Oh these were good. I baked them on the sly, hiding the plantains from Q. Cleaning up the evidence. Told him it was banana. Snarf. They were gone. Half of them never got to cool.

Their consistency was more cookie-like than what I can produce with coconut flour, but not as hard as an all almond flour recipe would create. A non-gluten-free kid was visiting and didn’t pick up on anything different from your average cookie. I’m really happy with these.

Why mess with plantains? They’re a good safe starch and cheap. You can get 3 plantains for under $1. Making these cookies with almond flour? $9 per pound (about 3.5 cups). In this recipe, 1 plantain = about 1 cup of almond flour. Aside from price, almond flour has quite a bit of omega 6s. No such problem with the plantains.

And if you’re allergic to almonds, you could try making these nut free. Just substitute SunButter (made with sun flower seeds) for the almond butter. Or try leaving it out altogether.

Chocolate Plantain Cookies

3 ripe plantains, thinly sliced

1/4 cup honey

1 egg

2 Tbsp butter, melted (or coconut oil, melted)

2 Tbsp almond butter

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips/chunks

Preheat oven to 350F. Peel and slice your three plantains. Spread them out in a baking pan and drizzle with some (not all) of the honey. Bake in the oven, stirring at least once, for 15-20 minutes until the plantains begin to brown (you’re caramelizing their sugars).

Dump everything else into a food processor – including all remaining honey. When the plantains are done, scoop them into the food processor too. Run the food processor for 1-2 minutes until you have a cookie dough-like consistency (hint: you don’t want soup). At this point, you can let the mixture cool for a bit, or you can continue like I did. Toss in your chocolate chips, pulse once or twice. The chocolate will begin to melt. Scoop out your cookie batter onto baking sheets and slide them into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.