Frosted Banana Bars

How many of you have had bananas sitting on the counter, slowly going black, knowing you’ll never eat them before they go really bad? Probably everyone who’s reading this, I imagine.

Of course, this happened to me for the umpteenth time not long ago, but I was armed and ready with a recipe that sounded very promising.

These bars (really they are banana bread… in bar form) got rave reviews over at the Taste of Home website, and I’d been waiting for the opportunity to have a go at them for quite some time.

When I finally made them, it literally only took one bite to know that I had stumbled on one of the best things ever baked in my kitchen.

You can imagine that I was shaking my head in disgust for having waited so long to make them!

As per usual, I made a few modifications from the original recipe, but nothing major. For the batter, I reduced the sugar and added walnuts, then I cut back a bit on the frosting and used half the called-for amount of cream cheese (not a big fan). OK, so perhaps that’s a fair amount of tweaking! Feel free to go with the original over at TOH and decide which one sounds best to you. Whichever you choose, I’m sure it will not disappoint 🙂

INGREDIENTS:
BARS:
1/2 cup butter, room temp.
1 1/2 cups organic cane sugar
3 eggs
3 mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

FROSTING:
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 to 2 Tbs. milk

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350°F, grease, or line with parchment paper, a 13×9″ baking pan and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, bananas and vanilla. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; add to butter mixture along with the walnuts and mix just until blended. Do not overmix! Transfer to the prepared pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack. In the meantime prepare the frosting. Beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add icing sugar and almond extract; beat until smooth, adding milk as needed to make a spreadable frosting. Frost the bars once they have cooled to room temperature. Cut into bars and store in an airtight container… IF they ever make it to the container!! Yields 2 dozen delectable bars.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:
Calories: 265
Fat: 11.3g
– Saturated Fat: 6.1g
– Cholesterol: 52.3mg
Sodium: 106.4mg
Carbohydrates: 39.3g
– Sugars: 28.5g
– Fibre: 0.9g
Protein: 3g