Friday, December 2, 2011

banana cake

so today i was being a good little employee and wasted an hour on pinterest at work.  i was just looking around and came across this recipe for frosted banana bars. the pin was linked to a www.cooking.com recipe so i printed it out and decided to take a whack at it when i got home because i had some bananas that i was NOT eating with such an awful amount of brown on it. i was excited because i hadn't baked in so long but then i realized i didn't have some of the ingredients, was too lazy and cheap to go out and buy them and wanted to make it a little more figure friendly...
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 


here's the original recipe ingredients:

RECIPE INGREDIENTS
For the Banana Bars:
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)
For the Frosting:
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 3/4 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar



here's what i did:

RECIPE INGREDIENTS
For the Banana Bars:
1/2 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 egg whites
1 cup (8 ounces) non-fat plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
for the glaze:
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tbsp. water



and do the following....
cream together the margarine and sugar, add egg whites, vanilla and yogurt. mix together flour, salt and baking soda in a seperate bowl and then add sugar mixture a little at a time. then stir in the bananas.

grease a 15x10 pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 22 minutes or until set. let cool completely then glaze.

by removing the cream cheese, sour cream, extra butter and whole eggs, i think i saved us all a bunch of unwanted calories. mine turned out to be more of a sheet cake but cuts really nicely if you want to cut into pieces for a platter.



these are seriously delicious. its basically a really moist banana bread but i think it deserves to be a dessert as well. a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a piece of this nuked for 20 seconds or so and i'll be heaven.
 enjoy :)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

this is so great. went after work to watch the sunset at a local park and caught so many birds in what looks like a mid-migration. they were definitely heading south and there were so many together it was amazing. at least 700 or so.
think i'll go back tomorrow and see if i can spot so more...and bring a decent camera this time.