I hate to waste food so I looked for a recipe that would be great for my too ripe bananas and stumbled across a little something called Monkey Bars! I actually lost my recipe I was using but this recipe by A Girl who Ate Everything, is the exact same thing only she calls it monkey squares.
I will give this recipe a 4.0/5. I love them, I nearly fell out of my chair after first bite. But then they just sat on the counter and sat on the counter and no one would eat them. So I assume the only person who loved them was myself.
This recipe is copied directly from A Girl who Ate Everything and I take no credit for this recipe, I just tried it and wanted to share it!
Ingredients
Banana Bread Bars:
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Browned Butter Frosting:
- ½ cup butter
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10x15 jelly roll pan or line with parchment paper (for thicker bars use a 9x13 pan). Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Blend in bananas and vanilla for one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend for one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool slighty until warm but not hot and frost with Browned Butter Frosting (recipe below).
- For the Browned Butter Frosting: Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it is boiling and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it's on the warm bread.
So I'm on to my next recipe, with a stick of butter in my sweatshirt to speed up the "room temp process". And no I can't stick it in the microwave :)
