Banana Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Anyone else glad it's Friday!?

I am up way too early this nice Friday morning, so here I am posting this yummy cookie recipe I made earlier this week while everyone is sleeping. I had a little baggie of these cookies set aside in the kitchen so I could take some pictures and when I went to get started yesterday, there were only 3 lonely cookies left for me to work with! My husband couldn’t keep his hands off of these!

I had a very ripe banana that needed used up so I decided to design a cookie for it. I thought, hmmm why not try to use this banana in place of the butter.....

I wasn’t quite sure how they’d turn out and was really happy with the finished product. They are soft and have a fantastic flavor combo of banana, chocolate and peanut butter which is by far some of my favorite flavors!

Aside from the Reeses Cups, these cookies aren’t half bad for you either!! Have a great weekend everyone and try a new cookie recipe!

Banana Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

½ Cup mashed ripe banana, about 1 medium banana
¼ Cup granulated sugar
¼ Cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 medium egg or ½ of a beaten large egg
¼ Cup creamy peanut butter
¾ Cup whole wheat flour (if you substitute white flour, you’ll have to add more, about 1 Cup)
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
10 regular size Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, cubed (I cut them in thirds, then thirds again)

1/3 Cup additional sugar for rolling (I used a larger dusting sugar, use what you’d like)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place banana and both sugars into stand or electric mixer on medium speed and mix until well combined. Mix in vanilla, egg and peanut butter until combined on medium speed.

2. Place flour baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl. Slowly add to the wet ingredients until JUST combined, then add the Reeses Cups. Don’t over mix this.

3. Scoop cookie dough using a medium cookie scoop, roll into sugar and place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Using the palm of your hand, gently press down cookies so they are about ½ inch thick, they don’t spread much. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until cooked but still soft. Let cool for 3 minutes on hot cookie sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Makes about 20 medium cookies

White Chocolate and Cinnamon Chip Island Style Banana Bread Mini Loaves

Mouth watering? These little banana bread loaves are such a treat! Sorry for the ridiculously long title, I'm known for having mile long titles for my recipes. This is my entry for The Banana Bread Bake-off with Not Quite Nigella. There's still time to get your entry in, check it out. I'm always up for a good bake-off!

Also, do check out Phemomenon's blog for her very sweet"Blogging for Babies" Little Wonders Event round up!

I was brainstorming as to what kind of banana bread I wanted to make and I started thinking of some of my favorite ingredients right now. Cinnamon chips, white chocolate and coconut. These little loaves were the perfect combo of my favorites right now and are so tasty. I highly recommend trying them when you see you need to use up those bananas! Who can resist that sweet drizzle? Not me!

Don't those cinnamon chips look yummy inside?!

This is how I prefer it, more drizzle please! Enjoy everyone!

White Chocolate and Cinnamon Chip Island Style Banana Bread Mini Loaves

1 1/2 Sticks softened butter
1 Cups sugar
2 eggs plus ½ egg beaten
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ small box vanilla pudding mix (4 serving size)
1 Cups flour
4 ripe bananas
1 Cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 Cup white chocolate chips
1 Cup cinnamon chips

¼ Cup butter, melter
½ Cup powdered sugar
2-4 Tablespoons hot water
1 Cup shredded sweetened coconut, toasted in oven (350 degrees) until browned.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs until smooth. Add cinnamon, baking soda, salt, pudding mix and flour until combined. Stir in bananas, coconut, white chocolate and cinnamon chips.

2. Pour batter into 16 mini greased mini pans. Bake 25-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from center of each loaf. Let cool.

4. Mix melted butter and powdered sugar until combined, it will look separated. Mix in 2-4 Tablespoons of hot water until desired consistency.

5. Drizzle over each loaf and top with toasted coconut shavings.

Caramelized Roasted Banana Swirled Brownies

Happy Wednesday! I'm pooped and it's only lunch time around here. I spent part of my morning cleaning my front door/porch area that for the last 5 weeks or so was home to a mother bird and her babies. We wondered why this bird kept flying away as soon as we'd open our front door and soon realized that she made her nest right in our front door wreath. I thought it was adorable, my husband thought otherwise, but after some negotiating he agreed to have mother bird stay for a while.

The boys and I had so much fun peeking at the eggs to see if they had hatched. When they did, the babies were adorable. It didn't take long for them to grow. Just 2 days ago, we heard them chirping for the first time and yesterday I watched the brave young birds stand at the edge of the wreath ready for their first flight. I just loved watching them. I'm a geek, but I took a picture of 2 of them that were about to leave the nest. See bottom picture.

Ok, onto my yummy brownies...... get your glass of milk ready.

I wrote this brownie recipe last week, whipped them up and my entire family raved about them. You've got to try them chilled in the refrigerator. Yum! This is another jazzed up brownie mix, easy and quick and my current favorite recipe. The caramelized bananas and cream cheese really make this recipe incredible. Trust me, you won't be sorry for giving these a try. I couldn't do bananas without peanut butter, so I added it in the frosting. Enjoy everyone!

