Honey and Banana Biscuits

These delightful and easy to make biscuits contain no refined sugar at all- being sweetened only with our pure honey and enhanced with the natural sweetness of a ripe banana, vanilla extract, and ground almonds. The almonds also add a welcome and pleasing texture to the biscuits which can sometimes be missing when using honey as a sugar replacement in biscuit recipes.

Perfect with an afternoon cuppa these biscuits fall somewhere between a traditional biscuit, a macaroon, and a drop cookie- having a nice crispy outer with slightly softer centre. These biscuits will keep fine for up to a week in an airtight container but since they have become a favourite teatime treat with my family they never last longer than a day or two!

This recipe will make around 12 large biscuits.

To make Honey and Banana Biscuits you will need:

• 125g of Unsalted Butter
• 100g of Just Bee Honey
• 100g of Ground Almonds
• 125g of Self Raising Flour
• 1 Ripe Banana
• 1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract

A medium saucepan

A large mixing bowl

A large baking sheet or tray

Time to make and bake: under 30 mins.

Let's get baking!

Step One: A little prep.

We want to preheat the oven to Gas mark 6 or 200c; for a fan assisted oven you want to lower it to around 180c. We want it up to temperature by the time you pop the biscuits in, which isn't going to be long!

Next prepare the baking tray. I like to line my tray with baking paper but any good non-stick surfaced sheet or a tray lightly greased with a small amount of butter will also work.

Step Two: Combine the wet ingredients.

Cut the butter into small chunks and add to the saucepan. Over a very low heat, warm the butter gently on the hob to melt it.

Next add the honey and give it a good stir until it's mixed in with the butter. Then add the vanilla extract and stir through until everything is combined.

Finally mash the banana with a fork in a small bowl until it's soft and mushy, then add to the pan and mix in well. Don't worry if there are some small lumpy bits of banana, that's fine. Remove the pan from the heat and leave it aside for now.

Step Three: Prepare the dry ingredients.

Sift the flour into the mixing bowl, then add the ground almonds and give them a good mix together with a fork until combined evenly.

Step Four: Combine to make the biscuit dough.

Add the wet ingredients from the saucepan into the bowl of dry ingredients and give it a really good mix together. I find a silicon spatula works best here as you can really get around the sides of the bowl. You should end up with a nice soft and sticky biscuit dough- it may look quite wet compared to a traditional biscuit mix but don't worry about the consistency.

Step Five: Make the biscuits!

Using a tablespoon, scoop a spoonful of dough out of the bowl onto the baking tray and spread it out using the back of the spoon or a silicon spatula to create a nice looking biscuit around 5mm thick. Continue until the tray is filled, leaving a small gap between the biscuits

The biscuits won't rise or spread all that much, so try to create a size and shape that you'll be happy with once baked. Don't worry too much about looks, I think they look great with a slightly rough and rustic appearance. Just try to avoid making them too thick unless you want them very soft in texture.

It's unlikely that you will be able to fit all your biscuits on one tray (unless you have a very large tray and oven!) so you can either cook in two batches or load up two trays if you have them.

Step Six: Baking the biscuits.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 12 - 15 minutes. The longer you bake them for the crispier they will be, so I recommend baking them for the full 15 minutes. Only remove them if any of them start to burn on the outer edges. In a gas oven it's a good idea to turn the tray around after 7 minutes to get a nice even bake. 

Once baked remove from the oven and allow to cool for around 10 minutes before carefully moving to a wire rack to fully cool. You can then pop the second batch in if you need to.

Notes and Ideas:

When warm the biscuits will still be quite soft so be careful when transferring to a wire rack. I use a large but thin metal fish slice after they've cooled for at least 5 minutes.

This recipe is a perfect way to use up bananas that are sat around going brown that nobody wants to eat. The riper the better in this case, as it will add more sweetness and flavour to the biscuits. Never throw them away, you can even freeze bananas that are 'past their best' and defrost to use in this and other similar recipes!

We used Just Bee Original honey in this recipe but alternatively any of our flavoured honeys can also be a really nice change and will add some additional background flavours to the biscuits.

If you like spicy biscuits, then cinnamon or ginger are great with the banana and honey, a single teaspoon of either mixed into the dry ingredients is perfect.

If you'd like to add more fruit then 50g of dried cranberries, sultanas or blueberries can be added and stirred through as a final stage before baking.

You could also add in some poppy seeds or chocolate chips!