Banana Bread Cake with Browned Butter Chocolate Frosting

Do you guys love bananas? My two year old is obsessed with them. She pitches the biggest fit if we run out, so I try to always keep them in the house, which means I buy probably double the amount that we actually need. Bananas are probably the one food I don’t mind doing this with because A. bananas are ridiculously cheap B. they freeze great for using in smoothies C. they are perfect for baking yummy treats like this Banana Bread Cake with Browned Butter Chocolate Frosting.

You can imagine, with all these bananas lying around, I make tons of banana bread. I have tried to vary my banana bread recipes, but I have yet to find a recipe that can compete with My Best Banana Bread.

When I found myself with a few ripened bananas the other day, I had in my head that I could come up with bars of some sort. I put it all together and baked it and then realized, it’s a darn cake, not bars. There is no way I could call these bars. I also couldn’t even begin to think of what I would do to make this into bars. If you have seen a banana bread bar recipe somewhere, I’d love to know about it. I really feel like it could be great, if it’s possible.

Perfect for a mid day snack w/ a cup of coffee

Now that I had a cake on my hands I had to figure out a frosting. I sometimes frost my banana breads, and when I do I always use a vanilla icing. Since I threw a bunch of chocolate chips in this cake, I thought I’d carry the chocolate theme through. A regular old chocolate frosting wasn’t going to cut it though, but a chocolate frosting made with browned butter, well that would be THE BOMB! I just took my regular go to frosting recipe and browned the butter, then stuck in the fridge while the cake cooled to make it easier to work with.

The cake is so good that my darling little angel, just couldn’t keep her hands off it while I was photographing it. Look at that little hand dipping into the frosting! Little stinker!

Banana Bread Cake with Browned Butter Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Cake Ingredients
1 C white sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 C greek yogurt (vanilla or plain)
1/2 C butter, softened
2 eggs
4 bananas, ripe,mashed
2 t vanilla extract
2 C flour, all purpose
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 C chocolate chips (optional)
Non stick cooking spray
Browned Butter Chocolate Frosting
1/2 C butter
2 1/2 C powdered sugar
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T vanilla extract
5-7 T milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a 9x13 pan by spraying it with non stick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, beat together sugar, yogurt, butter and eggs until smooth. Add in mashed bananas and vanilla and continue to blend. In a smaller bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Finally stir in chocolate chips.
Spread batter into pan and bake 25-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into center.
Allow to cool in pan. Once cake is cooled completely, frost with browned butter chocolate frosting. Browned Butter Chocolate Frosting
Melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Cook until foamy and browned, about 5-8 minutes. Pour browned butter into a medium sized bowl and place in the refrigerator to firm up a bit to be able to work with it.
When butter is semi-firm mix in powdered sugar and cocoa powder. It will be dry. Add vanilla and 3 T milk and beat. Continue to beat, adding more milk 1 T at a time until consistency is right for spreading.

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