Cream Cheese Banana Cake Bars (recipe!)

How many of us are really glad Spring has finally arrived?  Even though we still have the chilly morning temperatures and the occasional frost on the ground..Spring has definitely arrived.  The mid-day is sunny and almost-warm even!! Great time for making these bars as a special treat. :)

CREAM CHEESE BANANA CAKE BARS
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup vanilla yogurt (or plain)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4  tsp salt
2 mashed bananas

for the cream cheese topping:
1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
roughly 4 cups powdered sugar

In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, yogurt and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt; slowly add to the creamed mix.  Stir in bananas.
Spread into a greased 15x10" baking pan (OR use a couple of smaller cake pans). Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cool completely on a wire rack in pan.

For the topping, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla.  Gradually add the powdered sugar and allow to beat until desired consistency.  Frost the banana bars. Store covered in the fridge any unused portion. :)

 

Super Mario Bros, Pandas and Elmo??? (nail art and cake)

Hey everybody! Sorry for such a delay in posts... After changing our service providers for internet last time, we found we weren't very happy with the new ones and so decided to stop that service as well. Where is a decent internet provider when you need one? Oh wait---on an app on my smart phone. :D So hopefully I can get back to posting more regularly! I've got quite a stock of photos to share anyway, so let's get started!

Nail art continues! Did I mention I've started talking other people into letting me do theirs, too? I love the practice and the kids don't mind as long as they (the boys) can take it back off before school. Such good sports hahaha :D :D Above I did a friend's hands with panda bears and bamboo shoots. Another with all Elmo faces, though in my opinion some of them turned out looking a lot like Telly. haha

This was a special requested birthday cake for a 5 year old who LOVES Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo. I was more than happy to oblige! :) Usually you would also ice the background of the cake white but they wanted some areas "frosting-free" for those who didn't want to eat frosting. Fine by me.. less work and still looked great. :)

Amigurumi Snake, Cake and Flan!! (crochet)

Abssssssolutely adorable sssssssssnake!!! I used one skein of variegated yarn and it was perfect for the striping down its body. The tongue actually got yanked off not too long after I finished making him (and I didn't care for the idea of a "felt" tongue anyway) so I redid it with yarn and just crocheted a tongue. I don't have a pic of that, but it is definitely better and more sturdy.

A happy little cake for one of my niece's upcoming 1st birthday!! I was going to do a candle on the top but decided to keep it like this instead so it can be played with all year and not just for first birthday.

Lastly, a little cutsey flan. I have never made or eaten flan before, but it sure is cute!! I googled images of flan with a cherry on top and this is pretty close. It looks not half bad, either, so I might actually have to make and eat some one of these days to see what it tastes like. :)


All three of these patterns are from Ana Paula Rimoli's brand new book "Amigurumi Toy Box". I had it on pre-order from Amazon for a couple months and just got it in the mail a couple days ago... Very cute stuff and good directions for finishing the toys. I am quite happy with it and am going to probably make everything in it eventually. I do like to vary away from the pattern every once in a while (like with the snake tongue) but this is excellent for the basics. :)