Upgraded Banana Cupcakes and Cream Cheese Frosting
(Or, Peanut Butter Banana and Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting)
This recipe is all about using what you have at home. Banana bread is something you make when you have too many overripe bananas. Banana cupcakes are the same story.
My brother’s fiancé, Hope, really likes bananas. So every time she comes to visit, Mom buys another bunch of bananas. My own window of edibility of the fruit is when they’re still a little green along the ridges. If they don’t get eaten while Hope is here, then they hang from their stand until they get moved to the freezer for future Banana Bread.
We have so many bananas in our freezer right now that I’ve made at least three batches of banana bread and been able to give most of them away. I needed something different this time—and I needed it to be good to make up for the Lasagna last week.
After I looked at several different recipes for banana cupcakes with different ingredients, I made up my own with the bones of these other recipes. So what goes with bananas? Peanut Butter. And Chocolate. I chose to add peanut butter and chocolate chips.
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 3 bananas—mashed
- ½ cup peanut butter
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup of butter (1 stick)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup milk—room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup of chocolate chips
Baking Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking soda) in a small mixing bowl. Set aside. For the flour I used 1-cup all-purpose flour and 1-cup Ultragrain Blend of all-purpose flour that I got from the Nebraska State Fair.
3. In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar.
4. Add the peanut butter to the butter mixture and blend until combined. We like the Peter Pan Whipped Peanut Butter because it has less sugar in it. This recipe is all about using what you have on hand, and what you like.
5. Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture and beat until combined.
6. Alternating, add the flour mixture, bananas, and milk to the wet ingredients. I did this so I knew I was getting a good mix.
7. Stir in the chocolate chips with a spoon. We had regular sized semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand. I think in the future I would maybe go with a mini semi-sweet chip, but again, this is all preference.
8. Line a cupcake tin with fun papers. This recipe makes 24 cupcakes—so either line two tins or you’ll have to line one tin twice.
9. Scoop cupcake batter into the lined tins. The batter is fluffy. I used an ice cream scoop, as always.
This is the tin Mom has had since before I was born, so you can see the evidence of past baking adventures. I meant to take a picture of the new tin, but forgot. I like this one though. I like all of the stories that the stains tell.
10. Bake for 14-16 minutes. I used a toothpick to test them, and I also touched them to see if they bounced back.
11. Cool on a rack outside of the tin. You don’t want them to continue baking in the hot metal.
12. Try not to eat them all before you make the frosting. Seriously. They’re really good plain to, so the frosting is optional… but the frosting gives it an extra boost!
Frosting Ingredients:
- ½ cup of butter (1 stick)
- 8 oz. cream cheese (1 package)
- ⅓ cup honey
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
Frosting Directions:
1. Cream together the butter and cream cheese. This works best if they are both at room temperature. Cream them until you can’t tell that they are two different things—no color variations.
2. Add in the honey. I used raw honey from my Uncle Doug’s beehives, it’s as local as it gets! Someday I’ll make a post about how much I love honey, but until then check out this article about the benefits of using raw honey.
3. Add in one cup of powdered sugar at a time, making sure it’s well combined after each cup.
4. Spread/pipe on the cupcakes.
5. Try not to eat it all. (IMPORTANT: This makes way more frosting than I needed for my 24 cupcakes, but think it would go well on other things too. I’m planning to make a second batch of cupcakes to put my leftover on.)
A couple of things I want to note here… A lot of the recipes I looked at on Pinterest made the cupcakes honey and banana. But I didn’t want to put the honey in the cake because I didn’t want to bake out all of the good stuff in the honey. You’ve heard that cooking with alcohol cooks out all of the alcohol and leaves the flavor? It’s the same with honey—except the stuff in honey that you bake out is really good for you.
The frosting is a lot less stiff than the buttercream I usually make, so I decided to spread it on the cupcakes with a spoon instead of piping it on top. I really like the look of piped frosting on a cupcake, so that was hard for me to let go. They turned out really cute and quaint though.
My brother has nicknamed this creation “Cupuffins” because they really are good without the frosting, like muffins, but the frosting is really tasty too, which makes them cupcakes. Hence: Cupuffins.
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 3 bananas—mashed
- ½ cup peanut butter
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup of butter (1 stick)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup milk—room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup of chocolate chips
Baking Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking soda) in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar.
4. Add the peanut butter to the butter mixture and blend until combined.
5. Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture and beat until combined.
6. Alternating, add half the flour mixture, half the bananas, and half milk to the wet ingredients. Repeat.
7. Stir in the chocolate chips with a spoon.
8. Line a cupcake tin with fun papers. This recipe makes 24 cupcakes.
9. Scoop cupcake batter into the lined tins, about ¾ full. The batter is fluffy. I used an ice cream scoop, as always.
10. Bake for 14-16 minutes.
11. Cool on a rack outside of the tin. You don’t want them to continue baking in the hot metal.
Frosting Ingredients:
- ½ cup of butter (1 stick)
- 8 oz. cream cheese (1 package)
- ⅓ cup honey
- 3-4 cups powdered sugar
Frosting Directions:
1. Cream together the butter and cream cheese. This works best if they are both at room temperature. Cream them until you can’t tell that they are two different things—no color variations.
2. Add in the honey.
3. Add in one cup of powdered sugar at a time, making sure it’s well combined after each cup.
4. Spread/pipe on the cupcakes.
