Sweet potatoes are just amazing. You can bake them, fry them, roast them, enjoy them as jacket potatoes with as many elaborate fillings as you can think of, you can make sweet potato fries, you can blend them into soups. But, most importantly, you can use them in desserts, just like the below 5-ingredient vegan sweet potato and banana cookies! How does that work, you ask? Well, they’re sweet! And, people are starting to jump on the ‘vegetables-in-desserts’ bandwagon. A good friend of mine made a chocolate courgette cake once and it was one of the most indulgent and decadent chocolate cakes I have ever tasted.
I often don’t have the right ingredients to hand for a particular recipe, so I end up improvising with what I’ve got in the fridge or pantry. The boys wanted some cookies and I wanted them to eat veg, so out came my trustee 1kg of sweet potatoes and I decided to put them to good use in some form of biscuit or cookie.
Sweet potato was going to make up the main base of the cookie, but I either needed to mask the sweet potato taste or sweeten the overall flavour, otherwise, the boys wouldn’t eat them. So, I pulled in my natural sugar alternatives and tried to sweeten this bad boy up with as many natural sweeteners as I could. Hence, in went a banana, some raisins and some dates. I also wanted to make these vegan banana cookies as wholesome as possible, so instead of using plain or self-raising flour, I went for oats, which I ground to a semi flour-like consistency and they worked to beef up the mixture. I whizzed everything up in a food processor and OMG, I made 5-ingredient vegan sweet potato and banana cookies. And they were good!
The ingredients my friends:
The great thing about this recipe is that you can taste the sweet potato, but it’s not overbearing. The other natural sugars balance out the overall taste and texture and when you bite into them you get that gooey cookie consistency. So, it worked and I was so chuffed about that.
Recipes, Freebies and Tips every Sunday!
Fancy more recipes with sweet potato? Try my Sweet Potato and Chickpea Sausage Rolls or my Sweet Potato and Coriander Pesto Pasta. Or maybe even try my Sweet Potato, Tomato and Broccoli Cous Cous! (I like sweet potato!)
I enjoyed my vegan sweet potato and
So, let’s make the recipe!
5-ingredient vegan sweet potato and banana cookies
12 – 13 cookies
10 minutes
10 – 12 minutes
Easy
Ingredients
- One ripe banana
- One sweet potato
- 1 cup dates
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 1/2 cup oats (ground them into a flour consistency or leave them chunky for a crunchier texture)
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- Pinch of salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven at 170C/338F/GM4
- Wash and microwave the sweet potato for about 4 minutes on high until soft and mashable. I leave the skin on for added nutrients and texture.
- Grab your food processor and whizz up the dates. If you’re using pitted dates, add them in now with 1/2 cup of water (or soak them in water for at least an hour before you start). If you’re using Medjool dates you don’t need to add any water
- Transfer to a cake mixer if you have one and add the ground
oats, salt and baking soda. Combine well. - Add in the sweet potato, banana and raisins and mix until all combined well.
- Line a baking tray with greased parchment paper and spoon a tablespoon full of mixture onto the tray, shaping the mix so that it looks like a cookie.
- Bake for around 10 – 12 minutes, checking regularly that you don’t overbake them.
- Enjoy with a nice beverage!
When you are ready to create the recipe, don’t forget to tag me on @fiveforafiver via Facebook/Twitter (@fiveforafiver1 on Instagram) and use the hashtags #FiverFoodies and/or #FiveforaFiver, so I can check out your awesome sweet potato and banana cookies!
I found a list of ingredients from Asda for £3.43 total (Prices may vary after 15 April 2018). Check them out below:
ASDA Smartprice Porridge Oats, 1kg – 75p
ASDA Smartprice Sultanas, 500g – 88p
ASDA Grower’s Selection Bananas by Weight, 200g – 15p
ASDA Grower’s Selection Sweet Potatoes, 2 – 65p
Recipes, freebies and tips every Sunday!
Sign up and receive the following every Sunday:* Email tips on how to get confident in the kitchen* Free printables, checklists and calendars that you can stick on your fridge!* An automated and interactive meal planner of all Five for a Fiver’s recipes (updated weekly) * Fun quizzes, games and interesting food facts
