Overripe bananas are generally thrown away, I used to do it too at one time. Then one of our friends gave us a Banana Nut Bar recipe and after tasting that, I will either wait for regular bananas to get overripe or I will go buy ripe bananas from the store on purpose. Bananas never go waste in our house. Rajesh makes a smoothie every morning for breakfast and the most important ingredient in that is banana, the riper the better. I also came across this recipe in one of the cookbooks that our friend had given us and I decided to give it a shot. Though the name says ‘squares’, I think it more or less has the consistency of a cake.
Ingredients
- Butter - 1/2 cup (1 stick)
- Sugar - 3/4 cup
- Egg - 1
- Bananas, ripe - 1 cup(about 2 medium sized ones)
- Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
- All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
- Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
- Chopped walnuts - 1/2 cup
- Halved walnuts or white and dark chocolate chips - for garnish
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
Spray a 9 inch square baking pan with non-stick spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, put in the butter and sugar. Using an electric hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed till light and fluffy.
In a small bowl, mash the bananas and also add the vanilla extract and egg to it and beat well.
In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt. Also add the chopped walnuts to this bowl.
Add the mashed banana and egg mixture to the creamed butter and sugar bowl and blend well.
Stir in the dry ingredients and mix well using light strokes till well combined. Do not over mix the ingredients after adding flour.
Put the batter in the greased pan. Arrange either the walnut halves or white and dark chocolate chips on top.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean.
Cool completely and then cut into squares.
Note:
- The bananas I used were very ripe, hence I ended up using just 1/2 cup of sugar though the recipe asked for 3/4 cup. You can add more or less of sugar depending on how sweet you want it to be. My daughter also wanted me to add chocolate chips for topping which also added to the sweetness.
- Instead of walnuts, this can also be made using pecans or almonds.
- Cooking times vary from oven to oven, so make sure to keep checking your oven every five minutes after the required 30 minutes to check for doneness.
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