banana mini cupcakes

Chris and I went to a little Mardi Gras party where he works today and we were supposed to bring food to share, so I made these cupcakes! They're a banana cake with cream cheese frosting topped with walnuts. I made this as a sheet cake once before and it was incredibly good, so I thought they'd make perfect mini cupcakes. I adapted the recipe from here. I made a few changes that I'll explain later!



I used my cute little nesting doll measuring cups that Chris got me!


To start, mash the bananas in a bowl with lemon juice and set them aside






Then mix flour, baking soda, and salt together and set it aside. Here, I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose. I really like the nutty flavor from the wheat flour, and it makes them a little more like a muffin and less like a cupcake... or in other words, not quite as sweet. Ha, I also have to sub three times the amount of baking soda with baking powder because I SWORE I had some, but couldn't find any!





In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. I did this by hand because I don't have a hand mixer and I didn't have time to unpack my fancy Kitchenaid mixer.






Next, add in the eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla.





Alternate adding buttermilk and flour mixture. I used a little lemon juice and fat free milk since I hate to buy a whole thing of buttermilk and not use up the rest. The first time I made this though, I did use the buttermilk, and it made a little difference in taste and texture, but not much.





I used a make-shift pastry bag by cutting the corner off of a zip-top bag and piped the batter in to each muffin tin. I then abandoned this technique and opted for a big spoon after I left the bag hanging on the side of the bowl and it fell in :/






Mine ended up taking 25 minutes in a 275° (yes, thats a TWO, not a three) oven in a mini-muffin tine. And while they're baking... it's frosting time!!! Mix together softened butter and cream cheese, then add the vanilla and powdered sugar.






To frost them, I actually had a little cheap-o pastry bag on hand, so I piped on a bit of frosting, sprinkled on some chopped walnuts, and voila!







And that's only about half of what I made! We took the ones pictured above to Chris' work party and I still have some to take to work tomorrow! Please make these! They are so incredibly out-of-this-world. Now I have to go let Jillian Michaels shred off all the junk food I ate today. I'm giving up fried food for Lent, so only 2 more days of naughty eating! Outfit post tomorrow!