Pop Quiz: How are bone broths and banana bread similar? Besides that they are both alliterations of the letter ‘b’, they transform normally “throw away” items into delicious food. These kinds of recipes are some of my favorite things to make. I think I just like the efficiency and, in my opinion, the transformation of these ingredients. This recipe elevates the humble brown banana (that arguably belongs in the compost bin) to a delicious dessert!
To make this recipe a little bit healthier I put in a small amount of whole wheat flour along with cake flour. I really liked the resulting texture from these two flours and I was pleasantly surprised by the result. I was worried that the wheat flour would make the texture too rough but it seems that the fineness of the cake flour balanced out the roughness of the wheat. If you don’t have these on hand, all purpose flour works just fine. As for the frosting, I wanted a frosting that doesn’t have a whole lot of sweetness since the cake isn’t very sweet either. My goal was to make a muffin/cupcake hybrid so that it wasn’t overly sweet but still retained some of the finer qualities of a cupcake. The frosting was especially addictive and combined well with the banana flavor!
Banana Bread Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
(Makes approx. 12-18, depending on cake size)
Printable Version
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all purpose flour (optional substitute: 1 1/2 cups cake flour + 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 cup mashed banana (about 3 medium bananas)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 batch cream cheese frosting (recipe below)
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line a cupcake tray with liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, adding them one at a time.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and milk into the wet ingredients.
- Stir half of the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mixture.
- Stir in the mashed banana and remaining flour mixture. Mix everything until just combined.
- Divide into the prepared muffin tins.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let cool completely before frosting.
Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
- 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp milk
- 2-3 cups confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
Directions:
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together cream cheese and butter.
- Beat in vanilla and milk, then gradually pour in the confectioner’s sugar until the frosting becomes smooth and spreadable. For a stiffer frosting, add a little more sugar for desired consistency.
- Pipe or spread frosting onto the completely cooled cupcakes.