Banana Cupcakes | Cookies & Cups

I can’t recover from the flavour in these smooth and fluffy banana cupcakes! They’re made with freshly mashed bananas and a touch of tangy buttermilk, topped with swirls of creamy peanut butter frosting and chocolate. 

When you love the flavour mixture in these banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, strive my peanut butter banana bread, too! And for one more straightforward cupcake recipe, strive these strawberry cupcakes.

Why I Love This Banana Cupcakes Recipe

I’ve by no means met a cupcake that I didn’t like, however I’m unsure I’ve met a cupcake I LOVE greater than these ridiculously scrumptious banana cupcakes! I taste these buttery banana cupcakes with recent ripe bananas and a splash of buttermilk, and so they style identical to my favourite home made buttermilk banana bread. The feel is way softer, nevertheless, like banana cake, topped with huge swirls of peanut butter frosting. Right here’s why I really like them:

• Massive banana taste. Actual bananas fill these cupcakes with sweetness, whereas buttermilk provides a bit of tang. The substances are easy however there’s loads of taste to go round.
• The perfect texture. These banana cupcakes are tremendous moist and so scrumptious! Fluffy, and tender… they’re inconceivable to withstand. I sneak one (or two) even earlier than I add the frosting!
• Fast to make. When I’ve restricted time for baking, there’s no simpler cupcake recipe. The batter is prepared in minutes and the cupcakes bake simply as rapidly.
• Deliciously adorned. I couldn’t resist frosting my banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and ending them off with Reese’s peanut butter cups and chocolate. The mixture is NEXT LEVEL. Embellish them any manner you want for birthdays, events, or simply as a result of.

Cupcake Elements

I’ve included a number of ingredient notes for these banana cupcakes right here. You’ll discover a printable recipe card under the publish with a full record and recipe particulars.

• Shortening – Shortening is my secret to a flaky and tender crumb in these banana cupcakes. It makes the feel lighter and cake-like, and fewer like a muffin or banana bread.
• Sugar – I exploit granulated sugar however mild brown sugar additionally works.
• Eggs and Vanilla – Let the eggs come to room temperature and you’ll want to use actual vanilla extract.
• Bananas – You’ll need to use recent, ripe bananas. As with most baking recipes, it’s greatest if the bananas are a bit overripe, as they’ll have extra taste. These cupcakes are my excuse to make use of up any brown, spotty bananas in the home!
• Buttermilk – Buttermilk is one other essential ingredient that makes these banana cupcakes further moist and tender, with loads of taste. I like to recommend bringing the buttermilk to room temperature. When you don’t have any readily available, you may make a home made buttermilk substitute with entire milk and vinegar (or lemon juice). 
• Flour – All-purpose is your best option for these cupcakes.
• Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and Salt – Examine the dates in your leavening substances to ensure they’re as recent as potential. In case your baking soda and baking powder are expired, the cupcakes received’t rise.

For the Frosting

• Butter – Dropped at room temperature.
• Creamy Peanut Butter – Ensure that it’s the shelf-stable sort. Pure peanut butter (the type you’ll must stir) incorporates an excessive amount of oil and tends to separate.
• Powdered Sugar – Sifted to interrupt up any lumps.
• Milk – This may be entire milk, 2% milk, or any milk you’ve got within the fridge. For a good creamier frosting, use heavy cream or half-and-half.

Easy methods to Make Banana Cupcakes

These banana cupcakes are very fast and easy to make. It’s a 3-step course of! Comply with alongside under and scroll to the recipe card for printable directions.

• Combine the cupcake batter. Begin by creaming the sugar and shortening collectively, then beat within the eggs, vanilla, buttermilk, and bananas. Lastly, slowly combine within the flour, leavening, and salt.
• Fill the pan. Scoop the batter out into lined muffin pans. I normally fill every liner about ⅔ of the best way full, so the cupcakes have room to rise with out overflowing.
• Bake. Bake these banana cupcakes at 350ºF for 15-20 minutes till they’re set. Afterward, let the cupcakes cool utterly earlier than frosting.

