Jessie’s text to me after I dropped these nuggets off was “Avery just tried your desserts and said they were a miracle in her mouth!” Avery is her daughter btw and that made me happy because I too felt the same way but couldn’t articulate it as well. The chewy banana top and the chocolate crusted bottom are so good together. The addition of pecans gave these bars additional texture and cut the sweetness which resulted in a treat that went from delicious to scrumptious. These were featured in the New York Times by food editor (among other things) Melissa Clark. Her sweet tooth rivals mine and I find I want to bake everything that she writes about. Her savory recipes are equally impressive. I have her two instant pot books as well as Dinner, Changing the Game and I use them all frequently. Enjoy!
This recipe calls for brown butter – Here is a video review and there are more videos on youtube should you want more instruction.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (1 1/4 cups), divided!
- 200 grams Famous chocolate wafter cookies (to make about 3 cups of crumbs)
- 55 grams of light brown sugar (about 1/4 cup)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 ripe bananas
- 2 large eggs
- 455 grams dark brown sugar (about 2 1/2 cups)
- 2 tablespoons dark rum or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 130 grams all purpose flour (about 1 cup)
- 80 grams toasted walnuts (I used pecans), chopped (about 1/2 cup)
- flaky sea salt for sprinkling
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 and line a 9×13 pan with parchment. I usually spray the pan first to make the parchment stick
- Melt 1 stick of the butter (just one stick) then place the wafer cookies, melted butter, light brown sugar and salt into your food processor and grind until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand. Dump into prepared pan, and press into an even layer. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the surface is a bit firm. Reduce oven temp to 350 degrees
- Melt the remaining butter (12 tablespoons or a stick and a half) and continue to cook the butter over medium high heat until the foam subsides and the butter becomes a nice nut brown. This should take about 5 minutes. You don’t want to burn the butter though. Here is a video review of browning butter and there are more videos on youtube
- Combine the mashed banana, eggs, dark brown sugar, and vanilla (or rum) and then add the brown butter.
- Gently fold the flour into the wet mixture and add the toasted walnuts or pecans (or not if you don’t want them!)
- Pour this batter onto the cooked cookie crumb crust and sprinkle a little flaky salt on top – as you may know I love Maldon sea salt for this.
- Place in the oven and bake for about 45-55 minutes — until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached or clean – but not with wet batter.
- Cool and eat!
- These freeze really well
