Rebecca's Banana Drop Cookies

A perfect way to use up ripe bananas!

Summer is already here in the Mid-Atlantic, which means this month I'm breaking out some appropriately tropics inspired recipes to share with all of you! 

As long time readers know, a lot of my research during my graduate program centered on the tiki bar and tiki culture, the Polynesia inspired craze that swept America in the midcentury and shaped American's perceptions of what life was like in the tropics. You can read some more about my research in last year's post about Crab Rangoon dip. 

But tiki bars weren't the only ways Americans expressed their obsession with Polynesia, as the next several posts on this blog will reveal. Hawaiian inspired recipes were a staple of the 20th Century, from 1960's luau themed parties and countless recipes spotlighting pineapple. This early example of Americans using Hawaii as an inspiration for recipe writing comes from the late 1910's, and results in a fluffy, delicious cookie that's definitely going to be a hit with your friends and family.

This recipe is a spin on one from 1917. The Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station ran into a serious problem: with America finally entering World War I, ships they had been counting on to transport their bananas were being requisitioned for the war effort. The banana crop had enjoyed an extremely fruitful year, so piles and piles of bananas were at risk of going to waste. The station's director begged people in Hawaii to eat more bananas, even going as far as to suggest they eat a banana in the morning instead of toast. His wife started to experiment with recipes that would put the fruit to good use, and shared this recipe for banana cookies (along with banana cake, fritters, pudding, custard, and more) in a Honolulu newspaper. 

So how did I get my paws on this recipe?

American Cookie by Anne Byrn can be seen as a sequel to my favorite cookbook of all time, American Cake. You might be wondering why you've never seen either book on the blog before, and the answer is I'm having an incredibly hard time picking a recipe to start with from Cake because it's just that overwhelmingly on brand for me. I did actually feature one of the cakes Byrn spotlights in the book (and several other recipes she covers are famous cakes I've made in the past), but the wartime white fruitcake came into my life before I had a copy of American Cake to drool over. 

Anne Byrn does what few other historical or historically inspired cookbook authors do: she really shows her work! Every single recipe is supported by well researched information about the recipe's history, putting it in the greater historical context and providing a lot of really great culinary trivia along the way. The book also features full color photos of every recipe featured, something that always raises my opinion of a cookbook just because it's so much easier to get excited about trying something new when you've been imagining just how chocolately that cake must be. 

American Cookie is the logical follow up, and unlike American Cake, which is organized chronologically, the recipes in this book are organized thematically. The book still provides gorgeous photographs and tons of historical information, but I did find the lack of chronology a little annoying as I was flipping through it just because it was harder to backtrack a recipe. Byrn features classic historical recipes you've probably had before or at least know about, but also spotlights unique family recipes she's picked up from different friends, relatives, and strangers that really add an interesting angle to the recipes she's researched. She also provides lot of guidance and suggestions for more difficult recipes, as well as substitutions. 

To make the banana cookies, you need to start with bananas, and my grocery store didn't have any ripe ones. Impatient to get started, I looked up how to ripen bananas quickly, and found several guides online about putting the unpeeled fruits on a baking sheet and leaving them in the oven at approximately 325 degrees for between 15 and 30 minutes, or until the bananas are totally black and shiny. 

This ended up working really well, although it was strange peeling them off the sheet and realizing they'd left behind a clear, banana residue on the sheet.

You need about a cup of mashed banana, so two bananas should do the trick. Mash them until they're nice and smooth so they'll fold into the dough nicely.

Next, place 10 tablespoons of room temperature unsalted butter in a bowl with 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. The recipe technically calls for light brown, but I used dark brown because it's what I had in the pantry, and dark brown sugar just tastes better. What can I say, I like molasses! 

Cream the butter and sugar together before adding two eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat that in, and you'll be left with a pretty standard wet ingredient base for cookies.

Fold in your bananas. This was easy to do, even though I'm fairly certain my bananas were chunkier than they probably should have been. Don't be afraid to get a little rough with them to make sure they're incorporated well!

Finally, mix in your dry ingredients - 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon - and you've got a soft, slightly wet dough. It held its shape, but it was definitely a light cookie dough. 

Byrn notes that you should take about a tablespoon of dough and place them two inches apart to give them room to bake, but mine really didn't expand much in the oven, so as I kept going, I let them get a little closer so I could cook more cookies at once. These bake in the oven for 8 minutes if you want a softer cookie, or 10 minutes if you want them a little crispier at 375 degrees.

Unlike many cookies and cakes I've made, these cooked through in 8 minutes, coming out nice and firm, and just a little puffy.

The recipe makes quite a few cookies, probably somewhere around three or four dozen depending on how big you make your cookies. I didn't get an exact count because I kept snitching them as they came out of the oven.

I guess it goes without saying that I really liked the way these tasted! They had a really unusual texture that was really enjoyable - light and fluffy like a muffin! Both my wife and a friend commented that they were exactly like eating a muffin top without any of the bottom part. I didn't use nuts in my version, and Byrn's version of the recipe doesn't call for them either, but I kept kind of expecting them as I ate the cookies because it really did taste exactly like a banana nut muffin.

These were a big hit in my apartment and at the office. I don't know if these cookies helped save the banana crop in 1917 and Byrn doesn't mention how well received this recipe was, but I can promise they'll be a big hit with your friends and family and make good use of any bananas you're trying to get rid of. Their texture was really nice and unexpected, and the banana flavor absolutely comes through. This is a perfect example of a historical recipe that totally holds up today, and would make a welcome addition to brunch or breakfast menu in place of muffins or scones. 

Next up on our quick trip through Hawaiian inspired recipes of the past is a Nanea spotlight! Any guesses on what it might be?

Here's a hint: it features a different iconic fruit of the islands!