Banana Bread Bars

While I don't like bananas (it's a texture thing), I do in fact love banana bread! So, when my friend Carrie shared this recipe with me on Facebook, I knew I was going to have to give it a try. It took a few weeks, but I finally tried this last weekend. Here's the original post: Banana Bread Bars with Brown Butter Frosting. These bars turned out quite delicious! They were very moist and quite flavorful. However, they were basically unedible after two or three days. The icing sort of melted into the bars and the leftovers turned into a hot mess.

1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1-3/4 (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour 15x10-inch jelly roll pan (I used a 12X17). 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.

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

Brown Butter Frosting
1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp milk

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.

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).