(Un)baked!: Banana bites.

I haven't been posting too many indulgent sweet treats lately because I've been trying to make healthier choices (and it's been working! Between a strict exercise regimen and, you know, not shoveling candy bars in my mouth, I've lost 11 pounds and my clothes are fitting like I want them to again and I feel really good, so yay for that).

But that being said, sometimes a girl needs something sweet. Particularly after dinner. Enter: Banana bites.

These are the easiest things in the world to make, and I am not joking. All you do is slice up a banana or two, spread some peanut butter on half the slices, and then make little peanut-butter-banana "sandwiches" with the other half. Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and stick it in the freezer for an hour, until they bananas are super firm. Meanwhile, melt some chocolate chips—I nuked half a bag for 30-second intervals until the chips were almost completely melted, then stirred them until totally smooth (you avoid burning the chocolate this way)—and then, when your banana sandwiches are chilled, roll them in the melted chocolate and put them back in the freezer until they're firm again (another 1-2 hours). The coolest part of the process is that, if you use chocolate chips like I did (Ghirardelli 60 percent forever!), whatever emulsifier is in the chocolate chips creates a sort of pseudo-Magic Shell when the warm chocolate hits the cold bananas. It's pretty cool. And pretty delicious. Let me know if you make them.

P.S. You can see the complete archive of Baked! posts right here.

Photo by Joy the Baker, because everyone seems to be discovering the power of chocolate covered bananas, and also her photograph is so much better than mine it's not even funny. Those suckers are tasty, but hard to take a good picture of.