This week Alex wanted to help with our tested recipe and I had a bunch of ripe bananas, so we decided to make a quick little dessert.
These are Banana Marshmallow Squares!
AuthorRetroRuth
From Pillsbury Bake-Off Cook Book, 1972 - Contestant Mrs. Joe Hubbell
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x9 pan.
In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients until well blended. Press half of dough into a pan, reserve the rest for the topping.
In a heavy saucepan (or in the microwave), melt marshmallows until smooth. Combine dry pudding mix and mashed bananas, add in melted marshmallows. Spread evenly over dough in pan.
Crumble remaining dough over filling. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a light golden brown (mine took 30 minutes). Cool.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x9 pan.
In a large bowl, combine the first four ingredients until well blended. Press half of dough into a pan, reserve the rest for the topping.
In a heavy saucepan (or in the microwave), melt marshmallows until smooth. Combine dry pudding mix and mashed bananas, add in melted marshmallows. Spread evenly over dough in pan.
Crumble remaining dough over filling. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a light golden brown (mine took 30 minutes). Cool.
Notes
I’m not sure what it is with the Pillsbury Bake-Off books lately, but I’ve really been digging in deep and pulling out some interesting stuff. I was curious to see how the whole dry pudding/banana/marshmallow layer would turn out in these.
Plus they were easy enough for Alex to do the bulk of the work. Which she was very excited about.
Though I think the ton of bananas and marshmallows she consumed while we were making these might have contributed to her excitement and happiness.
Here is the finished filling. It was actually a bit on the liquid side, so I had no idea what was going to go down.
In a side note, the cake mix crust/topping was incredibly sticky. So we didn’t crumble it on top, but rather ended up flinging globs of batter at the filling. It was fun.
This actually baked up pretty well, only about an extra 5 minutes beyond what the recipe recommended to get them to a light, golden brown.
“What’s that face for?”
“What an interesting texture you’ve discovered.”
“What? Really? What’s wrong?.”
“Nothing. This is the best banana baked good I’ve ever had. Crunchy. Flavorful. Slimy.”
“Slimy?”
“Oh, so slimy.”
The Verdict: Slimy
From The Tasting Notes –
Aside from the fact that the filling had the texture of something a slug left behind, these were tasty. They were, of course, intensely sweet. But they had a good banana flavor, kind of like a very buttery banana bread. The cake mix crust had a good, buttery crunch to it and the nuts were a great addition. The filling was so, so slimy. Not gooey, or underbaked, but actual snotty slime. It was kind of jarring when you bit into it. I wonder if a good fix for this would be to mix together the pudding and the bananas, spread that on and then sprinkle the marshmallows on top of that rather than melting and folding them in? Maybe that would help. Maybe fewer marshmallows? Or maybe just leave the marshmallows out all together? Maybe chocolate chips instead? Either way, Alex and Tom both loved the taste of these, but I just couldn’t get onboard with the slime.
I couldn’t stop cackling out loud at the comment “What an interesting texture you’ve discovered.”
Oh, too bad! They sounded like they had so much promise…
Your poor guinea pig husband… his expression and comment was priceless.
(Rate this recipe? I guess 4 stars… it sounds delicious… and your experience was definitely entertaining… by your decription of the end result tho… it looks more like a one or two star recipe). Keep sharing! 🙂
Was this one of Mrs. Hubbell’s prized recipes? Poor Joe! I suppose that if the bananas you used were super ripe, that could have contributed to the slimy texture. Maybe Mrs. Hubbell used less ripe bananas. I just discovered your blog and I think it’s really fun…right up my ally!
One of the best Tom-faces of all time! Poor guy!
I wonder what would happen by mixing the whole kit and caboodle together and then baking it instead of trying for layers. Time to go buy some bananas and marshmallows.
I thought about that, but then you might lose the buttery, crunchy crust on the top which was the best part. Maybe make the crust/topping, then reserve some for the top and mix the rest of the stuff in and crumble the reserved topping on top? Maybe?
Do any vintage recipes with bananas turn out well? I recall the ham-wrapped bananas and a tropical salad that would probably be classified as torturing the guests.
Maybe it was the brand of marshmallows.
Maybe if you melted the marshmallows just to the consistency of marshmallow fluff/creme it would work better.
Or maybe marshmallows have changed since the 70s. This is probably the reason the consistency was off.
I found this on Quora. It would definitely explain the slimy consistency of the melted marshmallows:
https://www.quora.com/Has-the-commercial-recipe-for-marshmallows-been-significantly-altered-since-the-1970s
I was wondering how it would work with homemade marshmallows. Thanks to your article link, it makes me think it might work better in this and other vintage recipes.
Oooh! How about mixing the bananas into the bottom layer then spreading some peanut butter on that and then crumble the rest on top? (Says the person who had a PB2 and banana smoothie after her long run today.) 🙂
I think you should rename them Banana Slug Marshmallow Squares 🙂 Your posts are very entertaining!
I burst out laughing when I saw your poor husband’s face! Ewww. Much as I love banana stuff, I think I’ll skip this one.
Frankly, this combo sounds pretty awful. Just not seeing any way for it to work. Some things are not meant to go together.
The banana sour cream cake was pretty good!
http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2015/07/mrs-kahns-banana-sour-cream-cakea-mid-century-recipe-re-run/
Maybe it was underbaked? Cookbook picture looks darker, moisture content of bananas and pudding mixture can vary as can your oven kitchen humidity. I live in the desert, for example, and often add extra liquid to recipes to achieve the right texture.