Four bananas, well past their prime, sat in our fruit bowl yesterday. Four. I never buy bananas with the intention of letting them turn shades of brown (does anyone? Well, maybe) but sometimes that happens.

And sometimes that happens a few times in a few weeks, as it has recently. I always feel a little guilty when we buy bananas but don’t get around to eating them all. Each brown spot that appears feels like a little nudge of failure — like I didn’t plan well enough, or didn’t pack lunches well enough.

But if there’s a silver lining, it’s that those brown bananas mean banana baked goods and other treats. My whole family likes that, and when I can put those bananas to good use there’s nothing to feel guilty about.

In my head, I ran through the things I could make with them: four batches of Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes. A loaf of banana bread, and a batch of those pancakes. Smoothies. Banana berry applesauce.

But as I dug through my recipes for banana bread, I remembered a recipe I made a few months ago. It was a banana cake that I’d found in an old community cookbook from a school I attended as a child. The recipe produced a moist, dense cake with big banana flavor, and we really liked it. But I wanted something lighter, so I took that recipe and adjusted it, using baking powder instead of baking soda for a lighter cake that’s still moist and banana-y.

And then I added more: A layer of rich, sweet milk chocolate spread on top of the cake. It’s somewhere between a ganache and a frosting, and glazes the top of the airy banana cake just right. This is perfect for serving to guests — you know, in case you’re doing that this weekend. Chocolate and banana? They are always a good pair.

What’s your favorite way to use overripe bananas?