Chocolate Banana Bread Cookies

5 from 1 vote

Classic walnut banana bread turned into a soft sandwich cookie.

Prep Time30

Total Bake Time20

Chill30

Total Time1 20

Course: Cookies, Nuts

Cuisine: American

Difficulty: Medium

Servings: sandwich cookies

Calories: 184kcal

Weigh or measure both sugars into a dish and set that aside.
Add the butter to a saucepan on your stove and heat over medium heat, stirring the whole time. It will go in stages; first, it will look like a white film on top. Next, the butter will get a little clearer, and you will get transparent bubbles. Be careful; this is the stage where it can go too far very quickly. The butter should have medium golden-brown specks at the bottom of the pan and have a nutty smell if you lean over the pan. Take it off the heat. If you end up with a lot of really dark brown specks at the bottom of the saucepan, it might taste burnt. Add both sugars to the brown butter and stir until all the butter is incorporated into the sugars. Let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Mash 2 bananas in a bowl and set aside. Weigh or measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl, whisking to blend.
In a stand or handheld mixer, add the cooled butter-sugar mixture and turn the mixer on medium-low speed. Add the vanilla extract, bananas, egg, and sour cream and blend. At this stage, the mixture is quite thin and liquid. Next, turn the mixer to low speed and slowly add the flour mixture until incorporated. I scrape down the sides and across the bottom. Add the walnuts and finish mixing for another 15 seconds. The cookie dough will be soft. Cover loosely and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C or 180°C) and line 2 cookie pans with parchment paper. Taking a small cookie scoop, place 12 scoops onto a pan. The dough is a little sticky, so I get e small dish of water and a paper towel, wet two fingers, and gently press down on each top of the scoops. You don't want your fingers so wet that they form puddles on each cookie's top. I take a paper towel and gently dab the tops of the cookie to get excess water. Bake for 8-10 minutes and move to a cooling rack once the pan comes out of the oven.,

Weigh or measure the powdered sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the butter to a stand or handheld mixer and cream the butter for a minute or two. Scrape down the bowl. Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and the milk. Start on a low mixer speed.
Gradually increase the speed as the ingredients start to come together. Mix on a medium-high mixer speed for about 3 to 4 minutes. Then, stop and scrape down the bowl and return to the medium-high mixer speed for another 4 minutes. You want the icing to be on the stiff side.
Using a knife, spread the icing over the bottom of a cookie. It does not have to be too thick. Next, put one of the other similar-sized cookies on top of the icing so you have the bottoms of both cookies touching the icing. You now have a cookie sandwich with the icing in the middle.