A Sue Chef: Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

If I didn’t have a meal plan, I don’t think I would make half as many banana recipes as I do. There just so free it’s really hard for me to resist. Not to mention my roommate refuses to break apart the banana (umm clumps? bushes? clusters?) at the grocery store, so we always end up with extras from that as well. The banana cupcakes were good, but I feel like I did something funky with the cream cheese frosting. I also felt like they tasted more like muffins than cupcakes, which made the frosting kind of unnecessary. I did use cheap cream cheese though, so maybe that made a difference? Who knows... Butterlane has a really good banana cupcake recipe, so I think I’ll try that one next time. It’s not online though. They gave me the recipe when I took a cupcake baking class there with my sister, so I’m not sure what the rules are about posting it on the internet. Something tells me I might need their permission first, but I’m not 100% sure.

Currently I have five more overly ripe bananas sitting on my counter and I feel like I have zero ideas as to how to use them. I guess I can make more banana bread? Maybe mash them up and make banana bread pancakes? Maybe a full cake instead of just cupcakes? What else can you do with old bananas?

If you have any ideas, let me know because I’m drawing a huge blank over here….

Click READ MORE for the recipe (my mom didn't realize until I showed her the link. It is a pretty small link though, so I can see how she missed it...)

Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I used a recipe I found off of foodnetwork.com by Gina from Down Home with the Neely's - which is actually a great show. I definitely want to try out some of their dinner recipes this summer.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup sugar

¼ cup sour cream

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 large overripe bananas, peeled, and mashed

The night before baking I decided to smash the bananas and put them in a Tupperware container in the fridge. I wanted to see if it would ripen faster and make the cupcakes moister. Surprisingly I was right. I am definitely going to try this technique when I make bread as well. I tried this because when I recently tried making banana bread again, it came out a much denser and was a lighter brown than the first time. I think letting the peeled and mashed bananas kind of “ferment” themselves overnight will prevent this from happening. I’ll have to try it though and keep y’all updated with my results.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350˚

In a separate bowl, combined the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then add the sour cream and extract.

Add the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated.

I thought this was weird looking at first. It reminded me of cottage cheese. There was a lot more egg than most recipes but it turned out tasting good so don't be discouraged if it looks something like this.

Starting and ending with the dry ingredients, rotate folding in the wet and dry ingredients until just incorporated, making sure not to over mix.