Frosted Banana Bars

I wouldn't recommend using the calorimeter on these, but they are a family favorite and most requested by coach's hospitality rooms at tournaments.

1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt

Frosting:
1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened
1- 8oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
4 c. confectioner's sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, bananas, and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and add to creamed mixture and mix well. Pour into a greased 15" x 10" x 1" baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until bars test done. Cool. For frosting, cream butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Gradually add confectioner's sugar and vanilla; beat well. Spread over bars.

Did you know:

Did you know bananas are slightly radioactive? Bananas contain high levels of potassium. Radioactive K-40 has an isotopic abundance of 0.01% and a half-life of 1.25 billion years. The average banana contains around 450 mg of potassium and will experience about 14 decays each second. It's not something you need to worry about, since 0.01% of the potassium already in your body is K-40, plus the element is essential for proper nutrition. If you have a banana for your lunch you aren't going to set off a Geiger counter. If you carry a produce truck full of them, then you might have a noticeable radiation signature. The same is true if you are carrying a lot of potatoes or potassium fertilizer.
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2010/03/08/bananas-are-radioactive-2.htm
By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., About.com Guide to Chemistry

Bernhard Kräutler and colleagues at the University of Innsbruck made their colourful discovery while looking for yellow-tinged chemicals in banana skins. The team dipped fresh bananas in liquid nitrogen to extract the compounds and then analysed them by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). 'We were very surprised to find some that were blue luminescent,' Kräutler told Chemistry World.
This fluorescence, which has not been observed in any other plants or fruits, appears to come from the breakdown products of chlorophyll - which in bananas take longer than usual to convert to colourless compounds. The team then looked at both freshly-grown and artificially-ripened banana skins under ultraviolet light and observed a bright blue glow. 'What baffled us most was that no one has reported this before,' Kräutler added.
Light-absorbing chlorophyll is behind the fruits' colourful chemistry. Chlorophyll is critical for bananas to grow and is responsible for the green colour of unripe bananas. But once
ripe bananas glow blue under UV light
ready to eat, the chlorophyll quickly breaks down - leaving the recognisable yellow colour of carotenoids in the skin to become dominant.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/October/23100802.asp
Lewis Brindley
Photo: Ripe bananas glow blue under UV light
© Wiley

There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world.
Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem. They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.
A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.
The word 'banan' is Arabic for finger.
The banana plant reaches its full height of 15 to 30 feet in about one year. The trunk of a banana plant is made of sheaths of overlapping leaves, tightly wrapped around each other like celery stalks.
The phrase 'going bananas' was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, and is linked to the fruit's 'comic' connections with monkeys.
http://www.funfacts.com.au/banana-facts-to-go-bananas-about/