Cake Box Banana Bar Cookies
On Sunday, while I was supposed to be working on several less than enjoyable projects, I decided to indulge myself in "something sweet." The only problem was that there was nothing sweet in the house, except a cake mix (but no frosting to go with it) and one pudding mix (intended to be mixed with Cool Whip for the frosting that was intended to go on the cake if I ever made it, but since I had no Cool Whip in the freezer, baking the cake was out of the question...it can only be eaten with sliced bananas and Cool Whip frosting on top). I was too lazy to get out a cookbook and make something much more complicated than that (and besides, I was supposed to be working). Recently, Jen has been posting recipes for Cake Box Cookies, so I googled banana cake box cookies and came up with this (it took literally 5-10 minutes to pull them together):1 pkg mix cake mix, any kind (I used banana)
1/2 cup oil (I used canola, although I nearly had to use olive oil when I couldn't find the last 1/2 cup of canola I had stashed in the back of the pantry behind a 1000 vinegars...does anyone know what happens to cookies when you use olive oil...do they taste off somehow?)
1 mashed banana (I happened to have exactly one very ripe banana in the house, how lucky was that?!)
1 large egg (I only had medium eggs, so I used two, which was just a tad too much because the cookies turned out a little more on the cake-like side than if I'd only used one, I'm sure)
1 cup chopped walnuts (these, I had to pick out of a bag of trail mix in the cupboard, so they were slightly salted)
1 cup raisins (I substituted 3/4 cup white chocolate chips and would never, ever consider going back to raisins!)
1 tsp cinnamon
Combine all but the nuts and raisins/chips, until smooth
Add the nuts and raisins/chips
Spread into two greased 9x13 pans (I used one 9x13 and one 8x8 for a thicker cookie)
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes (I baked at 375 degrees in a convection oven)
Cool 10 minutes in the pans before cutting
These were delicious (if you like banana and white chocolate)! I liked them better than Toll House bars, but then, I love banana and white chocolate. :-)
Labels: Food and recipes
posted by Gwynne @ 9:15 AM
5 Comments:
Sounds delicious!
Too bad I don't even have a cake mix box in the house!!!
I'll have to try some bar cookies with the cake mixes.
Beau made some delicious banana bread yesterday with some mushy bananas. That man can bake!
Sounds Delicious!
This sounds good, seeing as we've got a banana theme going on around here (my son runs cross country and his coach told him to eat a lot of bananas, but he won't eat them once they start spotting). I would think the banana flavor would be strong enough to overcome the olive taste, but it would be a risk. I've seen some Italian dessert recipes that use olive oil, but I've never tried them. Maybe it blends, but I wouldn't risk a perfectly good recipe if I didn't have to.
I don't know that's I'd have the patience to pick walnut out of trail mix, but then I'm more likely to have walnuts on hand than trail mix.
Lynellen, I take it you don't cook much? I don't normally have stray mixes in my house either...when I buy a cake mix, it usually has a definitive purpose and gets consumed quickly! ;-)
Jen, it was very good and would probably also benefit from the addition of oats like so many of your recipes do. Does Beau refer to a recipe when he bakes, or does he just wing it? I had no idea he would be so handy in the kitchen!
Library Girl, I suggest you try some!
Sisiggy, I could have spared myself the whole debate about olive oil or apple sauce (moldy as it turned out) or going to the store for more cooking oil, if I'd known all along that I had white chocolate chips in the cupboard. Nothing wrong with eating those straight out of the bag. ;-) And if I had more ingredients lying around, I would have definitely tried that custardy banana bread you posted the other day!
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