The batter for the bars is fast and easy to make. Multiple ingredients are combined at once, in one bowl, are are whisked together. Begin by melting one stick of butter, add an egg, sugars, peach yogurt, and vanilla extract. I chose a peach theme for this recipe, both the yogurt and jelly used are peach. But if pineapple, mango, strawberry, or a mix-and-match combination of various yogurt and jelly flavors is what you have or prefer, go with that. Virtually any fruity combination will work with bananas. They’re such a great canvas. Fold in mashed bananas, flour, baking soda, and one packet of dry instant vanilla pudding mix to the batter. Pudding mix has a high amount of cornstarch in it, and my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for cornstarch. The cookies are soft, tender, and moist; and the cornstarch in the pudding mix does the same thing for these bars, rendering them fall-apart soft. Plus, the vanilla pudding adds an extra layer of vanilla flavor and I can never get enough vanilla.
Turn out the batter into a 9-by-9-inch pan, and although I haven’t tried it, I’m sure making this as a 10- or 12-cup Bundt cake would work well. Lightly smooth the surface of the batter and add about fifteen teaspoons of jelly, or about one-third of a cup. Dollop little blobs of jelly onto the surface in a random pattern, evenly dispersing the mounds, until the surface is well-covered in sweet, sticky jelly. Marble and swirl the jelly with a table knife, going up and back, zig-zagging around. It doesn’t matter if the swirls are visually neat and pretty because as the bars bake, they turn a rich and golden amber hue, and the swirly pattern isn’t discernible. The jelly is for taste, and to lend moisture to the bars, rather than for visual effect.
Baking times will vary due to the moisture content in the bananas and in the jelly, jam, or preserves used; as well as climates, oven variances, and personal preferences. About forty minutes is the low end but I could envision up to one hour at the high end. I recommend covering the pan with foil midway through baking if your bars seem to be browning quickly, since the sugars in the jelly are prone to caramelizing. My oven here in Aruba runs hot and has a tendency to superficially brown things before the interior cooks through, and baking in humidity compounds the issue, so I covered my pan halfway through baking. Even when they’re done, they’re gooey and dense, and a toothpick test won’t likely come out clean. After allowing the bars to cool, I made a simple vanilla glaze with melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract. The bars are plenty sweet on their own and don’t need a glaze, but glaze and frosting makes my world go round, so I happily drizzled away. The bars may be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator. They have the density of a fugdy brownie, which I prefer served chilled, and I like these bars chilled, especially because it’s hot and humid here. But there’s a case to be made for serving them warm, especially in cold weather climates this time of year. Freshly baked, still warm banana bread is one of life’s great pleasures.
The banana flavor dominates, as I find bananas have a tendency to do whenever they’re present, but hints of peach jelly come through as a complementary background flavor. Between the butter, bananas, yogurt, pudding, and jelly, these bars are dense, thick, and gooey. Nothing light, fluffy, dry, or airy about these. This is comfort-food; aromatic and rich, causing one to go back to the pan to even-out the rows with a fork at 1am, if you know what I mean. This is melt-in-your-mouth, jelly-filled, drippy-glazed comfort at it’s finest.
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The winner of The Cravory Cookies Giveaway is Hayley @ The Domestic Rebel and the winner of Holiday Chocolate Tower Giveaway is Roxana | Roxana’s Home Baking Do you have a favorite banana-based recipe? Fan of jelly-filled goodies? Feel free to link your favorite recipes since my ripe bananas seem to multiply in front of my eyes, and although I freeze them in chunks for smoothie-making, I like cake and bread better than smoothies in the winter.
