Banana Oat Thumbprint Cookies

It's no secret that we love a banana and oat combination. Some of our favourites include banana oat cookies, banana & strawberry flapjack, banana and peanut butter porridge cups and banana overnight oats to name a few! Well now we might have found ourselves a new favourite - banana and raspberry chia jam!

I found myself with some extra raspberries and the easiest thing to make is raspberry chia jam. It's a quick and easy recipe and goes down a treat with my kids. If you haven't made any before then you are truly missing out! This jam contains a lot less sugar than shop bought jams and the chia seeds are loaded with important nutrients. 

Raspberry Chia Jam:

1 cup of fresh raspberries

1 tbsp of honey

1 tsp of chia seeds

Heat the raspberries in a saucepan over a low heat and mash them until they break down. Then add the honey and mix together. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before adding the chia seeds. Once the jam has cooled transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge. It should last for 3 or 4 days.

With a freshly made batch of raspberry chia jam I then discovered I had some bananas that needed using up. So instead of making a batch of banana & peanut butter porridge cups I decided to use the recipe to make thumbprint cookies so I could add the raspberry chia jam.

Banana Oat Thumbprint Cookies

Ingredients

1 medium banana, mashed
2 tbsp honey
200g porridge oats
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method

In a large bowl mix together the porridge oats and the cinnamon. In a seperate bowl add the mashed banana, honey, vanilla extract and peanut butter and thoroughly mix. Then combine the banana mixture to the oats ensuring all the oats are coated. Then using your fingers gather a small amount of mixture and shape into a ball. Then place it onto a lined baking tray and gently press your thumb into the ball. Reshape if need be so that there are no splits around the cookie.

I then left to firm in the fridge for about half an hour but it's not essential. So then insert a small amount of raspberry chia jam into each thumbprint. Bake in the oven at 180 for around 12 to 15 minutes. Allow them to cool down slightly before moving to a wire rack to cool down completely.