Banana Bars with Cream Cheese frosting
These banana bars are my all-time favorite. They’re so moist and delicious. The cream cheese frosting on top goes with the banana bars perfectly.
Banana Bars – from my mom (no idea where it came from originally) – makes ~3dozen bars1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 4 medium)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
Preheat oven to 350F. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, bananas, and vanilla.
Combine to flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture and mix well.
Pour into a greased 15x10x1 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until bars test done. Cool.
Frosting
1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 package (8 ounces) softened cream cheese
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Cream butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and vanilla; beat well. Spread over bars.






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






I love the idea of perfect party minicakes!! They look delish! Great job! That flour picture is so funny. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that – flour on the counter, on my KA, in my hair, on my face!
Clara @ I♥food4thought
Yum! Love the raspberry/lemon combo, and the mini cakes are adorable 🙂
Well done – what an innovative variation. They look so cute!
I can totally relate to the slippery effect.
Your cake looks beautiful!
You did a lovely job on all your mini cakes.
Natalie @ Gluten A Go Go
Adorable! Your KA and mine would be best friends. ‘Chuck’ is always filthy. Poor guy. He gets cleaned up, just to be coated again. 😉
How cute! Making mini-cakes is a great idea. Next time I make this cake I will try that, I still have a HUGE cake in the fridge I need to eat :-/
Cheers!
Great idea on the mini cakes. They are really cute. Great job. To the next challenge we go.
beautifully done!!! love it!!!
I love the little cakes! Plus the raspberries! Yummy!
The mini cakes look really amazing!
The minicakes are wonderful! Now, you’ll need my address to send one…Libby 😉
Love the idea of the mini cakes, that’s so adorable!
Mini-cakes are definitely more work than one large cake! They’re so cute though.
What a cute idea! They look adorable!
I love desserts in miniature and your mini cakes look beautiful. I think I will most definitely be making mini cakes sometime in the near future – thank you for the wonderful idea!
~gail
I’m loving the mini versions! The cake looks fantastic. Mmmmm!
I made mini ones too. I hate to tell you but it is way easier to frost a whole cake than mini ones. 🙂
Looks great.
Beautiful!! You did a gorgeous job :O)
These individual cakes look pretty…well done!
Really cute idea to make individual cakes, I love that. Great job!
I adore your minicakes. V lovely.
j
Oh! the minicakes are just the best idea ever. I probably should have done that with my oh-so flat cakes. How great.
Mini cakes -what a great idea! I think I’m going to have to try that here pretty soon. Looks like a delicious lot of fun. Especially the part where you get to eat the scraps. I think this cake was some of the best I’ve had.
What cute little mini cakes! Aren’t things just better when they’re mini?
Great work!
I love the little cakes and the picture with the raspberry and lemon zest is so enticing!
Perfect!
xoxo
Gabi
Another messy baker here! And I love the mini cakes – I’m nice to see its as low-tech as cutting circles out of larger pieces rather than trying to bake a bunch of cakes in miniature pans.
Jen,
Your little cakes are gorgeous! I too love swiss buttercream … congratulations on a job well done!
wow, that takes some patience, putting all those cakes together! They are just the cutest though. ~ JMom
so petite and cute!