19 Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

I promised the girls in my mom's office that I would bake cupcakes for her birthday on Monday. I wanted to find something interesting. These cupcakes caught my eye right away. I knew we had a super ripe banana waiting for me to feed to my rabbits (yes, bunnies love bananas) that I could use. While I was baking these, I felt like the roles from my childhood had been reversed. I was baking the cupcakes for my mom to take for all her friends.

The spontaneity of these cupcakes put a kink in my baking, since I couldn't wait for a second banana to get extra brown and mushy for me to bake with. I just picked the ripest one I could find at the store. If your bananas aren't easy enough to smash with a fork, chop them up really fine and then mash them. The recipe for the icing made more than I needed. I could eat the icing by the spoonful though! It's so creamy and smooth. It's the perfect consistency for any icing. Don't be afraid to pile it on the cupcakes. To decorate the cupcakes, I just put some peanuts in a zippy bag and smashed them up with the side of a knife. I sprinkled on the peanuts and topped them off with a banana chip (and fed a few chips to the rabbits). These cupcakes are a complete tasty package. The peanutty taste isn't too much to overpower the banana in the cupcake itself. Peanut butter and banana is a flavor match made in heaven.



Into the Oven!!

Cupcake Ingredients
1 1/4 c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 very ripe bananas
1/2 c sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk

Cupcake How To
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Put cupcake papers in a cupcake pan.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Mash bananas with a fork until smooth. Mix sour cream and vanilla into the bananas.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy, for about 3 minutes. Add egg and egg yolk and beat until well blended. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with banana-sour cream mixture in 2 addition, beginning and ending with the flour.
5. Pour batter into cupcake papers.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Frosting Ingredients
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
1/2 c smooth peanut butter
chopped lightly roasted peanuts.

Frosting How To
1. Sift powdered sugar in a large bowl. Add cream cheese, butter, and peanut butter. Beat until smooth.
2. Spread over cupcakes. Sprinkle with peanuts