One time I made these and brought them to work, and Junk Butt took one look at them and said “Ohhhh I only eat vanilla cupcakes.” Well fine, you go on ahead and eat your invisible vanilla cupcake, and we’ll just sit over here and enjoy these banana ones. Really, though, I was confused because Junk Butt was always trying to sound smart by saying that she ate one banana every day because bananas have potassium and potassium keeps you from getting charlie horses (which is something that Junk Butt got a lot of because when she was a kid she was a famous ice skater or some shit, but now she’s a junk butt with charlie horses). So anyway, you’d think someone like that would want a cupcake made from batter with an entire goddamn banana in it, but I guess crazier things have happened.
Here’s what you need:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature (you’re not gonna die, just leave em’ out for a little while)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large ripe banana (it’s about 1 cup but just put a whole big banana in there)
1/2 cup whole milk, also at room temperature
Preheat the oven to 350°. Line your cupcake pan with something pretty.
In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Use a wire whisk and make sure it all gets sifted together well. Then cream the butter and sugar again in a mixer. Use a mixer, for real. If you do it that way, it will take you about 4 minutes. If you do it by hand, it will take 74 hours and it will be crap. So it’s up to you.
Add the banana to the butter and sugar mix. Mash that in really well and be sure it’s fully incorporated before you do anything else. Then add the eggs and vanilla and make sure that’s all combined.
All right, this part is kind of a bitch, but it’s going to work. So relax. Take about a third of the flour mixture and mix it into the wet ingredients. Next, add about half of the milk and mix. Add another third of the flour, mix. Put in the rest of the milk (guess what: mix it). Finally, put in the last remaining flour. It’s helpful to scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition of flour so your final addition isn’t tougher than it should be.
Be generous when you’re filling the cupcake liners: definitely over halfway. I’ve filled them only about as much as I’d fill another cupcake cup, and they’ve puffed up then settled down into about half of a normal cupcake size. So just fill ’em up, Peejay.
Bake for about 12-15 minutes. Do the poke trick to be sure: if a sharp object comes out of the center with cupcake brains on it, it’s not done.
These are good with the Cream Cheese Buttercream, Peanut Butter, and I bet you fifty bucks they’d be pretty good with the Cinnamon Sugar Graham Cream Cheese icing. Hot damn. I’d also recommend putting some animal crackers or some kind of cinnamon based cookie on top of these, it’s so good dragged through that icing.
Cupcake Heartbreak 