Brown bananas ruining the aesthetic of your fruit bowl? Turn ’em into these healthy-ish biscuits to fill the tins. 

We have been away for the past few days, so the prep I would normally do at the weekend in anticipation of filling the week’s lunchboxes didn’t get done. Thankfully, we all woke early this morning and after breakfast I knocked together these biscuits – inspired by the bananas that had come away with us and then returned again uneaten, battered and bruised, and perfect to flavour and sweeten a batch of oat and chocolate biscuits. If the almost-empty biscuit tin is anything to go then they’re damn good – perfect for breakfast on the go, filling lunchboxes and to accompany tea as the afternoon sun wanes.

BANANA, OAT & CHOCOLATE BISCUITS

Makes about 20

• 50g butter
• 2 very ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or extract
• 1 egg
• 4 medjool dates (or 8 regular dates), finely chopped (optional, but delicious)
• 75g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 225g oats
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Put the butter into a small pot and over a medium heat, let it melt before setting aside to cool.

Break the bananas in a bowl, add the honey and vanilla and mash well with a fork. Add the egg and whisk with the fork before slowly adding the melted butter, whisking as you go.

Add the dates and chocolate and mix well before lastly adding the oats, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix until well combined. Place tablespoons of the mixture onto the baking trays and flatten out with the back of your spoon. The mixture is too wet to roll into balls.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating the trays if your oven cooks unevenly, until golden brown and cooked through. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack before storing in an airtight container. These are soft biscuits as opposed to crispy ones.