B is for Banana: Cocoa Bottom Banana Pecan Bars

Tags

Baking, Banana, banana bars, cakes, chocolate cake, cocoa bars, cocoa bottom banana pecan bars, healthy food, overripe banana, pecan, what to do with overripe banana

What’s the best healthy treats to do with overripe bananas?

My kids and the bananas is like on and off, sometimes they can be gone in a couple of days and some other times they stay until browned then no body will touch them (They call them rotten and would rather throw them in the garbage, you may had this issue with your kids too). To me, it’s the best healthy sweetener to use in cakes and smoothies, every time I have some ripened banana, I just peel and freeze them in a zip lock plastic bags, that’s a good way to save the banana until you have a use for them.

Here is a great way to use up these overripe banana on your shelf and your kids will thank you for. They even will not notice the trick part of using those what they called “rotten bananas”. Another recipe to use the banana is in these healthy delicious Banana Oat Muffins.

I had this recipe from kitchen aid cookbook, and since I tried the recipe, it became my family stable. A very moist, light and fluffy bananaishy cake, your house will be filled with banana smell, it uses a large amount of bananas, you can add some other spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, but I prefers it as is. The addition of cocoa powder to half of the cake batter makes it kids friendly, you know kids love anything calls and tastes chocolate, they will finish every bit of it, trust me.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
5 ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a13x9-inch baking pan. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer (or you could do it by hand), beat sugar and butter at a medium speed until creamy. Add the bananas, egg, and vanilla, continuing to beat until well blended.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture, and beat until well blended. Stir in the chopped pecans.
Divide the batter in half. Stir the cocoa into one half, and spread the chocolate batter into the bottom of the greased pan. Top with the plain batter, and swirl with a knife as desired.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars.