Coffee almond butter breakfast cookies....or whatever you want to name them.

First off….a staff meeting always means Betty will be baking. I knew the third grade team was not in charge of food but wanted to bake...I just had the itch to. Oh wait I also had really ripe naners and a new jar of coffee almond butter...those might have been part of the itch. A lot of my coworkers are trying very hard to eat healthy and clean so I did not want to deter them from this so tried to brainstorm something that would work (because classic banana bread would not have been so healthy….). I have made the 3 ingredient banana oatmeal cookies before when craving something simple and needed to use up naners. I loosely based these cookies off of those knowing some of the staff is not eating flour, butter, and I do have a gluten free team member. So these little oatmeal breakfast bites or breakfast cookies were born...you can name them whatever your little heart desires.

Coffee almond butter breakfast cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup of oat flour ( I just place my oats in the food processor and grind them until the texture resembles a four)

¾ cup old fashioned oats ( not ground up)

2 overripe naners

¼ cup (and maybe a tad more :)) nut butter of your choice (I used buff bake coffee almond butter---you can use any flavor you like and then be creative with adding in cinnamon or nutmeg, chocolate chips,dried fruits, coconut flakes, honey, maple syrup)  

A dash of vanilla extract (optional)

Directions

      Preheat oven to 325

1. Place the naners in a bowl and mix until mashed.
2. Add in the ground oats and nut butter mixed until just combined.
3. Add in the regular oats and anything else you might be adding ( vanilla, spices, chocolate chips, dried fruit). Mixed until just combined.
4. Placed mixture in pan of choice or drop as rounded cookies on a cookie sheet - I made mine in a mini muffin tin with liners and they were great bite sized. (will not spread so make sure they are round).
5. Place in oven and bake 10-20 minutes depending on what type of dish you are using and what size you have made them. Do not bake too long because they will dry out.

*even with the added oat flour these are more dense than regular cookies. I placed back in oven to make a little less dense- if you do that just make sure to watch and not over bake.

6. Cool in pan then place on rack.

7. I stored mine in an airtight container in  the fridge when I went to bed to take to work the next day. I would do this if you have extras as well.