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I LOOOOVE banana bread and my mother's recipe is the absolute best, but alas, I'm stuck here at work and not near my beloved recipe box at home. However, another idea for really ripe bananas is Bananas Foster...YUMMM. I saute the bananas in some butter, brown sugar, a pinch of cinnamon & nutmeg, and then flambe it with rum. Serve over vanilla ice cream and experience euphoria. enjoy!

You can always toss them in the freezer and use them later for smoothies or banana bread.

the blog orangette has some awesome banana bread recipes

Whole wheat banana muffins with unswt applesauce and plain yogurt subbed for the fats. They are surprisingly un-rubberlike for the nutritional content, and they last several days/freeze well.

@gastronomeg: That's where the bananas are at this point. They are almost black...

I never thought about freezing them...Hmmm...Interesting.

You could always throw them in the freezer (after peeling them) and just eat them like popsicles/ice cream.

Banana bread, cake, muffins, of course. At fairs, I often see frozen half bananas on a stick dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts.

Banana daiquiris! I cut the bananas up and freeze them first, then toss in blender with rum, triple sec, little lime juice, some simple syrup and ice. I don't normally go for blended drinks but these were tasty. Could also make non-alcoholic smoothies with yogurt, OJ & peanut butter (my fav).

Also, all the stuff cited above - bread, muffins, cookies, cake, pudding, pancakes, etc. Could also caramelize with a little bit of butter, sugar, dash of rum and serve on top of ice cream or pancakes or baked inside some puff pastry and drizzled with chocolate.

This is what I love to do with mooshy, overripe/oversweet bananas.

1) Mash or puree so that it can be piped from a piping bag ( Actually, I mash the banana in the freezer bag so there's less mess. Then I just snip off a corner to pipe.)

2) Pipe mushed banana onto a spring roll wrapper (i use the Filipino spring roll wrappers - it's called Lumpiang Shanghai wrappers. I find it much thinner and fries much more crisply than wonton. But use wonton if you can't find the Filipino kind.)

3) Dot bitter/semi-sweet chocolate on banana.

4) Roll up as tighly as you can (this takes practice) and make sure ends are tucked in and sealed. This will prevent banana from oozing out. Lumpiang Shanghai wrappers are big, so these roll out very long. So I cut it up into 4 pieces/roll after I...

5) Freeze for a few hours till firm.

5) Deep fry until golden brown. Eat while hot, drink coffee on the side. MNNN DELICIOUS. You can fry immediately after rolling, but I find that the rolls collapse and the banana oozes out.

Hummingbird Cake

Adapted from a recipe by Mrs. L.H. Wiggins (originally printed in “Southern Living,” Feb. 1978)

Yield: 1 9-inch triple-layer cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups chopped pecans, divided
2 chopped bananas
Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below)
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 9-inch cake pans, or spray them with a nonstick spray.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add eggs, oil and vanilla; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.

3. Stir in pineapple, 1 cup chopped pecans and bananas.

4. Spoon batter into prepared cake pans. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool immediately. When the cakes are completely cooled, spread frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake. Sprinkle with 1 cup chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 pounds powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine cream cheese and butter; cream until smooth. Add powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla.

Banana bread, banana pudding, mashed and stirred into oatmeal or hot cereal.

Mostly- we cut into chunks and freeze them. Great for nibbling on a hot day or to toss into a smoothie or milk shake.

You could add one banana to a vanilla or chocolate breakfast mix/milk for a quick breakfast.

Some months ago I heard (could have been here) that if you separate the bananas that they would ripen more slowly. I take them apart and put them on the counter with a little space between them and it works! I haven't lost a banana since then to over-ripening. If you don't have extra counter space this may not be for you.

What did Giada do @hmw0029??

freeze them and make delicious smoothies.

Does anyone have a good banana bread recipe they would like to share? I am down to try anything.

@hmw: I like Giada and that recipe sounds great! I've never had a banana muffin so I would try it. If I don't like them, I can always bring them into work.

@lorel: Wow...That sounds incredible! Might have to try that too.

Here's the thing: I have 6 or 7 VERY RIPE (I would say almost black) bananas and wanted to do something with them. I bought a big bunch from Costco (just got a membership-that place is awesome btw!!!-new find for me) and I ate some and wanted to make something with the rest.

Add mashed banana to chocolate cake or brownie batter, and used more mashed banana to make an icing to drizzle on top when you are done.

Layer of mashed banana in a pie crust (baked or crumb), pour chocolate pudding over. Or layers of ice-cream, add sauce on top.

Always peel bananas before freezing. When the bananas thaw they are very mushy and easy to blend into anything: cookies, pancakes, muffins, quickbread, banana cake (with salted caramel icing - yummy!), pudding.

Funny you should ask! I left the house Saturday for a few days in Clearwater for a family graduation. I had 3 1/2 bananas that would definitely have "gone over" if not used. I whipped up a banana bread off of which we shaved slices whenever we needed a nosh. No waste here!!

Yummy ideas.

I always freeze bananas in their skins. So did my grandma and mom and aunts. We do it at work also. Never noticed any issue with taste of any kind, and for me it makes them easy to just push out of one end of the peel once thawed (or peel while frozen).
I also never have freezer burn issues and don't have to try to measure out of a container of banana mush.
If I was freezing some for actual eating out of hand in bites rather than in blended or baked goods then I would cut up first.

It seems like I always end up with a few overripe bananas, no matter how many I buy or what variety of colors they were when I bought them. So I'm always making some sort of banana thing.

I like banana bread, and I try different recipes each time. Sometimes they're dark and rich, and sometimes they're closer to cake. One good variation was banana blueberry bread from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread. But I made mine as muffins instead of loaves.

One fine day I decided to add some bananas to a loaf of regular yeast bread. It was an interesting experiment. I'm not saying it was bad or even weird, but it was the sort of thing that you'd taste and thing that it's pretty good, but what are you going to eat a whole loaf of this with? I mean, it wasn't really a sandwich bread unless you were talking peanut butter, maybe. And it wasn't sweet at all, so it wasn't like dessert. But you wouldn't eat a slice with dinner, either. It was pretty good as a breakfast/toast item, and it might have made interesting french toast...

How about banana cream pie? Banana pudding?

Banana ice cream is good, but Alton Brown's recipe didn't work for me. As much as I like the guy, that recipe was just plain strange.

Banana cake is good, too. I'm still searching for a perfect recipe for that, too.

Banana-oatmeal breakfast bars...I found that recipe online somewhere, and it's got enough oatmeal to make it not-so-bad for you. Don't recall if it had nuts or not, but that's something you can always add to that sort of recipe.

Banana Sour Cream Bread

2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour the bottom only of a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and bananas until well blended. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with sour cream to banana mixture, stirring just to blend. Stir in walnuts. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. Let stand in pan on rack 20 minutes.

Remove from pan. Cool. Wrap in aluminum foil. Loaf is improved if left to stand overnight. Store in refrigerator or freeze for 2 months.

Banana bread pudding with rum sauce, my friend.

You definitely have to make some banana bread. I'm pretty sure that's why bananas get overripe. Here is a super easy banana bread recipe. Enjoy!