Every week we seem to end up with one or two slightly brown looking bananas left languishing in the fruit bowl. I’ve tried freezing them – but I forget they are in there! I often make banana loaf or banana muffins, but last week I thought I’d try something a bit different. The children fancied cookies so I thought I’d mush up the last manky banana and use it in the recipe. I made the cookies with self raising flour, so they are quite soft and a little more like rock cakes (I used to love rock cakes – must try and make some…). I also tried them with plain flour and extra porridge oats and they worked just as well – but were a bit crisper, so it may be worth experimenting with the flour/oats combo until you get a texture you like.

Ingredients (makes 15-18 cookies)

150g self raising flour

50g porridge oats

75g caster sugar

25g golden syrup

100g unsalted butter

100g white chocolate (chopped or chocolate chips)

1 banana

1 egg yolk

What to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line 2 large baking trays.

2. Sift the flour into a large bowl, then mix in the porridge oats and caster sugar.

3. Melt the butter, either in a small pan over a low heat or in the microwave. Add it, along with the golden syrup, to the flour mixture.

4. Stir in the chopped white chocolate, mashed banana and egg yolk and mix until everything is well combined.

5. Divide the mixture evenly into blobs on the baking trays (roughly 2 teaspoons per cookie) and flatten with a fork.

6. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cookies look golden. The may still be slightly soft when you remove them from the oven but they will firm up as they cool.

7. Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dust with icing sugar if you want to make them look pretty!