Caramelized Roasted Banana Swirled Brownies with Peanut Butter Sweet Cream Frosting

3 large ripe bananas
2 Tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/4 Cup sugar
1 box brownie mix (9x13 size, I used Pillsbury)

8 oz softened cream cheese
2 Heaping Tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1 ½ Cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Slice bananas into ½ inch slices and place into a medium baking dish. Top evenly with butter pieces and sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly and caramelized (golden). Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Mix with cream cheese and sugar until combined.

2. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. Line a 7x11 inch baking dish (makes for a thicker brownie with this size of dish), with tin foil that’s been sprayed with cooking spray. Pour brownie batter into prepared dish. Drop banana cream mixture by the spoonfuls evenly over brownie batter. Gently run a knife through the banana and brownie mix, in a swirling motion, without scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent tearing in the foil. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from middle of brownies. Let cool completely, then pull out of pan with foil edges.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar until well combined and desired consistency. You can add a bit more if desired. Spread over cooled brownies and cut into squares. Enjoy!

_________________________________________________________
Here are the brave young birds at the edge of my wreath getting ready for their first flight. Aren't they cute?

While We're Still on a Sweet Note....

I'm not sure if there is a better combo than chocolate, peanut butter and bananas. This recipe immediately caught my attention while I was food blog surfing a few weeks ago. The recipe has been sitting on my counter top since then and I finally had some overripe bananas to make the recipe. It originated from a blog called YumSugar. I knew it would be good just looking and reading through the recipe. I of course added my own twist on it by adding peanut butter to the banana cupcake batter and used a dark chocolate cocoa in the frosting. Her recipe adds a dulce de leche filling inside the middle which would be delicious, but it's a 2 hour process that I passed on. Maybe next time I'll try it.

I caught my 2 year old stealing one before dinner when I told him to wait. He tried fooling me, but the empty cupcake wrapper on the floor gave it away!

Talk about heaven sent! I'm not just filling space here, these are so good! Use up those ripe bananas on these puppies! Enjoy!

Banana Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Buttercream

(recipe adapted from YumSugar)

Makes 24

Cupcakes
4 small or 3 medium overripe bananas plus 1 more for decoration
splash of milk (optional)
1/4 Cup peanut butter
2 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 sticks of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a food processor, puree bananas and peanut butter until smooth. Depending on your bananas, you may need to add a splash of mixture so that the consistency is nice and smooth. Set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk or sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together. Set aside.
4. In a mixer or large bowl, cream butter and sugars together until well mixed, and airy.
5. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before proceeding.
6. Stir in vanilla, followed by banana puree. Slowly add dry ingredients
7. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners. Scoop an even amount of dough into each cup. I filled them to the top and had enough for 24 cupcakes.
8. Bake for about 16 minutes. A wooden skewer inserted in the middle willl come out clean and tops are a light brown in color.
9. Remove cupcakes from oven and cool in tins for two minutes. Transfer to cooling rack..
10. Spoon some frosting on top of each cupcake, spread out with a spatula.

For frosting:
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk

1. In a small bowl or mixer, cream butter.
2. Mix in cocoa powder (you can add more or less depending on taste).
3. Mix in vanilla.
4. Mix in half of powdered sugar, followed by half of the milk.

Mix in the rest of the powdered sugar. Blend well. Add the rest of the milk and mix completely. If your frosting is too thin, add more sugar (or cocoa depending on taste). If it is too thick, add more milk.

The Ultimate Reeces Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. As luck had it, both my boys were coughing, needed breathing treatments and had fevers! They still managed to have fun opening their presents though. Let the clean up and returns begin!

Since I have a few more days before I've got to start eating better, I decided this morning, to use up some of my stocking candy and what better candy to choose than Reeces Peanut Butter Cups! Yummm! I've used one of my favorite banana bread recipes and added peanut butter, chopped up peanut butter cups and a peanut butter sweet drizzle for a knock out bread. I can hardly call it bread, because it is so deliciously sweet! Enjoy!

The Ultimate Reeces Peanut Butter Banana Bread

3 Sticks softened butter
2 Cups sugar
5 eggs
½ Cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 small box vanilla pudding mix (4 serving size)
2 Cups flour
5-6 ripe bananas

20-30 recees peanut butter minis

½ Cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
2-3 Tablespoons milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs until smooth. Add peanut butter, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, pudding mix and flour until combined. Stir in bananas and Reeces.

2. Pour batter into 3 greased bread pans. Bake 45-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from center of each loaf. Let cool.

4. Place powdered sugar, milk and peanut butter in a bowl. Whisk until smooth and drizzling consistency.

5. Drizzle over each loaf.