sophisticated.kitchencomfort food recipes

The soft-cookie routeBanana · brown sugar · semisweet

Two bananas, no egg

Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies

Trish Rosenquist’s soft banana cookies pair an eggless brown-sugar dough with semisweet chocolate chips, a short refrigerator rest, and a quick 375°F bake.

Bake the cookies
Close view of a soft chocolate chip cookie with a deeply golden, craggy surface.
A close chocolate-chip-cookie study sets the texture target. The photograph is illustrative; the pictured cookie is not identified as Trish Rosenquist’s banana formula.Photo by Joey Doll / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Yield
24 cookies
Chill
30 min
Oven
375°F
Bake
9–10 min

This is not banana bread pretending to be a cookie. Trish Rosenquist’s formula leans fully into the soft drop-cookie form: two ripe bananas are beaten with butter and two sugars, no egg enters the bowl, and a tablespoon of cornstarch helps the flour hold all that fruit moisture.

The small disciplines matter more than embellishment. Mix the dry bowl evenly. Stop stirring as soon as it disappears. Give the dough its full half-hour in the refrigerator, then pull each tray when the tops have only started to turn gold. The cookie’s last structural change happens not in the oven, but on the cooling sheet.

“These Easy Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies are sure to become a new favorite – so soft and delicious, they’re impossible to resist!”

Ripen

Use genuinely ripe, soft bananas; the source keeps their honest measure at two whole fruit.

Restrain

Once flour enters, stir only until combined, fold in the chips, and stop.

Set

A pale-gold top and complete cooling on the sheet protect the intended soft center.

The formula mapFruit · sugar · starch · chocolate

Every measured ingredient stays exactly where the author put it; the handling gives the batch its shape.

01

Two ripe bananas

They replace the egg, supply the defining flavor, and make this dough much softer than a standard chocolate-chip-cookie dough.

Use the source measure as written. Do not quietly convert variable whole fruit into a made-up volume.
02

Brown + white sugar

A full cup of brown sugar carries molasses depth while one-quarter cup of granulated sugar keeps the sweetness from reading flat.

Beat both with the softened butter and bananas until the mixture looks lighter before adding vanilla.
03

Cornstarch

One tablespoon joins the flour in binding the bananas’ moisture and supports a tender, softly set crumb.

Whisk it into the dry bowl first so it cannot remain in chalky pockets.
04

Semisweet chips

One and one-half cups keeps chocolate present in nearly every bite without replacing the banana character.

Fold them in at the end, when the flour has only just disappeared.

The five-minute setupSoft butter · ripe fruit · ready sheets

Set the cold pause before mixing

Prepare the conditions first so a warm, banana-rich dough never has to wait on the counter.

Yellow + cocoaThe two flavors in plain view

Brown freckles meet semisweet points

Four ripe yellow bananas covered with brown freckles on a wooden worktop.
Brown freckles are useful here: ripe fruit brings stronger banana aroma and mashes smoothly into the butter and sugars.Photo by Martin Thoma / Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0
Ripeness is an ingredient

The peel can look past its prime while the fruit inside is at its sweetest and most aromatic. Reject spoilage, not brown freckles.

Semisweet chocolate chips scattered across a white surface.
The source calls for a generous 1 1/2 cups of semisweet chips, folded in only after the flour mixture is nearly incorporated.Photo by Editor at Large / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.5

The tactile proofEven · fluffy · chilled · pale-gold · set

Five readings from whisk to lift

A variable fruit measure and a fast oven clock make observable cues more useful than false precision.

01

The dry bowl is uniform

No bright cornstarch streaks or small baking-soda clumps remain in the flour.

02

The banana bowl turns fluffy

Soft butter, fruit, and both sugars look lighter and aerated rather than slick or separated.

03

The chilled dough holds a scoop

After 30 minutes, a portion keeps a mound on the sheet instead of immediately flowing outward.

04

The top loses its wet shine

At 9–10 minutes the surface is just beginning to turn pale gold; a dark brown top has gone too far for this style.

05

The sheet completes the bake

The soft cookie firms as the hot metal cools. Leave it undisturbed until it can lift without bending apart.

The cookie switchboardCold · pan · clock · patience

Four corrections without rewriting the dough

Keep the original ratios intact and respond only to what the bowl, sheet, and first cookie show you.

If the first scoop spreads at once

Return the bowl to the cold

The butter has softened. Give the dough more refrigerator time rather than changing the source with extra flour.

If your sheet is dark

Watch the underside early

Dark metal transfers heat aggressively. Use parchment and begin checking before the top reaches the far end of the source clock.

If the top is wet at nine

Use the final minute

Stay within the 9–10-minute range and look for lost shine plus the first light-gold color, not a firm center.

If a cookie bends on lifting

Put it back down

The author calls for complete cooling on the sheet. The hot cookie is not ready for a rack or storage container.

Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies

Trish Rosenquist’s exact soft, eggless 24-cookie formula: two ripe bananas, brown sugar, cornstarch, and semisweet chips after a 30-minute chill.

Banana CookiesChocolate Chip CookiesEggless CookiesRipe BananasSoft CookiesDrop Cookies

Ingredients

Cookie dough

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 ripe bananas, peeled
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

  1. Whisk the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt together in a medium bowl until evenly combined. Set the dry mixture aside.
  2. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter, peeled ripe bananas, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla until combined.
  3. Stir in the flour mixture only until no dry streaks remain. Fold in the semisweet chocolate chips without continuing to work the dough.
  4. Cover and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
  5. Near the end of the chill, heat the oven to 375°F / 190°C. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or lightly coat them with cooking spray.
  6. Use a cookie scoop to portion the chilled dough onto the prepared sheets, leaving room between mounds for the cookies to spread.
  7. Bake for 9–10 minutes, preserving the source’s quick bake, until the tops just begin to turn light golden brown and the centers no longer look wet.
  8. Leave the cookies on their sheets until completely cool. They finish setting on the hot pans, so moving them early risks breaking the soft centers.

Source and technique references: Trish Rosenquist’s January 2016 Mom On Timeout article for the exact 10 ingredients, 24-cookie yield, full method, times, and per-cookie nutrition; the archived March 2018 My Recipe Magic card for the legacy identity, syndication date, matching ingredient list, and direct primary-source link; King Arthur Baking’s test kitchen for ripe-banana selection; its controlled pan-lining test for parchment, grease, and spread behavior; its soft-cookie guidance for reduced surface shine, golden edges, carryover setting, and airtight storage; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for raw-flour and cleanup safety. No source ingredient amount or method was changed; observable doneness, spread control, storage, and safety cues are separated editorial guidance.

Image credits

Photography is used under open licenses with attribution: Joey Doll / Wikimedia Commons, Martin Thoma / Wikimedia Commons, and Editor at Large / Wikimedia Commons.