They've been staring at me for days. Every time I walk through the kitchen, I catch a whiff of their fragrant off-gassing. Their slow descent into badness is an ever-present reminder that I just must do something with them. Yes, I still had four over-ripe bananas on my counter!
With the extra kids around for Tom school this week, I have been in a cooking and baking frenzy. There was pepperoni pizza produced, a taco and refried beans fiesta, and some splendid almond butter cookies with orange buttercream frosting to partake of.
But dangit, I never got to the dratted bananas!
So, I remedied that oversight this morning.
My children often lament that I make things for other people and never for them. Poor, deprived heathens!
With their deprivation caused mewling bouncing around in my memory bank, I started smashing the bananas. In my cupboard I had a partial giant bag of milk chocolate chips. Nothing stops a pity party like brownies!
And for some reason I thought banana brownies would be even more amazing. So I got out my trusty notepad and scrawled out a recipe. Brownies are pretty sugar laden, but as every person in my house is hitting it hard at school, the gym, and on the farm, I figured a bit of extra glucose was probably fine, especially with the added insoluble fiber present from the ripe nanas.
So, with three giant smashed bananas not cheering me on, I got out a mixing bowl and measured out some flour, baking powder, salt, and baking cocoa and added it all to the bowl. I then gave it a very vigorous whisk so that it was all combined in the most spectacular way possible. And by spectacular I meant that it all stayed in the bowl!
Then, in my stand mixer mixing bowl, I added some vegetable oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla powder, the mashed bananas, and my secret flavor weapon, butter extract.
I have a friend who is allergic to dairy, and as I was going to take half of the pan to game night for snacks, I decided to get all creative in the flavoring of the brownies. Normally I would use melted butter as the fat, but I feel bad that he doesn't get to partake in the treats at game night a lot of the time, so hello butter extract!
I beat the wet mixture until it looked like something my cows tend to have dangling out of their nostrils appetizing!. I then got a mesh wire strainer and sifted the dry ingredients from the first bowl into the wet ingredients in my stand mixer bowl.
Using a rubber spatula, I folded the batter together. I have to admit, it went from bovine snot resembling to looking pretty tasty in about fifty strokes. Not too shabby.
I then folded in a bunch of milk chocolate chips. I think dark chocolate chips would taste swell in this recipe too, but I used what I had on hand.
Waiting on the counter was a 9X13 pan that I had prepped with cooking spray and a huge chunk of parchment paper. I poured the batter into the pan and popped it into my oven, FOR-EH-VER!
Seriously, this recipe took about 45ish minutes to bake. Which was fine because my friends, these brownies are out of this world good, they are a bit cake like and a bit fudgy all at the same time. And I have a sneaking suspicion they would taste even more amazing tomorrow, but I doubt they are going to last that long.
My offspring burst through the door and stopped when they saw the very nicely sliced brownies adorning a plate on the eating bar. Let's just say the brownies were enjoyed by all and no lamenting occurred this afternoon😉
Banana Brownies
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 tsp vanilla powder)
1 tsp butter extract
1 1/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3-4 bananas)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1-1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chipsGrease and parchment paper a 9X13 baking pan. You want your parchment to hang over the sides a bit. Preheat the oven to 325 Fahrenheit if you are using a metal pan, 350 if you are using glass.
Mix oil, sugar, eggs, extracts, and banana together in a mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking cocoa, salt, and baking powder together.
Sift dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and using a rubber spatula, fold the batter together until just combined.
Fold in the chocolate chips and pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 45-50 minutes or until middle just sets. Watch your brownies after 40 minutes baking time, you don't want to overbake them. I take mine out when the center yields a few crumbs stuck to the toothpick when I probe the middle of the pan.
Cool at least fifteen minutes, then lift the brownies out and let them finish cooling on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's now in chocolate, butter, and banana scent iPhone.