Secret Recipe Club: Skinny Banana Pecan Cookies | The Realistic Nutritionist (2024)

02.13.12

Hi guys! The sun is shining, I got a nice 7 hours of sleep and I’ve already made 1 dough and 1 pan of rice noodles. All in all, great start to the morning.

Plus, I had a great weekend. Valentine’s is always a really big time for us. For one, February 13th is our anniversary. Secondly, in 2010, that’s the day E proposed 🙂 [Also the day after a freak blizzard].

So each year, we kinda do it big. And this year was no different. To kick things off, we went to Woo at the Zoo at the National Zoo. It’s a thing they do each year where they talk about animal mating patterns, yes I’m serious, and serve hors’devours. It was actually really funny and we got these cute glasses!

Then we went to dinner at Toscana West, a cute little Italian place on I street in DC! Shockingly, I took no photographs. The food was good (not awesome but not horrible) and the ambiance was super cute (just borderline tacky). BUT! The best part of the evening? They had live opera singers! So, while we finished our meal, we were serenaded by an amazing group of opera singers. It was awesome. Then yesterday, we did a big trip to Costco (where it was CREEPILY EMPTY, see below) and stocked up on some tasty steaks for tomorrow’s dinner and a ton of eggs.

Apocolypse?

I also had time to relax (which doesn’t happen often) and had time to whip up these absolutely incredible banana walnut cookies for the Secret Recipe Club.

The blog I was given was A Dusting of Sugar and it was so hard to pick what recipe to choose! She’s got a ton of great recipes, including some delicious looking homemade bread recipes which I’ll definitely be trying out in March (I’m tackling 6 yeast recipes that month!) After drooling through her posts, I found one that I knew I just HAD TO MAKE. Banana oatmeal cookies.

As you can see with mine, I omitted the oatmeal simply because I didn’t have any. So, I just doubled up the flour (whole wheat) and wa-la! These gorgeous, delicious and soft cookies were born.

One of my favorite breakfast breads is banana nut bread and these cookies taste JUST like a warm loaf out of the oven. Except they are portable, smaller and easier to eat!

In true Claire fashion, i lightened these up by swaping 99% of the butter for applesauce and using whole wheat flour. Because of the applesauce, the cookies had the same light as air, fluffy and chewy texture as my 42 calorie pumpkin ones.

Because the taste and look so closely resemeble banana bread, I don’t see why you couldn’t eat these for breakfast. I mean, there’s fruit in them, that’s totally healthy for breakfast. (Spoken like a true RD to be).

Skinny Banana Pecan Cookies

Yields: about 16 cookies
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 9 – 11 minutes

Recipe adapted from A Dusting of Sugar and Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons unsweetened applesace
• 1 tablespoon butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas (about 1 1/4 large banana)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• dash of salt
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Beat sugar, applesauce and butter together with a handheld mixture until creamy. Add egg yolk and vanilla and beat until fluffy.
2. In a shallow bowl, mix bananas and baking soda together and let sit for 2 minutes. Add bananas to egg mixture. Gradually add in flours, salt and cinnamon and mix until combined. Stir in pecans.
3. Cover dough with foil and chill for at least an hour. Once chilled, preheat oven to 350F. Measure out about 1 teaspoon of dough and place on a greased cookie sheet. Repeat, placing dough about 1/2 inch apart. Cook for 9 – 11minutes, or until golden brown.

Cookies for breakfast are the BEST. [I say as I’m eating two of them with my coffee].

Nutritional information per cookie:

Calories: 85
Fat: 3 grams
Carbohydrates: 24 grams
Fiber: 1 gram
Protein: 1.5 grams
Weight Watchers Points Plus points: 3 points