Brown Sugar Glazed Banana Cupcakes

Happy St.Patrick's Day! I'll have a more festive post later, for now here's what I made the other night.

I've been a bad blogger lately. I've made two desserts that I didn't photograph, gaspity gasp. The first one was chocolate banana bread pudding which turned out well (especially considering I made it up as I went along) but was ugly as sin and I didn't want to make a post about my own personal Rosemary's baby. The next was key lime pie for my baby brother (who is somehow not three years old anymore but seventeen, when did that happen?) and I just plum forgot my camera. Oh wells. Here, imagine them.

This is where you think about chocolate banana bread pudding.

Here is where you think about key lime pie.

I did finally get around to getting pictures of my most recent baked goods. I made these as thank you gifts for some nurses and I was soooo indecisive when trying to decide what to make. I finally settled on banana cupcakes because I'm always freezing overripe bananas and always have an extra eight million frozen brown bananas in case there's a sudden world shortage on disgustingly overripe frozen bananas. I decided on a glaze instead of frosting since I was going to have to cart these to the hospital with me and any frosting would just get destroyed on the journey.


This is actually the first banana cake recipe that I've tried that is actually cake-like in texture. I've tried others that were basically banana bread in a cup, which is nice but I've been looking for something with a lighter crumb. This is definitely more cake-like, less quick-bread. I cut down the sugar since I knew I was going to glaze them and I know Joe likes less sweet desserts. I know, he's not from this planet.

Here's the recipe I used:

Banana Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup butter
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (this was three bananas for me)
  
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening, butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla, bananas and buttermilk. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to banana mixture. Fill 18 paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to wire racks to cool completely. In a small mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and enough milk to achieve desired spreading consistency.

For the glaze, I just combined 1/2 cup of brown sugar with a splash of vanilla and 2 Tbsp water. I dipped the tops of the cooled cupcakes a few times to form a nice glaze over the top. You could also just drizzle it.

The glaze makes a nice crunchy, sugary shell and since the cupcakes weren't too sweet, it wasn't overwhelming. I approve.