten free
Untested. If you try it, keep the toasted oat flour, swap only the 305 g of AP, and expect to chill longer.
Bake 001 — 19 September 2026. 18 cookies at 75 g, staggered chill. Verdict: fantastic.