Slow Weekend

I guess I ignored my blog this weekend. Sorry about that! I apologize to anyone checking in here for something new. There wasn't anything special about this weekend, just busy with the kids, I guess. But lucky for you! I have two posts today, so make sure you come back later for the second post.

On Saturday I was cleaning up the kitchen when I spied a fruit fly. I was busy wondering where he came from when I lifted a piece of paper and spotted three very brown and perfect for baking bananas. Something needed to be done right then and there. My initial thought was banana bread or muffins, but then I thought that it's been a few weeks since I've brought something to church on Sunday, so I should make something for that. My search led to the good folks at Recipezaar, a recipe site that I really like to visit. The sheer volume of recipes there is amazing! What I really love about Recipezaar though is the review system. When you make a recipe from there, you can rate the recipe for others. That always helps me choose one item over another, reading the reviews. Saturday, I decided to see if there was such a thing as Banana Bars, and I was not disappointed. There were about 8 recipes, and I very quickly found one that had 14 mostly positive reviews- and it made a 15 x 10 sheet pan- a necessary for me.

These came together extremely quickly- my additions to the recipe were mini chocolate chips and walnuts, and I also played with the sugar a bit. I knew I was going to frost these, and many of the reviewers said they were sweet, so instead of 2 cups of plain sugar, I used 1 cup of plain sugar, and 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar. The sweetness was right on with the frosting. For the frosting I opted to not go with a cream cheese frosting, since that's not universally friendly. Instead I made a vanilla butter cream and then added about 1/4 cup of caramel ice cream topping. So it actually was a caramel frosting- and that was really good too. The Frosted Banana Bars turned out excellent, and were a huge hit. Later today I will be thanking the original poster on Recipezaar with a favorable review.