Banana Bars + Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe originated from my mom.  Growing up, we always loved eating her banana bars and they never lasted very long at our house.  I had gotten the recipe from her but for some reason mine were never ending up the same.  So, I made some editing of my own over several tries and feel like they are pretty spot on.  Beware, these are super delicious!

The Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Organic Unsalted Butter, very softened
2 Medium Ripe Organic Bananas
1 Large Egg
1/4 Cup Whole Organic Milk
1/2 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup Organic Coconut Palm Sugar (granulated sugar is fine too)
1/2 Cup Organic Honey
1 1/4 Cup of Unbleached Organic Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Allspice
1/4 Teaspoon Cloves
3/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Pecans or Walnuts, optional

The Steps:
Pre-heat over to 350 degrees

1) Using a fork, mash up the ripe bananas in a large mixing bowl.

2) To the bananas, add in the butter, sugar, honey and cream the ingredients together using a hand mixer.  Then add in the egg, milk, vanilla and mix together. 

3) Add in all of the dry ingredients and slowly blend with the hand mixer until batter is smooth. OPTIONAL: fold the nuts into the batter after all other ingredients have been mixed together.

4) Lightly grease a 9x13 jelly roll pan and add in batter.  Using a spatula, make sure batter has been evenly distributed in the pan.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  I like to always check my baked goods about 2 minutes prior to the least time given.

For the frosting recipe, go to the link and scroll down for the Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.  I made this frosting to go with my Pumpkin Vanilla Spice cake but it is delicious on these bars too!