Simple Peanut Butter Frosting

This is perhaps the best frosting to ever grace my kitchen. It’s a variation of basic vanilla buttercream flavored with creamy peanut butter. Once I say it melts in your mouth, I’m not kidding! It’s tremendous creamy, fluffy, and pipable. Right here’s the way to make it:

• Cream butter and peanut butter collectively. Add the butter and peanut butter to a bowl and provides {that a} good whip on medium velocity till it’s good and easy.
• Add powdered sugar and milk. Subsequent, step by step beat within the powdered sugar, then the milk, till you attain a pipeable consistency. You could want so as to add a bit of extra of 1 or the opposite to skinny out or thicken the frosting as wanted.
• Whip. Beat the peanut butter frosting completely till it’s mild and fluffy. Afterward, fill a piping bag. I exploit an open-star piping tip to create the buttercream swirls you see within the photographs.

• Pipe a frosting swirl. Beginning within the heart of the cupcake, pipe the frosting after which slowly transfer the piping tip outward and upward to create a swirl (see photographs). Repeat with the remainder of the cupcakes. 

These cupcakes would even be scrumptious frosted with Swiss meringue frosting, home made cream cheese frosting, or heritage frosting in case you really feel like altering it up.

Suggestions for Success

• Ripen bananas rapidly. When you solely have underripe bananas readily available however have a hankering for banana cupcakes (comprehensible), a straightforward technique to ripen them rapidly is to put the bananas on a baking sheet and bake them at 300ºF for about 20 minutes, till the peels are blackened. Let the bananas cool off absolutely earlier than you peel and mash them.
• Use room temperature substances. Any fridge-cold substances like eggs and buttermilk ought to be taken out half-hour or so forward of time in order that they’ll come to room temperature. This fashion, they’ll combine extra simply into the batter.
• Don’t overmeasure. Overmeasuring substances like flour will result in dense, dry cupcakes. When you don’t have a kitchen scale to precisely measure, use the spoon and sweep technique: spoon the flour from the bag into the measuring cup and sweep the surplus away to stage it off. By no means scoop immediately from the bag!
• Keep away from overmixing the batter. Overmixing is the main reason for dense, robust banana cupcakes. Solely combine the flour into the batter till it’s simply mixed.
• Bake in batches. Relying on what number of muffin pans you’ve got, and the dimensions of your oven, it’s higher to bake in batches than danger overcrowding. When you solely have one pan, simply cool the baked cupcakes for a couple of minutes earlier than shifting them to a wire rack, and reusing the pan for the subsequent batch.

Easy methods to Embellish These Banana Cupcakes

There’s no fallacious technique to embellish a cupcake! I garnish my frosted banana cupcakes with chopped Reese’s cups and a drizzle of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. These are another concepts:

• Sprinkles. When you’re making these as birthday cupcakes, they want sprinkles! Use rainbow sprinkles, jimmies, nonpareils, or colourful sanding sugar so as to add a bit of brightness and further sparkle.
• Chocolate chips. Prime these cupcakes with semi-sweet, darkish, or white chocolate chips. You may as well use peanut butter chips or butterscotch morsels. For one more straightforward variation, combine mini chocolate chips proper into the cupcake batter to make chocolate chip banana cupcakes.
• Caramel sauce. Drizzle over home made caramel sauce as a substitute of chocolate syrup.
• Coconut. For a tropical twist, frost these banana cupcakes with vanilla buttercream or cream cheese frosting and dirt the tops with toasted shredded coconut.
• Fruit. Prime every cupcake with a recent banana slice earlier than serving (like my bananas foster cupcakes), or add a maraschino cherry.
• Halloween. Give your banana cupcakes the spooky therapy and switch them into skeleton cupcakes or cauldron cupcakes for Halloween.

Make-Forward

These cupcakes are nice to bake forward of time, and you may cowl and refrigerate them till the next day if you’re able to frost them. 

I additionally prefer to make the peanut butter frosting a day forward because it shops nicely within the fridge. I’ll maintain it refrigerated hermetic and produce it again to room temperature earlier than I exploit it. I like to recommend giving the frosting a fast whip, too, earlier than you fill your piping bag.

Easy methods to Retailer

• Refrigerate. The frosted cupcakes are high quality to remain at room temperature for a number of hours, however after that, I like to recommend preserving them within the fridge. Retailer them in an hermetic container, like a cake provider or related, in order that they don’t get squished. They’ll final for 2-3 days within the fridge.
• Freeze. The unfrosted cupcakes freeze nice! Let the cupcakes cool utterly, after which retailer them in a freezer-safe bag or container. Freeze for as much as 2 months and thaw the cupcakes within the fridge earlier than frosting.

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