These big bakery style banana chocolate chip cookies are a dead ringer for the ones at Gideon’s Bakehouse in Orlando – no 6 hour wait required. They’re packed with banana, chocolate chips, and candied walnuts, and are thick, soft, and chewy.
What is Gideon’s Bakehouse?
If you’re reading this post, you probably already know about Gideon’s. It’s a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakery at Disney Springs in Orlando. (They have other locations as well) It’s dark, spooky, with a Tim Burton vibe and the cookies have a cult following. They’re as big as your head, studded with chocolate inside and out, and are the definition of indulgence.
To get these cookies in person, you have to join a virtual queue and typically wait anywhere from 4-6 hours. Then your name gets called, you join a standby line, and finally enter the bakery. They have huge cakes and over the top cold brews in addition to the infamous cookies. It’s definitely an experience and a stop my family makes on every Disney trip. But, we live in Indiana and I can’t fly to Orlando every time I have a giant cookie craving. So I developed this, (and several other!!) Gideon’s copycat recipes that you can make at home.
Ingredients
- Butter. Salted butter for cookies, always. And I browned the butter for this recipe to add that extra toasty, nutty, flavor that compliments the banana so well.
- Banana. One large, over ripe banana.
- Banana Creme Pudding Mix. This enhances the banana flavor and also helps add chewiness to the cookies.
- Chocolate. A mix of mini semi sweet chips and regular dark chocolate chips (70%)
- Candied Walnuts. I like to buy them pre-made to save time, but you can candy your own if you want.
- Banana Chips. A little extra crunchy banana flavor.
How to make Bakery Style Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
Brown the butter.
In a medium sized sauce pan, add the butter and melt over medium heat. Once butter is melted, continue cooking until the milk solids separate from the fat and begin to toast and become golden brown. About 5-7 minutes. The butter will start to crackle and pop at first, just swirl the pan around as needed and continue to cook it. It will then quiet down and start to foam up, that’s how you know it’s ready.
Pour the browned butter into a glass measuring cup and add 1-2 TBSP of softened butter to it so that you have exactly one cup. The volume of the butter will reduce as it browns, and you need exactly 1 C for this recipe to be perfect. Set the butter aside and let it come to a soft spreadable consistency. To hurry this process along you can pop it into the freezer and stir every 5 minutes until it’s spreadable, but not completely solid.
Make the banana chocolate chip cookie dough.
In the bowl of your stand mixer add the room temperature browned butter and sugars. Cream on medium speed for 5 minutes, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed to ensure everything is getting creamed together evenly. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix for another 2-3 minutes to incorporate air into the eggs and help achieve that perfect chewy texture.
Add in the mashed banana and mix until combined. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined, with a few streaks of flour remaining. Add in 1 cup of the chocolate, 1/2 cup of the candied walnuts, and 1/2 cup of banana chips. Mix until combined and no streaks of flour remain.
Use a kitchen scale to portion the dough into 6 extra large 6.5 oz cookie dough balls. Roll into a smooth ball in your hands. In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the remaining chocolate chips. Press the chocolate all over the top and sides of the cookie dough ball trying to cover every bit except for the bottom. Fill any gaps with extra banana chips and nuts. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours, up to overnight.
Bake the cookies.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place two cookie dough balls with plenty of room in between for spreading. Bake for 14-15 minutes, then remove the cookie sheet from the oven and bang it on the counter 2-3 times to help the cookies spread. Use a spoon or rubber spatula to scoot any runaway edges back into place.
Then, place the cookies back into the oven for another 1-2 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown, but the middle still looks slightly under baked. Let the cookies sit on the hot cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes to allow the centers to firm up. Fill any blank spaces with extra chocolate/nuts/banana chips. Top with flaky salt, and enjoy.
Tools & Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to achieve the same chewy texture with a handheld electric mixer on these cookies. The stand mixer has much more power and the paddle attachment will help whip a lot of air into the butter and eggs to help achieve the best texture.
- Kitchen Scale. Ensure your cookies are all exactly the same size by weighing before you bake them. Here’s an affordable kitchen scale from Amazon.
- Cookie Scoop. This just makes it easier when portioning the dough, but isn’t absolutely necessary. I love this one.
- Cookie Sheets. My favorite are these from USA Pan. You would be shocked to see how differently things can bake just by swapping out the pan.
Bakery Style Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 30 min
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Total Time: 45 Min + Chill Time
- Yield: 6 Giant Cookies 1x
Description
Big, thick and chewy banana chocolate chip cookies with candied walnuts that is a dead ringer for the Gideon’s Bakehouse version.
Ingredients
- 1 C (113 g) Salted Butter, + about 2 TBSP
- 3/4 C (165 g) Light Brown Sugar
- 1/4 C (55 g) Granulated Sugar
- 1 Lg Egg + 1 Egg Yolk, at room temperature
- 2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (or pure vanilla extract)
- 100 g Banana, mashed (about 1 large banana)
- 1 1/4 C (150 g) All Purpose Flour
- 1 1/4 C (150 g) Bread Flour
- 2 tsp Cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 2 TBSP Banana Cream Jello Pudding Mix
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 C Mini Semi Sweet Chips, divided
- 1 C Dark (70-72%) Chocolate Chips, divided
- 1/4 C Milk Chocolate Chips *Optional
- 1/2 C Banana Chips
- 1/2 C Candied Walnuts
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pan, add the butter and melt over medium heat. Cook until the milk solids separate from the fat and begin to toast and become golden brown. About 5-7 minutes. Swirl the pan around as needed.
- Pour the browned butter into a glass measuring cup and add 1-2 TBSP of softened butter to it so that you have exactly one cup.
- Set the butter aside and let it come to a soft spreadable consistency. Or pop it into the freezer and stir every 5 minutes until it’s spreadable, but not completely solid.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer add the room temperature browned butter and sugars. Cream on medium speed for 5 minutes, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix for another 2-3 minutes to incorporate air into the eggs.
- Add in the mashed banana and mix until combined.
- Add in the flour, bread flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and banana pudding mix and mix until almost combined, with a few streaks of flour remaining.
- Add in 1 cup of the chocolate, 1/2 cup of the candied walnuts, and 1/2 cup of banana chips. Mix until combined and no streaks of flour remain.
- Use a kitchen scale to portion the dough into 6 extra large 6.5 oz cookie dough balls. Roll into a smooth ball in your hands.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the remaining chocolate. Press the mixture all over the top and sides of the cookie dough ball trying to cover every bit except for the bottom. Fill any gaps with extra banana chips and walnuts.
- Place in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours, up to overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place two cookie dough balls with plenty of room in between for spreading.
- Bake for 14-15 minutes, then remove the cookie sheet from the oven and bang it on the counter 2-3 times to help the cookies spread. Use a spoon or rubber spatula to scoot any runaway edges back into place.
- Then, place the cookies back into the oven for another 1-2 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown, but the middle still looks slightly under baked. Let the cookies sit on the hot cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes to allow the centers to firm up.
- Fill any blank spaces with extra chocolate/nuts/banana chips. Top with flaky salt, and enjoy.
Keywords: banana chocolate chip cookies, gideon’s bakehouse copycat cookies, banana cookies
If you loved this recipe for my Bakery Style Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies, be sure to leave a star rating and review below and tag @buuckfarmsbakery on TikTok and Instagram. To save this recipe for later, click on the Pinterest icon on the recipe card above or on any of the images throughout this post.
Could you clarify the butter measurement? It calls for 1 cup of butter, but the gram measurement says 113g, which is the amount for 1 stick (0.5 cups) of butter.
Ahh Omgg thanks for catching that! It is two sticks of butter. 226g.