Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Bananas are my favorite fruit. We always have them in house. Which means that on busier weeks, when we aren't around as much, we often have bananas that are just past their eating prime -- and perfect for baking.

I had some cream cheese frosting in the freezer salvaged from the Red Velvet Disaster, so my brain immediately went to banana cupcakes. I found a recipe that had only ingredients I already had in the house (lesson learned from aforementioned disaster) on MarthaStewart.com. I feel like Martha's a pretty reliable source for all things baked.

Well, loyal readers, my feelings did me right. These little beauties were delicious! They were tender like a cupcake, but had the rich flavor of a banana muffin.

I added a few of my own twists. Martha's recipe called for honey-cinnamon frosting, but I think the cream cheese was a great match. For the cupcake, I was shy on the 1 1/2 cups of mashed banana, so I filled up the small gap with some unsweetened applesauce. That, and the 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg I threw in, really added some nice flavor notes.

I can't wait to have another one of these for breakfast tomorrow!

Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from MarthaStewart.com)
Makes 12 cupcakes

For Cupcake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted (I only had salted butter, so I omitted the above salt)
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas - again I had 3 bananas and supplemented with unsweetened applesauce)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Make a well in center of flour mixture. In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla. Stir to incorporate flour mixture (do not overmix). Dividing evenly, spoon batter into muffin cups.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cupcake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely on a wire rack, then frost with cream cheese frosting

For Frosting:
8 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese
1/2 stick butter, softened (I added more, and don't remember if I also added some shortening)
1/2 box plus 2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional garnish ideas: whole or chopped walnuts or pecans, fresh or dried banana

Red Velvet Disaster

After a week of staycation, there's nothing like a little post-dinner baking to get you back into a groove. Well, usually. Feeling a little more adventurous, I sought out to tackle red velvet cupcakes. Who doesn't like red velvet???

Apparently, when I make red velvet, no one likes it. I mean, the whole process, from start to finish, was a disaster. I MAY have set myself up for failure when I realized I didn't have 2 critical ingredients: cake flour and buttermilk. But, as any good baking blogger would do, I took to the web to find suitable substitutions.

I  already knew that you can make your own buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to a one-cup measure and finishing it off with regular milk and letting the mixture sit for ten minutes.

I found that you can also make your own cake flour by adding a teaspoon of cornstarch to a one-cup measure and finishing it off with AP flour. Who knew?

Baking battle

So armed with my in-the-know subs, I went to work. Actually, it looked like I went to battle. The batter was as thin and red as blood (partly thanks to the full bottle of red food coloring the recipe told me to throw in). Ew.

Even though I knew I was headed for a loss, I soldiered on and baked 'em up. Again, EW.

I won't even bother to post the recipe. I like you all too much.