What's Cooking At Cathy's?: Banana Foster Cookies

Happy New Year!

It has been a brutal week for me as I'm trying to fight off a cold. At this point, I think the cold is winning!

So I've been drinking a lot of fluids eating soups, etc. and as a result, the organic bananas I bought at the store have gone from a shining golden yellow to a not so lovely black. So I knew there was some baking in my future! I didn't want to toss the entire bunch of bananas and immediately mom's banana cookies came to mind. My brother was always a bigger fan than I of those cookies, but with dying bananas begging for use on the counter, I decided I'd dig out the recipe and make them and freeze them for later.

Well, that was a great plan, but it had one fatal flaw. I could not find the recipe!!! I went through every possible place that I would have stashed the recipe and came up empty. I even texted my brother asking him go through the cupboards in mom's apartment and go through her green recipe card file and email the recipe to me. He complied and had the same result that I did....no recipe! So I'm thinking I'm going to be making banana bread, right? No, I didn't want banana bread, so I went to Pinterest in search of banana baked goods.

I found this recipe on http://www.sotipical.com/bananas-foster-cookies. As with most recipes, I can't leave well enough alone and I had to monkey with the ingredients just a bit. I amped up the spices and flavorings and added chopped pecans to the recipe. It is a super easy recipe that uses a yellow cake mix as a base.

The kitchen smells divine while the cookies are baking and you'll be anxious for them to cool so you can get them frosted and sample them!

The next time you have multiple bananas that are no longer aging gracefully, give these cookies a try!

Banana Foster Cookies

Cookie Ingredients:

1 Box Yellow Cake Mix
3 Medium Very Ripe Bananas, Mashed
1 stick Butter, room temperature
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract (Use the real stuff, not the imitation)
2 Tablespoons Dark Rum
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1 cup chopped Pecans

Frosting Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed
4 Tablespoons Milk
3/4 - 1 cup Powdered Sugar
1 Tablespoon Rum

Directions Cookies:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the bananas and butter with an electric mixer.

Add the Rum, Vanilla and Cinnamon and mix well.

Add the cake mix to the bowl and mix on low speed to combine ingredients, then beat on high speed, until well combined.

Add in the pecans and mix.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop the batter using 1 Tablespoon measure or cookie scoop about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes (mine took 12). Slide the parchment paper containing the baked cookies onto wire racks to cool and ready to frost. You'll notice they do spread so leave a good amount of space between them so they don't run together.

Directions Frosting:

In a small saucepan, add the butter, brown sugar and milk.

Stir over medium head and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, no more.

Remove from the heat and continue to stir as the mixture cools. Once it has cooled down quite a bit, add the powdered sugar and Rum. Stir to combine thoroughly.