Banana (or just about anything else) Oatmeal Dessert... Thingies About the recipe:This recipe comes from the folks at the Quaker Oats company initially, as a Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe. But cookies are a pain, and who likes raisins anyway, right?
So we changed it.
This recipe is a favorite among our family and local friends. Normally, we make it with bananas, but you can probably make it with just about anything that goes into oatmeal. I will offer notes on variations, and especially notes for my latest, blockbuster blueberry version.
The recipe as we've modified it is not for cookies, but for dough poured into a cake pan. The result has the texture more like bread than anything else, but since it is, after all, loaded with sugars... there's been a bit of confusion on what exactly to call them. Because they're neither cookies, nor bread... nor do they really even look like cookie BARS in texture. So they look like bread, but... they'll go to your waistline like cookies... Good luck on finding a name for that.
Anyhow, whatever you call them, they're darn tasty. And here's how you do it...
What you'll need:- Margarine (2 sticks for banana recipe, 2 1/2 sticks for blueberry recipe)
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar (or rather, as much brown sugar as you can force into or onto the top of a one-cup container. Mine is usually piled well over the top of the cup.)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (generous)
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla (at least)
- 1 1/2 cups flour (overflowing for banana recipe,
EXACT for blueberry)
- 1 teaspoon baking SODA
- OPTIONALLY FOR BANANA RECIPE ONLY... 1 teaspoon raw (NOT mixed with sugar!) cinnamon. The recipe is VERY good without, but if you get bored with the regular recipe, this adds a bit of a different flavor for something new. I recommend trying it without first, though.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- At LEAST 3 cups (Quaker) oats, "Quick, 1-minute" variety. You CAN use any kind, but "normal" oats (not "quick") will have to sit in the dough a few minutes to avoid the final product being too crispy. Unless you like crispy.
Measure generously for banana recipe, and EXACTLY for blueberry recipe!- Bananas, as many as you have on hand that are turning black. The peel can be totally black, and the inside can be disgustingly mushy, as long as the inside is not black, or "foamy" or otherwise looks like it has rotted more than just becoming a bit darker and squishy. They can be pretty far gone, and it's all good. I typically use about 4-6 of them, and as long as they're ONLY squishy and slightly darker yellow in color, and not anything else, I will still use them. This is when they're really sweet, for those who are going "eeeeeew!" right now.
OR...
- Blueberries, NOT MINI!! ... 3 cups, frozen, having been thawed only about an hour, in a bowl, just sitting out.
OR... like I said, pretty much any other fruit or what have you, that you can throw in oatmeal.
- 2 bowls for mixing, one very large, and one medium/large.
- Beaters
- Cake pan (disposable ones are great for this!)
How it's done:1) melt the butter almost completely. ESPECIALLY for the blueberry recipe, which will be much, much drier!
2) Pour butter and sugars together into the LARGEST bowl. This is your "wet stuff" bowl. Beat until creamy.
3) Add eggs and vanilla to the larger, "wet stuff" bowl. Beat well.
4) Add bananas to the "wet stuff" bowl, and beat until you virtually cannot see any traces of them (chunks) left, or as well as you can. (The chunks are nasty when cold. They are, after all, bananas well past their normally edible stage.)
OR, FOR THE BLUEBERRY RECIPE...
4) add the blueberries to the "wet stuff" bowl, however thawed or not that they are after about an hour of sitting out uncovered, and stir them in with a spoon.
5) In the other, smaller, "DRY STUFF" bowl, combine your flour, baking soda, salt, (cinnamon, if you're using it for the banana recipe) and oats. Stir with spoon.
6) When the dry stuff is all mixed together thoroughly, dump it into the "wet stuff" bowl, and stir together until well mixed.
FOR BANANA RECIPE... the more bananas you use, the better, BUT... your batter will end up being thinner, the more you use. You do NOT want cookie dough, but you also don't want it to be runny or overly thin. If you think it is, add 1/2 cup of OATS ONLY (not flour!), to the mix, and stir it in, and repeat until it's not runny. The consistency should be kind of like pretty thick oatmeal (though these oats are going to be hard)... still pretty soft, but not soupy/drippy, OR overly solid like cookie dough.
FOR BLUEBERRY RECIPE... your dough is going to be pretty darn dry. If it is very, VERY much so, add 1/4th cup of water. Remember, I already added 1/2 stick of butter to the normal recipe for the blueberry recipe. Even so, the batter will be pretty darn dry/thick compared to the banana recipe. As long as you can mix the batter together, and get something similar to cookie dough, it should be all right. The trick here, is that as the blueberries cook, their juice will be absorbed into the dough around them, so... as it cooks it gets better.
7) Pour batter into NOT greased cookie pan, preferably glass or disposable (foil) (Both are easier than standard metal pans for clean-up purposes), and spread around.
IF YOUR PAN IS SHORT HEIGHT-WISE, PUT A COOKIE SHEET UNDER THE PAN!! Dough may rise and spill over the top of short pans!8) Cook (from a NOT pre-heated oven), 35-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean from the middle. If do you preheat the oven, you might want to try 30-35 minutes or so, and go from there.
9) Enjoy warm or cooled off. Can be frozen and enjoyed later. BEST IF KEPT IN YOUR FRIDGE!!
Blueberry recipe may get soft and squishy if left for more than a few days, so you might want to store some in the freezer!This recipe is great because it is obviously something you can put just about anything into, as long as it goes with oatmeal. The only thing you want to keep in mind is the texture of what you're adding. Bananas make it really wet. Half-frozen blueberries offer virtually NO moisture to the batter, thus the extra butter and water.
Another idea I wanted to try with the banana recipe, is adding walnut pieces to the mix. I'm sure that would be very good as well! (Sadly, the other person that lives here and eats it, doesn't like nuts.) Even chocolate chips might be great in the banana recipe!