Graduation celebrations are just around the corner and planning what to serve for the party is a challenge. Your guests will probably be making the rounds to several parties so it is nice to have something a little different than what everyone else is serving.

Some parties that we have attended have had a taco bar or tacos in a bag. Baked potato bars with all the fixings are always a hit as are root beer floats. It seems most everyone has a cake, but I prefer bars. I will share a couple of bar recipes the next few weeks that are baked in a 10 x 15 pan and cut into two inch squares, so that you can get almost 3 dozen bars from one pan.

I made this recipe of Banana Bread Brownies with browned butter icing this week; they would also be good with a cream cheese icing. I made half the recipe of icing and it was plenty. I put some of these in the freezer; they freeze very well. Sometimes when I make bars with nuts, I put the nuts on the frosting so that people who cannot eat nuts will know that they are in the product.

Banana Bread Brownies

1 1/2 Cups Sugar

1/2 Cup Butter

2 Eggs

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 3/4 Cup Mashed Banana

2 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Soda

3/4 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, sour cream and banana. Add dry ingredients and mix well, stir in nuts. Bake in well greased and floured 10 x 15 pan at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until done.

Cool and frost with icing.

Brown Butter Icing

1/2 Cup Butter

4 Cups Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla

3 Tablespoon Milk

Heat butter in saucepan and stir until light brown. Remove from heat and add powdered sugar, vanilla and just enough milk to make a nice spreading consistency.

Questions or comments:

marlisz@aol.co