I'm BANANAS For You

My son's birthday was on Monday. He turned 21. 21... I can't believe my youngest baby turned 21. Thankfully he didn't go out drinking even though he is of legal age. What did he do? He connected with his girlfriend online and they watched a movie together and ate BANANA cookies. Yes. Banana cookies. My son and I are both freaks over banana flavoring. And it has to be the fake banana flavor, not like banana bread or yucky stuff like that. When I tell people we love banana flavoring, they think I'm weird. But you know what, they probably think I'm weird anyway, so I'm okay with that. Have you ever had a banana flavored cookie? Or a banana snow cone or how about a banana slushie or even those banana Runt's candies? Say yes to any of the above and you're alright in my books.

Cookie Cutters Available HERE

Download  Tutorial Cards HERE

Free Printable Cookie Tags HERE

Okay so you want to know how to make banana flavored cookie dough? Doesn't this look pretty? And it smells DELISH! 

 Here's what I did. I bought a cute little pink food processor, yup just to make these cookies for my sweet boy. And I bought a BIG bag of banana candies. I didn't know how many I would need, so I bought this huge bag. You can get them by typing banana candy into Amazon and choose what will work for you. I'll tell you that I did NOT need this many and I've already made this cookie dough twice and still have a lot of banana candies.

 I ground them up to dust. Be careful when you lift the top off. It's like a cloud of banana scent. My first batch, I added too much banana candy, I think it was a full cup and I added it with less flour and kept the regular amount of sugar. Mistake. Although my son will tell you it was NOT a mistake because he loved them. You'll see why this didn't work in the next photo.

 As you can see in this photo, the first batch of cookies was too sticky. The edges were messy and the cookies were difficult to handle because of all the extra sugar from the banana candies. So on the second batch, I kept the regular amount of flour and added less sugar. You can get my banana cookie recipe HERE

 Single Banana cookie cutter available HERE

 and a full bunch of bananas, cookie cutter available HERE

 and a peeled banana, cookie cutter available HERE

 This is Mandy the Monkey with Bow. Cookie cutter available HERE

 and this is Marcy the Monkey with Flower. Cookie cutter available HERE

 and of course I had to make a boy monkey for my son and his name is Matt the Monkey. Cookie cutter available HERE

and just because I'm bananas over my son, Nick. I made this one too. Cookie cutter available HERE

and then I packaged them all up and sent them off to college. Although first I ate one. Or two. Okay I saved a few of the cookies.

Click HERE to print the banana cookie recipe

2 sticks of butter

1/2 cup ground to dust banana candy

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp banana extract flavoring

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups flour

Mix together the butter, banana candy dust and sugar for 3 minutes until thoroughly mixed. Add egg and extracts and mix for another 3 minutes. Add in baking powder, salt and flour and mix just until combined. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 6 hours or overnight.

This picture of Abigail & Aidan is quite old, but it cracks me up to see her face saying "what's wrong with you?" and they are both in monkey outfits :)

Okay so now tell me, do YOU like banana flavored treats? I really want to know if I'm the only one. I know my friend Nicole likes them! More banana flavored treats coming soon.

Monkey and Banana blog background for today: