A Quick Oven Workout

The kitchen hasn’t seen much action from me lately, as my parents are visiting. That means having the luxury of coming home and having dinner already waiting for you, made by my mother! My mom is a wonderful cook, and my love of all things food and cooking is thanks to her. But while I picked up the basics of cooking from my mom, I’ve become the resident baker in the family. So I went back into the kitchen last night to give the oven a bit of a workout with some overripe bananas that were too far-gone to eat.

The first banana were made into Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. For the second banana, I’ve been eyeing this Banana Split Brownies recipe for the longest time, and thought it was about time to stop eyeing them and actually bake them. For fans of cream cheese, you will love this, as this is essentially a cheesecake brownie with mashed banana added into the cream cheese mixture before it’s marbled with the chocolate brownie batter.



The result is an incredibly dark, rich and sinfully decadent square of brownie with a tangy, not-too-sweet cream cheese layer that has a hint of banana to them. It’s a nice way to use up an overripe banana, and a great variation on the cheesecake brownie. The recipe claims to yield 24 squares, but because how rich and decadent these are, I think you can get a lot more by cutting smaller squares. A little goes a long way!