Monday, November 26, 2012

Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

 Thanks to everyone for your kind words last week!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Brown butter adds such depth to the flavor of these bars.  Most of my experience with brown butter has been in savory cooking with recipes like this Brown Butter Sage Pasta.  When I saw this recipe for Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting, I couldn't wait to give them a try.

The trick to perfect brown butter is to brown the butter slowly, swirling the pan while the butter browns.  If you brown it too quickly it will burn and that's not good!!!  You frost this cake while it's still warm.  I used a trick I learned a number of years ago with this banana bread, I poked holes into the cake allowing the frosting to seep down inside the cake.

These banana bars are delicious and dense like a pumpkin bar.  The brown butter frosting is heavenly and puts these bars over the top. 



Banana Bread Bars:
1-1/2 c. sugar
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c. butter, softened
2 eggs
1-3/4 (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Brown Butter Frosting:
1/2 c. butter
4 c. powdered sugar
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. milk

Directions:
1.  Heat oven to 375F.  Grease and flour 15x10-inch jelly roll pan.  For the bars, in a large bowl, beat together sugar, sour cream, butter, and eggs until creamy.  Blend in bananas and vanilla extract.  Add flour, baking soda, salt, and blend for 1 minute.  Stir in walnuts.

2.  Spread batter evenly into pan.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

3.  Meanwhile, for frosting, heat butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until boiling.  Let the butter turn a delicate brown and remove from heat immediately.

4.  Add powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk.  Whisk together until smooth (it should be thicker than a glaze but thinner than frosting).  Using a spatula, spread the brown butter frosting over the warm bars (the frosting will be easier to spread while the bars are still warm). 

Yield: 2 dozen large bars

I am linking this recipe to On The Menu Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday and Foodie Friday!

9 comments:

  1. I have got to try this.(Visiting from StoneGable).Your description has defiantly got my mouth watering and I'm always looking for different ways to jazz up my weekly favorite,banana breads!! We get banana's every week at the grocery and I just can't bear to throw any away{(love using tooo ripe banana's)}.

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  2. This is the second banana cake I've seen tonight, think I see one in my near future! Have a great week:@)

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  3. Drool worthy, Julie! Copying and pasting to try ;)

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  4. Those look wonderful! I love bar cookies...they are a bit easier, and this time of year that's important! Thanks for visiting and nice to meet you!
    Ruth

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  5. Hi Julie, this cake sounds soooo good! I love brown butter frosting, too. I'll bet it tastes fabulous on the cake.

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  6. This little cake/bar looks really good; my kind of dessert.
    Rita

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  7. This is probably the biggest foodie blunder on my part but...I've actually NEVER browned butter before. Yikes! It sounds like it would be MAJORLY awesome in these bars though!

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  8. Hi Julie,
    Your Banana Bars look so moist and delicious! Hope you are having a great weekend and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
    Come Back Soon!
    Miz Helen

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  9. I love these bars. They're just the right amount of denseness and delicateness. So light and fluffy, yet full of body and a soft chew that I love.

    Here are the ones that I made!
    http://thekitchenkook.blogspot.com/2013/01/moist-banana-bars-with-brown-butter.html

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