Banana Split Cake Bars

End of April. The morel season is closing. The last ones I found were small and pale, the woods running out of conditions. Total for the year was about six pounds. A good year. Not a record. The record was 2042 when I had nine pounds and a streak of cool, wet weather that gave me twenty-one days of hunting. Six pounds is plenty.

The cohort end-of-semester potluck was Friday. We do this every spring — students bring food, family comes, we present finished projects, we say goodbye. About forty people in the bay and the parking lot. I brought smoked venison ribs. The deer-sculpture man brought a brisket he'd smoked himself — he'd gotten into smoking over the semester, a development I welcomed because he's sixty-nine and he needed a hobby besides the welding. The bicycle student's wife brought tres leches cake, which I had three pieces of. The food was good and the conversation was better and the projects in the bay were a kind of show — eight pieces of metal that hadn't existed at the start of the semester and that now existed because of the work of these particular hands.

One of the women in the cohort — she'd done the ornamental gate — pulled me aside before she left. She said: I want to come back in fall. I said: come. She said: I want to learn to weld a sculpture. I said: take the intermediate cohort then. She nodded. She said: thank you. The thank-you wasn't for the class. It was for the year. The cohort had given her something she wasn't expecting. I see this every semester. The class is a class but it's also a thing inside the class — the feeling that you can make objects that exist, that you have the power to bend metal, that the world is more responsive than you knew. I see it in the eyes. I always see it.

Caleb came Saturday. He had not seen the woman that week — they were both busy — but he said the second date had also gone well, and the third was scheduled for Wednesday. He said: I'm being careful. I said: be careful. He said: she knows about my history. I said: of course she does. He said: she's told me about hers. I said: that's the right pace. He said: yeah. He said: I'm not getting ahead of myself. I said: don't. He said: I'm not. He said: I'm happy. He said it like he was testing the word. He said it again. I'm happy. I said: I see it.

The tres leches at the potluck was gone before the brisket was half sliced — I had three pieces and I wasn’t sorry about any of them. There’s something about a dessert that layers flavors and textures that suits a gathering like that, forty people in a parking lot with metal sculptures behind them and a whole semester of work in the air. These banana split cake bars have that same logic — built in layers, better when shared, the kind of thing that disappears fast and leaves people looking for more.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min + chilling | Servings: 24

Ingredients

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 medium bananas, sliced
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
1 container (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
1/2 cup maraschino cherries, halved and patted dry
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/4 cup chocolate syrup, for drizzling

Instructions

Make the crust. Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and sugar in a bowl and mix until evenly moistened. Press firmly into the bottom of a greased 9x13-inch baking pan.
Bake and cool. Bake the crust for 10–12 minutes until lightly set and fragrant. Remove from oven and let cool completely before adding any layers.
Make the cream cheese layer. Beat softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla together with a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Spread evenly over the cooled crust.
Layer the fruit. Arrange banana slices in an even layer over the cream cheese mixture. Spread the well-drained crushed pineapple evenly over the bananas. Press the fruit gently so the layers stay put.
Top with whipped topping. Spread the thawed whipped topping over the pineapple layer in an even coat, reaching all the way to the edges of the pan.
Add the toppings. Scatter the maraschino cherry halves and chopped nuts evenly across the whipped topping. Drizzle chocolate syrup over the top in a zigzag pattern.
Chill before serving. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Cut into bars with a sharp knife, wiping the blade clean between cuts for neat edges. Serve cold.

Nutrition (per serving)

Banana Split Cake Bars — The Potluck Dessert That Stayed With Me