I just got the BEST idea from Miranda Keyes, recipe developer for www.food52.com. I wanna hug her for this!

When there are browning bananas sitting in your fruit bowl, isn’t your first instinct banana bread? Me, too. And of course, this isn’t a bad choice any day of the week, but sometimes you don’t have the time or energy to make a banana bread during the week.

And yes, it’s easy enough to freeze old bananas and save them for the weekend when you do have more time to bake. But what if you had a recipe and routine that simply calls for just mashing them and turning them into a quick after-dinner snack? This idea goes way BEYOND banana bread!

We’re talking BANANA FRITTERS! Miranda says she got the idea from her grandmother, who used to do this often—especially when the grand-kiddos were over for dinner. “Gran would reach for browning bananas and make quick work of mashing bananas, mixing in some flour, milk, and eggs, and frying up a warm, satisfying, banana-y treat,” Miranda explains.

She says it was hard to get the recipe (like most grandmas, her fritters were made with just-this-and-that). So Miranda pulled from her memories of watching her grandma make them. She promises she’s created a version that she thinks is a good match.

Yes, nothing tastes as delicious as when your grandma cooks for you. For Miranda it’s her grandma’s banana fritters, and for me it’s my grandma’s cream puffs. Cream that came straight from their dairy cow, Estelle, and that light yummy pastry…oh man, I’m drooling as we speak. So how about you? Is there a treat your grandma made that brings up warm, drool-worthy

Well, anyway, back to those fritters. I’d love another way to use my browning bananas. So here for your snacking delight, Miranada’s recipe that takes us way BEYOND banana bread! Like making banana bread, there’s still the gathering of ingredients and a little mixing needed, but the uniqueness of this treat makes the process seem inconsequential.

She says, “These fritters are soft and fluffy and almost taste like a banana doughnut—if such a thing exists! If you want to turn these into pancakes instead of fritters, just increase the amount of milk until you have a looser batter. My grandpa always liked his fritters topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.” They are equally delicious topped with powdered sugar, a drizzle of maple syrup, some sweetened yogurt, or the aforementioned whipped cream!