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Friday, September 14, 2012

Banana Walnut Cupcakes with
Cream Cheese Frosting

It's funny how get an idea in my head for something that sounds really good to make. When I go shopping, I make sure to have all of the ingredients I need for that recipe. I come home with really good intentions, but then something happens, life usually, and I end up not making the recipe. Then you find the odd ingredient three months later in the pantry and have no idea why you bought it!
When you buy banana's for a recipe, make sure that your husband knows not to eat the bananas. That's what happened the first time I went to make this recipe. So the next time I bought bananas, I made sure to tell him not to eat them, that they were going into a recipe I was making. Well, the creative juices ended up not flowing, and the bananas ended up in the trash, of coarse, after the fruit flies arrived and they were black as night. Then, I got yelled at for wasting the bananas. But when you buy bananas, you can't use them that same day for a recipe. You have to wait for them to be over-ripe so they can be mashed very easily. This time I got smart, and bought over-ripe bananas so I could use them while I was in the mood. Third time's a charm, they say!

Makes 24 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick butter, softened
1 1/2C. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1-1/2C. mashed ripe bananas *
1/2C. buttermilk
2C. flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2C. chopped walnuts

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
1 stick butter, softened
1 8oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
2C. sifted powdered sugar

DECORATION:
2T. minced walnuts


*Ok, here's where I cheated a little. The recipe was only supposed to have one cup of mashed banana. I mashed up 2 bananas and it was almost a cup, so what's it going to hurt? I added a third banana. I think this added so much more banana taste to the cupcake that I will so this from now on.

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and granulated sugar.

One at a time, add the eggs until combined
The add the vanilla, bananas and buttermilk

On low speed, add the flour mixture to the banana mixture
 until throughly combined
Fold in the 1/2C chopped walnuts
Line cupcake pans with the pretty paper of your choice and fill 2/3 full with cupcake batter
Bake for 15-20 minutes (mine took 20)
Place pans on top of racks to cool for 10 minutes

then remove cupcakes from pan and place on racks to cool (about one hour)

Now, make your frosting. 
Clean out the mixing bowl you just used and make sure it's dry.
Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla 
until smooth
On low speed, and I cannot stress this enough, I mean low speed, slowly mix in the powdered sugar until creamy. You should stop mixing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and once the sugar is mixed in well, turn up the speed to get it nice and fluffy.
You can either get fancy and put the frosting into a piping bag
or just use a knife. Now frost away! 
Sprinkle the minced walnuts

onto the frosting and voila!

These are by far, I think, the best cupcake I've ever made. I'm not trying to gloat, but I loved these, and so did a lot of my co-workers.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave me any comments, and have a great weekend!
Kathi

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