Banana Bread Bars with Browned Butter Icing

My husband and daughter love bananas.
Although I don't hate them, they're definitely not my fruit of choice...I would go for watermelon or mango over banana any day!
But I do love me a good banana bread...Sometimes, though, you need something different to do with all your almost rotten bananas.
Try these bars. I LOVED them! The browned butter frosting and heath chips kick it up a notch....and they're not too sweet, either, for those of you that have something against sweet things.

Banana Bread Bars
3/4 cup sugar
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
2 large very ripe bananas
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup heath milk chocolate bits (In the baking aisle)

Grease a 9x13" pan and pre-heat your oven to 375.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together first four ingredients until smooth and creamy.
Add in bananas and vanilla, mixing for 1 minute on medium- high.
All at once add flour, baking soda,  salt and heath bits, and mix on medium- high for another minute.
Spread into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
Cool slightly for a few minutes and make your browned butter frosting.


Browned Butter Frosting:
1/4 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2-3 Tbsp. cream

In a medium sauce pan, melt butter over low-medium heat until it is boiling and a delicate brown color.
Remove from the heat and immedeately add the rest of the ingredients.
Mix very well. You want it to be thicker than a glaze, but thinner than a frosting. Add more cream if needed.
Pour over bars and spread so it's smooth.

Enjoy warm, cold or room temperature- you can't go wrong!

Banana Nut Cream Cheese Stuffed Muffins

I loooove to bake on rainy days. It's one of my favorite things to do, and today, I had a lot of it to do! Well, not that much... but when you have a baby that needs her mommy cause she's about to pop another tooth and all she wants to do is snuggle, and then you also have a couple loads of laundry to fold and put away, neverending dishes to wash, and regular house cleaning stuff....it
seemed a little overwhelming this morning.


Me and my mom are working on a cookbook, so I had a couple recipes to test out and bake for that, but I also had a few banana's that were well past their glory days. Like so ripe, they were almost rotten.


The same old banana bread routine bores me and I had some cream cheese to use up and the combination of bananas and cream cheese sounded perfect to me!


These muffins were indeed perfect. I had one right out of the oven and it was amazing...I love eating things that have surprises in the middle.

Banana Nut Cream Cheese Stuffed Muffins
Pre-heat oven to 375. Grease a standard 12 cup muffin pan.


Muffin Batter:
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla 
1 cup chopped pecans, divided


Filling:
4 oz. cream cheese
1/4 Cup sugar



For the filling:
With an electric mixer, beat together cream cheese and sugar on high til smooth and creamy and well combined. Line a deep bowl or cup with a ziploc bag and fill with filling.



For the muffins:
In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugars.
In a small separate bowl, mash bananas very well. Add buttermilk, oil eggs and vanilla, and mix well.
Add wet ingredients to dry, add in /2 cup pecans and mix just until combined.
Drop 1-2 tablespoons batter in muffin pan, enough to cover the bottom of each cup.


Snip off a good size corner (about 1/2") of your bag with filling and squeeze about a tablespoon of the filling onto first layer of muffin batter.

Cover with the filling with batter, filling up the muffin cups almost all the way.
Top with remaining pecans.

Bake 20-22 minutes til golden brown.
Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before trying to gently remove with a butter knife.

Makes 12-16 muffins.

Enjoy!

Super Moist and Perfect Banana Bread (and Ice Cream Sandwiches!)

Today is one of those rainy days that is perfect for being lazy, drinking coffee, watching tv, snuggling with the little munchkin and baking!

Actually, after you do all of those things, it no longer is a lazy day.

I didn't even include the taking a shower (completely optional) feeding yourself, and refilling your coffee mug part!

One of the things I made Sunday morning was banana bread. I love baking things on Sunday morning so my husband has something yummy smelling (and hopefully tasting) to wake up to since it's the only morning he's home...

I love this recipe, too cause you beat the sugar and egg for 10 minutes on high with a whisk so they get all light and fluffy...It makes a huge difference in the end result! It's moist, yet light and SO flavorful, due to the extra cinnamon I like to add and a whole tablespoon of vanilla. My go-to recipe!

I hope you're having a wonderful, cozy, rainy day :)

Super Moist and Perfect Banana Bread

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Grease and flour a 9x13" bread pan.

1 2/3 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup + 2 tbsp. sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 1/2 mashed, very ripe bananas

2 tbsp. sour cream

1 tbsp. vanilla

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In an electric mixer, combine sugar and eggs. Beat on high for 10 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Drizzle in oil while mixing on low.

