Roasted Banana Cookies with Vanilla Salt

I buy my vanilla salt in the bulk salt section at Whole Foods but you can also find many brands of it online. You could also make it yourself but vanilla beans are so expensive, it's not worth it cost wise. It is the perfect extra step to add to your baked goods and will last you forever. If you don't have or want to use vanilla salt, add an additional teaspoon of vanilla extract to your mix and substitute the vanilla salt with sea or kosher salt.

Caramelized, ripe bananas, crunchy peanut butter and cinnamon make these gluten free cookies incredibly moist, sweet and slightly salty.

Roasted Banana Cookies with Vanilla Salt
Makes 15 cookies
1 tsp vegan butter
2 ripe bananas, small dice
1/2 cup organic light brown sugar
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/2 cup unsweetened, natural peanut butter ( I prefer crunchy but either works)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups gluten free flour blend ( I recommend Bob's Red Mill or you can even use BRM GF Pancake Mix**)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp vanilla salt  (if your peanut butter has a good amount of salt in it, I would use slightly less than 1/4 tsp) 

Saute 1 tsp of butter and the bananas together until soft and caramelized, 5-7 minutes.
Beat together both sugars with the butter, peanut butter, cinnamon and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the banana and blend.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and vanilla salt and mix to combine.
Chill the batter for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350.
Line a baking sheet with parchment and scoop out cookies 2 inches apart. These cookies spread a good amount so do not press them down. Bake for 11 minutes until not quite done. The cookies will continue to cook while cooling on the hot baking sheet and this way they will stay super soft.

**Say you have looked at my blog before and you have made THESE and still have a bag of gluten free pancake mix leftover, use it to make these cookies or just use it as an all-purpose flour blend. No need to limit yourself to just pancakes over and over again.