These aren’t exactly banana bread, and not exactly muffins either. You can bake the batter in a muffin pan if you like, but it makes 16 muffins, which is an inconvenient number. I prefer to bake the batter in a 9-inch square pan and then cut them into 16 squares.
I consider these to be quite sweet, but they are not as sweet as cake. When you are gluten free and casein free and trying to keep your kitchen costs down, snacks are somewhat challenging to come by. This recipe has become a true family favorite for snack time. The kids always want me to frost them, but I tell them to put jelly on them instead, if they want them to be that sweet.
I like this recipe because it uses up aging bananas, it goes together readily, and it’s made from ingredients that I almost always have on hand. Snack Squares can go into lunch boxes for a treat, or simply be served at home with a frosty glass of non-dairy milk. Very kid-friendly, and husband-friendly too.
Banana Bread Snack Squares
Ingredients
- 2 very ripe bananas
- 1/4 cup margarine or shortening
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup orange juice or apple juice or soymilk
- 2 eggs or 1/3-cup egg whites
- 1-1/2 cups rice flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400°. Coat a 9-inch square pan or 7 by 11-inch rectangle pan with cooking spray or rub it liberally with vegetable shortening. Set aside.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl mash the peeled bananas. Add the softened margarine or shortening and the sugar. Beat until most of the lumps are gone. Add the salt, cinnamon, juice or soymilk and eggs. Whisk until mostly smooth. Add the rice flour, cornstarch and baking powder. Beat again. The batter will be somewhat thin. That’s okay. It’s supposed to be.
Turn the batter into your prepared pan. Bake at 400° for about 30 minutes or until the top springs back when you touch it lightly, or if you poke a fork into it, it comes out clean. The edges will be pulled away from the sides of the pan and the top will be moderately browned. Allow to cool for a bit and then cut into squares.
If you prefer to bake these into banana muffins then you will need 16 muffin cups, or a dozen muffin cups and an additional small pan for the leftover batter. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full or even a little fuller. These don’t rise much, but the texture and flavor are both good. Bake for about 20 minutes.
Makes 16 servings.
Assuming 16 servings; prepared with margarine, egg whites and orange juice.
Per Serving: 143 Calories; 3g Fat (20.8% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 27g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 202mg Sodium.
Exchanges: 1 Grain(Starch); 1/2 Fruit; 1/2 Fat; 1/2 Other Carbohydrates.
10 Responses to “Banana Bread Snack Squares”
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I need to try this – my go-to muffin recipe has me using a very convenient but expensive GF baking mix, which is $3 a batch. The rice flour I buy is much cheaper, and so is the cornstarch!
GF baking mix is so expensive. The Betty Crocker version is over $4 a pound in my area. I grind regular rice in an old ktec grain mill, so brown rice four is only about 75¢ a pound for us and white rice flour is 60¢ a pound. Compared to $4 /lb that is a huge difference. I think saving money on a GFDF diet is harder than just cooking on a budget, especially the baking, which is always sort of tricky. I don’t think it’s impossible though.
Good luck with your muffins. Sometimes I add walnuts or a little grated orange peel to them. The Orange peel makes them especially good.
I found that if I add more bananas (3 – 4) and a bit more rice flour it’s quite possible to get 24 muffins out of this recipe!
That’s a great idea Kelly, I always have extra bananas to use up. Do you know how much rice flour you used? I’ve noticed that rice flour is a lot more forgiving in recipes with fruit puree or vegetable puree in them.
Um… I think almost 2 cups? I tried making a pumpkin muffin variation of this today with 2 cups of rice flour, 1 1/4 cups corn starch, 1/3 c sugar, a drizzle of molasses, 3 eggs, 1 1/2 cups milk, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Not bad, but it could use some more toughening, binding stuff in it – very moist, but a little prone to falling apart. I got a good 24 muffins out of it, though.
Oh, and 1/3 c butter/margarine
THanks Kelly. With that much flour, I would use 4 eggs, and maybe 1-1/3 cups milk. When I don’t use xanthan or guar, it requires more eggs to stick together the right way. Somewhere I have a really good recipe for gluten free pumpkin muffins that are free of xanthan and guar too. I’ll look around to see if I can find it. I’ve only made it once so I haven’t put it up on the website yet. I prefer to test a recipe several times before it goes online. Give me a couple of days and I’ll see if I can find it.
Hey Kelly, I have looked all over and cannot find the recipe I wanted to share. It may be that I never find it. I am trying to overhaul my recipe storage system. Currently it’s a combination of scraps of paper in shoe boxes, multiple, splatter-stained notebooks, plus cd’s, flash drives, portable hard drives and even a few dozen floppy discs. It’s not a pretty sight. On the bright side, I did find a few of my GFCF food storage recipes, so that was a good thing.
Well, we’ll all benefit when you get everything in one place!
🙂