When combined, add in bananas, sour cream and vanilla.

Stop mixer, and fold in by hand flour mixture.

Pour into loaf pan and bake 45 minutes to 1 hour.

I baked mine for 45 minutes, cause there is nothing worse than overbaked banana bread!

And then.....

You make this:

You need to do it!!!!

And, it would be even better if you did it with this:

Holy yum.

Don't knock it til you try it- I just wish you could lick the screen and taste what I'm talking about.

They're best fresh from the freezer...

Happy Tuesday :)

Loaded Banana Bread

Growing up, for a snack my mom would often make me and my brothers 'ants on a log'....I think that's where my love for peanut butter and banana and peanut butter and chocolate came from. Usually, we would just get raisins on our banana log....but sometimes, my dear mother would replace the raisins with chocolate chips.

Lots of them....The more the better. 

This would take it from a healthy, afternoon snack, to a not so healthy snack. (I have a way with words)

But when you're 10, who cares of such things? When you're 21, who cares of such things?

Awhile ago, I saw somewhere in the blog world, this amazing idea of putting chopped Reeses in your Banana Bread. BRILLIANT, I tell you!

But I forgot about it.

UNTIL, that day I had a big bag of Reeses in my cupboard, lots of Peanut Butter, a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips  leftover, and some squishy bananas.

What could be more obvious than to make the best ever loaded, banana bread???

Loaded Banana Bread

Pre-heat oven to 350

Grease a loaf pan.

Combine:

2 Cups flour

1 Cup of Sugar

1/2 Tsp. baking soda

1/2 Tsp. salt

Set aside.

Beat together:

1/2 Cup Butter, Melted

3 Very ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/3 Cup sour cream

1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/2 bag Reeses, halved

1/2 cup (or more) chocolate chips

1/2 Cup smooth peanut butter

Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, and stir just until combined.

Fold in your Reeses, Chocolate chips, and swirl in the Peanut butter. 

DON'T OVER MIX!

Pour into prepared pan, and bake for 45- 60 minutes, or cooked through the center, but if a little comes out on your poking device, that's okay cause you still want it to be moist!

I like mine a little gooey, so I did 45 minutes.

Let cool in pan for 15 minutes before dumping out on a wire rack to cool completely.

It's amazing cooled, but even more amazing right when you take it out of the pan-

 Fresh from the oven!

Enjoy!

Coconut Banana Upside-down Cake

I have about 2 dozen bananas in my kitchen-

and I don't know how it happened...

The good thing is, me and my husband love bananas in our smoothies, I love baking things with bananas-- It's a good thing.

I feel like everyone always makes banana bread, or banana muffins with there left over bananas.

 BOOO-RIIING.

I've had this recipe in my little treasure box of 'recipes I want to try', for occasions such as this...and I don't know why I didn't try it sooner all the other times I had a bazillion left over bananas!!!!

It would be a super breakfast,, morning snack,lunch, afternoon snack, or dessert. But I'm leaning more towards the breakfast idea. It has fruit in it so, It is healthy. Right?!?!

I hope you make this soon. 

Oh, and you should eat it hot out of the oven. But if you don't, that's okay, cause no matter when or how you eat it, it's sooooooo goooooood.

Coconut Banana Upside-Down Cake

Pre-heat oven to 350

Lightly grease a round 8" cake pan.

In an electric mixer, mix together:

1 Cup all purpose four

3/4 Cup sugar

1 1/2 Tsp. baking powder

1/4 Cup non-fat dry milk

1 Egg

1/4 Cup applesauce

1/4 Cup sour cream

1/4 Cup water

When they're all combined, turn mixer up to high, and beat for 2 minutes.

For the rest of the cake:

3 Bananas (sliced 1/4" thick)

1 Cup shredded sweetened coconut

1/2 Cup packed brown sugar

1/4 Cup (1/2 stick) butter

Arrange banana slices, covering the bottom of the pan.

Melt butter, and mix in brown sugar, stirring til sugar is dissolved.

Pour brown sugar mixture over bananas.

Spread coconut over brown sugar mixture.

Pour cake- like batter on top of the coconut.

Bake 35-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. It's okay if some crumbs come out on it though.

Let sit for 5 minutes before inverting onto a plate, and shoving into your pie hole.

Enjoy!