Banana Bread Bars With Brown Butter Frosting

I usually freeze any over ripe bananas and use them later for smoothies, but I had a good supply already in the freezer and quite a few seriously ripe bananas on the counter, so I decided to bake some banana goodness today.  I was about to search for a new recipe when I happened to see a post on Facebook with this recipe!  The original recipe is not gluten-free, but I used my favorite g-free flour blend and they turned out absolutely INCREDIBLE!!  Seriously, these are dangerous!  They are so super moist and yummy, you'd never in a million years guess that they are gluten free!  So save those bananas and give this recipe a try!

Happy Banana Baking!
Kirsten

BANANA BREAD BARS WITH BROWN BUTTER FROSTING

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups (3-4 large) ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Brown Butter Frosting:

1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons milk

1)  Heat oven to 375F.

2)  Grease and flour a 15x10-inch jelly roll pan.

3)  In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, sour cream, butter and eggs until creamy.

4)  Blend in the bananas and vanilla extract.

5)  Add the flour, baking soda and salt and blend for 1 minute or until thoroughly blended.  Stir in walnuts.

6)  Spread batter evenly into pan.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

7)  Meanwhile, for frosting, heat butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until boiling.  Let the butter boil, stirring often, until it turns a delicate brown and remove from the heat immediately.

8)  Add the powdered sugar, vanilla 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).

NOTES:

~I did not have a jelly roll pan so I used a 15x11-inch cake pan.  I think any pan that is close to that size would be fine.

~My bananas were small, so it took 6 to measure 1 3/4 cups.

~I used my favorite gluten-free flour blend, which is listed separately on the "Gluten-Free Flour Blends" tab.  It's the one from the Gluten-Free Recipes for Kids cookbook, just make sure it's not the one for breads.

~I used vanilla almond milk in the frosting.  I put in the 3 tablespoons that the original recipe called for and the frosting was SUPER thick, so I just dumped more in until it was the right consistency.  I guess it to be an extra tablespoon, but you might have to add more or less, just play with it.

~I did not add the walnuts for this first time trying the recipe because I wanted my kids to like it, but I think adults would prefer it with the nuts, I think it would cut down on the sweetness of the frosting.

~The frosting dries very quickly, even on the hot/warm bars, so spread it out quickly and then leave it alone!