Chewy Monkey Bars

I've made monkey bars once a year ago which it appeared to be far too cakey, thus I personally considered it as a cake rather than bars because, in my perception, anything made into bars form should be dense..chewy..crispy not light..fluffy and cakey !

I've found and read the post , 'Non-cakey banana chocolate chunks bar' at cookiemadness written by Anna which it simply clicked what I had in mind about monkey bars. And consequently, I've got my version posted here !

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mashed banana
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
45 g melted butter, slightly cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
2/3 cup chocolate chunks (use more if you want)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Sir flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together in a bowl.

Stir mashed banana, syrup, melted butter and vanilla in a second bowl. Pour flour mixture into banana mixture and stir until well mixed. Stir in pecans and chocolate. Mixture should be goopy, but not too runny. If it’s runny, chill it for an hour.

Empty the goopy banana mixture onto the parchment lined sheet and shape into a rectangle about 10×6 inches.

Bake on center rack for 15 minutes. Pull from oven and quickly score the bar into 1 ½ * 2 inches bars, but don’t separate. Quickly return to oven and bake for another 10minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes on tray, then carefully separate the bars and let them sit on a cooling rack to finish cooling. They should develop kind of a crispy shell.