Monday, February 04, 2008

Amy Bouchard's Banana Bread Bars

I know!I know! Enough already with all the food posts. But this was on local TV tonight & we just happened to have some 'ripe' bananas we got at a bargain intending to make banana breads & puddings. It sounded so good we HAD to try it, even SWMBO was willing to bake this, which is good, because I stink at baking anything beyond pizza. Amy was WRONG!! She came nowhere near expressing how scrumptious these are!!! I regret there's no photo of it. The aroma seemed to attract tenants with 'immediate problems' who seemed to forget their woes when given the treats. We did change one thing as we had no walnuts. A mixture of almonds and hazel nuts (Filberts) worked very well as a substitute. If you make them, they will eat them. Take care until next we meet. Amy's Chocolate Banana Bars 2 sticks butter (1 cup) softened 2 cups brown sugar 2/3 cups granulated sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 2 eggs 6 bananas mashed (about 2 cups)( a metal potato masher worked great for this!!) 1 cup sour cream 1 tablespoon vanilla 4 cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate 1 cup walnuts Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You will need a large rectangular shape cake pan at least 15x10x2 or two small square cake pans. Grease and line with parchment paper or tin foil and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar together on high speed for 1 minute. Add baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix for 30 seconds and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add eggs, bananas, sour cream and vanilla until well combined. Mix in the flour. In a small chopper or food processor, chop the chocolate and walnuts into small pieces. If you don?t have a food processor you can put chocolate and walnuts in a zip lock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Stir the chocolate and walnuts into the batter. Spread batter into pan and bake for 45-48 minutes until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack then cut into bars. Optional: you may want to melt 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate with 1 teaspoon shortening then drizzle over the bars. ENJOY!

7 comments:

The Guy Who Writes This said...

Ahhh, Mike, I see you are back to writing about your passion for food. Good one.

Anonymous said...

yummmmmmmmmm! What's not to like???...Chocolate, bananas, sugar, vanilla, nuts, peanut butter...WAIT! No peanut butter?...That's Okay, sounds great without it!!! Thanks...

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mike, for this great recipt. I will be trying it at the weekend.

Patricia said...

Sounds good to me.

Anonymous said...

SWISLT (She who I sometimes listen to) has put me on a diet and since she reads your stories and comments I will have to decline but they sure do sound good...

Mike S said...

For those not so informed, I have it on good authority that ALL dietary restrictions may be waived at 'want', like when Y'All WANT some goodies!!!

Unknown said...

Here we go again. Amy Bouchard is making me fat.