gone bananas

Ever since I stumbled upon this amazing cupcake website I've been chipping away at the 33 crazy kinds featured.  And by chipping away I mean I've now made two.  You have to start somewhere, right? I've made the sour cream raspberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and just tackled the banana cupcakes with maple brown butter frosting today.  Both are even more delicious then they sound, if you can believe it.  These little cups of heaven will be accompanying me to Easter dinner tomorrow and I can't wait to show them off!

After combining the dry ingredients (with the exception of sugar which you'll be creaming with butter) you'll want to mash about a cup of bananas mixed with lemon juice.

The bananas will be added to the creamed butter and sugar along with buttermilk, the dry ingredients, an egg and vanilla extract.  Make sure it's mixed well!

The obvious step of filling the lined muffin pan comes after this.  It's a relatively thin batter so an ice cream scoop is recommended for easy and accurate bowl-to-pan transfer. They cook low and slow- 275 degrees for an hour or whenever a toothpick inserted comes out clean (mine took about 45 minutes).  They're then placed directly into the freezer for a half an hour. This gives you plenty of time to make the  icing.

Start by browning one stick of butter on medium heat.  If you think that you can leave this unattended and do 30 seconds worth of dishes without it burning, well, you'd be wrong and you'll have to throw out the blackened butter and start over.
Oops! 

After it's a beautiful golden brown you'll add it to the confectioners sugar followed by milk and delicious maple syrup.

Whisk the ingredients together until it's a nice smooth consistency like this. My cupcakes had a few more minutes to go in the freezer so I stuck the icing in the fridge to stay thick in the meantime.

Slice 1-2 bananas depending on how many you'd like for the tops. I gently mixed mine with about a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice to stop them from browning before Easter tomorrow. 

Finish them off with a light dusting of cinnamon.

This is such a fun alternative to a boring (but always tasty) banana bread.  The recipe is easy to follow and sure to be a crowd pleaser.  Mine are being stored in the refrigerator to make sure the icing sets.  The car ride tomorrow will give them just enough time to get down to room temp before they're devoured.  Feel free to jazz it up anyway you'd like- add some chocolate chips or walnuts for a little extra oomph!

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