banana bread chocolate chunk cookies 🤎

i am exceptionally picky when it comes to my cookies. When developing a recipe, I always make sure to hit the criteria that I personally would enjoy in food. When it comes to the perfect chocolate chip cookie, I am ideally looking for crispy edges, a fudgy center, an intense flavor, and overall texture.

i don’t like chocolate chip cookies that are cakey, overwhelmingly, sweet, and soft throughout.

however, these are not ordinary, chocolate chip cookies. These are cross between banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. so, consequently, I had to change my idea of the ideal cookie.

these cookies are a bit more soft, but still retain that crispy edge and chewy middle. The intensity of the flavor comes from overripe (almost rotten) bananas, a flavor profile that is only achieved when you let the bananas go so far that all the starches have converted into sugar, and you are unsure whether it has fermented into alcohol.

to intensify the flavor of these cookies, I used a combination of nutty brown butter, freshly ground coffee, and dark brown sugar. i wanted a wonderfully complex and deep flavor when you bite into these.

to add texture, I added in roughly chopped walnuts, and a mixture of roughly chopped bitter and semi sweet chocolate. the variation in size of the chocolate allows for puddles and pools of melted chocolate instead of uniform chips.

completely superior to the classic chocolate chip cookie.

a healthy dusting of flaky Maldon salt on top allows your tastebuds to really taste the depth of the chocolate, the bananas, the coffee, and the sugar.

i am very proud of these. please make them!