Recipe

Banana Cupcake Recipe

Go Bananas for these Banana Cupcakes

Has anyone ever bought a whole bunch of bananas and eaten them all before they’ve gone all brown and soggy? The good news is that you don’t have to throw them away! Our banana cupcakes work best with over ripe bananas so you can use up those bananas that you keep promising yourself that you’re going to eat, but never actually will.

If you don’t have any old bananas then firstly, congratulations! But you can recreate the same effect by getting some bananas, removing the peel and whacking them in the microwave for about 45 seconds until they’re really soft and almost verging on being a liquid.

Adding bananas to cake sponge not only gives them a delicious banana-y flavour, but also keeps them ultra moist and gives them a natural sweetness. Now imagine a gorgeous banana flavoured cake paired with velvety smooth cream cheese icing. Drooling yet?

Decorating these cupcakes is easy, just a sprinkling of cinnamon and a banana chip! After all, sometimes less is more and when it comes to these banana cupcakes, the taste really does the talking.

Ingredients
For the cake
2 eggs
180g caster sugar
100ml sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla bean paste / vanilla extract
2 large bananas, mashed
185g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon

For the icing
60g butter
1 tsp vanilla bean paste / vanilla extract
200g icing sugar
400g cream cheese

To decorate
1 banana chopped into 12 slices, or 12 dried banana chips

How to make banana cupcakes
1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Get your eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat until you get a gorgeous light, fluffy mixture.
3. Add the oil and your vanilla paste or vanilla extract and mix it all together until everything is combined.
4. Add the mashed bananas and mix.
5. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground cinnamon into a separate bowl.
6. Add all your sifted dry ingredients to your batter, adding a little bit at a time and mixing constantly until everything is mixed together beautifully.

Top Tip! Careful not to over mix your cake batter as it won’t rise.

1. Divide the mixture between muffin cases until they are two-thirds full.
2. Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until they are well risen.

Top Tip: You can tell if your cakes are done by sticking a skewer into the middle of one of the cakes and checking that it comes out clean.

1. Get your cakes out of the muffin tin and get them on a wire rack to cool completely.
2. While your cakes are cooling you want to get started on your cream cheese icing. Start by beating your butter until it’s nice and smooth.
3. Add the vanilla bean paste / vanilla extract and sift in the icing sugar.
4. Get your cream cheese in there then beat everything on a medium speed for about 30 seconds until you’ve got smooth and glossy icing.
5. Spoon the cream cheese icing into a piping bag and pipe a swirl of icing onto each cupcake.Alternatively, if you’re not feeling up to piping, you could just spread the icing onto your cupcakes with a palette knife or metal spatula

Top Tip: Place your palette knife in some warm water before you use it to help you get a beautifully smooth finish.

1. Finish with a slice of banana or a dried banana chip and sprinkle with a little bit of cinnamon.Once you’ve made these cakes, don’t worry if you’re not going to eat them all straight away. Just like pizza these actually taste even better the next day as that banana-y goodness seeps into the cake over night.You can also freeze these cupcakes before you’ve put the icing on. So you can make them in advance and then frost them before you serve!

Can’t be bothered with the washing up? Grab yourself some of these delicious banana cupcakes from Lola’s here.