Chocolate Chip Banana Bars

These bars taste like a combination of chocolate chip cookies and banana bread - a match made in heaven!  I decided to make this recipe because I found some extra-ripe bananas at the grocery store that were super on sale (no doubt because they were over-the-hill for eating!).  The bananas were perfect for baking, but for whatever reason I just wasn't in the mood for banana bread.  Hannah's banana chocolate chip cookie recipe looked like just the ticket, except that I was feeling way too lazy to scoop out a bunch of cookies - so I went with bars instead!  The bars turned out to be really delicious, with a crisp sugar-cookie-like top, a tender banana-flavored middle, and bits of rich chocolate scattered throughout.  It retrospect, this was really too much batter for a 9x13 pan - the bars came out the height of cake but with the texture of cookies or blondies, which was tasty but not quite ideal.  Next time I'd either cut down the recipe (I think a half recipe would create the correct height for cookie bars), or make this in two pans if I'm baking for a crowd.  In any case, the bars made a tasty treat to munch on after a hike at China Camp with my boyfriend - we packed a big Tupperware full for our trip and managed to make it through most of them!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bars (adapted from All Things Delicious, original recipe here)
Makes one 9x13 pan

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 medium very ripe bananas, mashed
10 ounces chocolate chips (I used a bag of Guittard Super Cookie Chocolate Chips)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 baking pan.
2. Cream the butter briefly to break it up.  Add the sugar and cream with the butter until fluffy.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until combined.  Beat in the mashed banana, followed by the remaining flour mixture.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Scrape the batter into the pan in as even a layer as possible (it won't be perfectly even because it will be quite thick).  Bake 45-50 minutes, or until a tester in the middle comes out clean.

Posing by a fishing boat at China Camp...is it time for cookies yet?  :)