It’s that time of year – summer vacation is over and all your kids have gone back to school.  {I’m not even going to speculate if those are tears of sadness or tears of joy}  Either way, here’s a great surprise to have waiting for them when they come home from a long day of school.  These banana bars are super moist and the browned-butter frosting is truly the icing on the cake! {pun intended}.  Make some up for your little monkeys today!!

Monkey Bars

Inredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease and flour a 10×15 jelly roll pan.  Beat first four ingredients until creamy.  Blend in bananas and vanilla until incorporated.  Add dry ingredients and blend one minute.  Sitr in nuts and spread in pan.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes -until light brown and center springs back to the touch (don’t over bake).  Cool and frost with Browned Butter Frosting (recipe below).

Browned-Butter Frosting

1/2 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3 tablespoons milk

Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it boils and turns a delicate brown.

Remove from the heat and immediately wisk in the remaining ingredients.  This should make a thick glaze.  Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Bars immediately.  Work quickly, it hardens fast!

Recipe adapted from The WelcomeMat