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February 23, 2007

Week 15: Banana-Fana Brownies

Banana-bana-bo-bana-fee-fi-fo-fana - BANANA!

Bananas, peanut butter and chocolate. The major food groups all rolled into one yummy package. And no nuts to chop!!! Smells good, lets see how it tastes!

Analysis

This recipe was extraodinarily simple and could have hit the one bowl mark if I used the hand mixer. Good thing too, because after the twin set of giant chocolate chip cookies, I was not in a creative mood and just wanted to 'get 'er done'. Although it did give me something to do while the cookies were baking.

Melt the chocolate and butter, add everything else and presto, brownie batter. Of course I had to grease the pan. The PITA factor went up there. I never realized how much I dislike greasing pans. Thank goodness for the 'mash' setting on the KitchenAid (#9). No more forks and banana mushing (Have I mentioned how much I adore my KitchenAid?). These came together in under 15 minutes.

These are definitely cake-y brownies. Not much fudge going on here. The texture is good and the flavor is nice. You can taste the banana and a hint of peanut butter and chocolate. To me, you can taste that the bananas weren't as ripe as they should have been, so you get a bit of that green banana sensation in your mouth. These would be a yummy, easy snack to take to a picnic or potluck.

  • Prep time: 15 minutes
  • Cooking time: 37 minutes
  • Total time: 1.5 hours (includes cooling)

Modifications

I melted the chocolate and butter in the microwave and added it to the peanut butter, sugar, egg mixture, instead of melting it on the stove.

Improvements

More peanut butter! Maybe a peanut butter frosting or glaze.

My Rating - scale of 1-10

  • PITA Rating: 1 (only because I had to grease the pan)
  • Difficulty Rating: 1
  • Recipe Complexity (over a basic no-frills brownie): 2
  • Texture: 6
  • Flavor: 7
  • Overall Rating: 7

Posted by jamm at February 23, 2007 08:11 AM

Comments

Good flavor -- definitely more cake like than brownie like -- I agree with Jennifer's improvement comment.

Posted by: debiec at February 23, 2007 09:13 AM

I wouldn't have guessed there was peanut butter just by taste. The banana was clearly there, though (and I probably would have liked a little more of it).

John's checklist:
Crinkly top: check
fudgy texture: BZZZZ
Sweetness: Decent and not overpowering
Chocolatelyness: More, please
Flavor variant: More banana, please

A frosting would probably be a welcome addition. Based on Jennifer's review of how easy these are, I might make them for a function but probably not for myself.

My score: 5.5

Posted by: jsterben at February 23, 2007 10:38 AM

I agree with the others - very cake-like. There wasn't too much direct influx of peanut butter into the bloodstream but there was a tinge - almost like the lemon brownies. More of a peanut butter tinted brownie deal.

Loving bananas but not necessarily liking banana added or flavored in other stuff spells disaster for the scorecard... but, I did like the banana in these! It was there but not excessively there.

Stealing others comments, here... frosting would have pushed the score much higher.

---"Smart" Frosting Idea---
Why not just spread straight-up peanut butter on the top? Frosting + more peanut butter = win win win for everybody! (semi/mostly-kidding)
-----------------------------

Two scores from yours truly:
Unbiased score: 6
Biased score due to loving dense fudgy texture which these had none of: 5

Posted by: olmsnj at February 23, 2007 12:27 PM

I must amend my comment after having a second brownie for dessert after lunch. The second one was much more fudgy and the banana flavor was more what I was expecting the first time around. Clearly, then, there is a correlation between the fudgyness and the presence of the banana. Still couldn't taste the PB though. Based on this second brownie, if I could get a whole batch to be like that, I would make these for myself.

Revised and updated score: 6.5

Posted by: jsterben at February 23, 2007 01:16 PM

Shoulda tried these but not feeling too well. Bummer.

Posted by: sweston at March 2, 2007 11:21 AM

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