Monkey Bites

No monkeys were harmed in the making of this dessert. I guess it’s called monkey bites because it has bananas in it, but really it should be called moist-delicious-awesomeness-banana-bites. Yeah, I guess Monkey Bites rolls off the tongue a little easier. I prefer my baked goods as ladies, not gentlemen. As in, no nuts. But if you dig a little crunch in your sweet soft bread, feel free to add some walnuts to these babies.

Gorgeous bite sized squares have all the goodness of warm banana bread, topped with a layer of brown butter frosting. Oh yeah. I said brown butter. You can’t go wrong there.

Since these made in a jelly roll pan, be sure you’ve got somewhere to bring them/ other people to help you devour them. Otherwise, I guarantee you’ll take down the pan yourself…and then you’ll be mad at me. We can’t have that.

I originally cut these into bars, but then cut the bars in half because they were so delightfully soft and delicate that they needed to be a bit smaller. Perfect for a little nosh.

These morsels of banana heaven were amazing warm out of the oven, and equally good after they’d cooled. I’ll admit…the bite size made me feel a lot less guilty about having one every time I passed by the pan.

Print Recipe for Monkey Bites

Monkey Bites
adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10×15 jelly roll pan. Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until just combined. Blend in bananas and vanilla one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool and frost with Browned Butter Frosting (recipe below).

Banana bread option: instead of spreading into jelly roll pan, this recipe will make about two regular loaves of banana bread, or about four small loaves. Regular loaves bake about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Small loaves will bake about 25 minutes on 350.

Browned Butter Frosting

½ cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it boiling, and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it’s on the warm bread.