No-Bake Birthday Bars

Helllloo.  Happy Sunday!

And happy birthday to my wonderful housemate!  A little bit colder today, but the sun was out, so we can pretend it's spring, right?  Still no oven, so instead of birthday cake I put my own spin on these No Bake Elvis Bars.  Although if you made those, I'm sure they would taste nothing like these, as they call for coconut oil, which I couldn't find for the life of me.

In case you're curious, here is my (very) loose adaptation:

Crust:

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/5 cup of sugar

6 tbsp margarine, melted

1/2 tsp almond extract

Filling:

3-4 ripe bananas

5 tbsp smooth peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup olive oil (doesn't have to be olive; it was the only thing I had)

Drizzle:

1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp margarine

1 tbsp milk

For the crust, combine all ingredients in a bowl, then press firmly and levelly into a 9" square pan.  Chill in freezer for at least 10 minutes.  It turned out a little too crumbly so I would definitely use a few more tablespoons of margarine in the future.

While the crust is in the freezer, blend the filling ingredients together.  It should have sort of a pudding consistency.  I added more banana/peanut butter as necessary to find the right balance.

Spoon the filling onto the crust and smooth it out with a spatula.  Put the pan back in the freezer and let it set.  This took about 1-2 hours.

Once the bars had set I melted the chocolate chips, margarine, and milk together in the microwave.  Drizzling this on the top was the fun part.  I then put it back in the freezer until the chocolate solidified.  These can be eaten straight from frozen and must be kept in the freezer! (If you leave them out, they will melt and turn into banana pudding!!)

I'd be curious to see if I could make a better crust next time!

As a side note, I noticed while I was making these that they are really similar in principle to the banana squares I made a few weeks ago....Maybe I just have a thing for banana, chocolate, and peanut butter combined.  But then - who doesn't???

Ta-ta-for-now!

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