I ask you, how good are you at banana management?….

You know,… those bananas you bought at the store last Saturday?…the day before you made your weekly Sunday night resolution to start eating healthy, by perhaps eating a banana every day? Somehow it’s now Friday and you have 6 dark brown bananas. YEAH, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE…  🙂

It’s okay, because now, the week is done, diet be damned.. and more importantly you have that itch. That itch that is calling you….TO BAKE. Trust  me, I get it; mine is like a constant psoriasis.

And you’re not talkin no ho hum banana bread, no you are dreaming big my friend. You have officially fallen off the diet wagon. OMG; look out! what to bake. You ponder, you cruise the internet perhaps. Stop looking at all that food porn!

Here it is. Wait for it…wait for it…

We are talkin’

Banana cupcakes with dulce de leche filling and cream cheese frosting

OooHh yeah…bum bup…buka buka cha kow…bum bup..cue the music..OooOh YeahH. (I hope we are both thinking of the same song) 😉

Here we go…

Banana Cake (recipe by yours truly) Yields 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cup mashed bananas (probably 4-5 unless they are huge)

3 C cake flour (I like cake flour because it yields a more tender crumb)but if you don’t have cake flour- don’t stress, you can use all purpose. This is therapy, right?

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

3/4 tsp. Saigon cinnamon (or whatever you have on hand) I’ll try not to go all OCD on you.

3/4 C room temperature butter

2 C sugar

3 eggs (room temp)

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste (or 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla will do) sorry for my OCD tendencies..

1 1/2 C room temp buttermilk

1 [13.4 oz] can of dulce de leche [Look for Nestle la Lechera]you can find it in the hispanic aisle or in a hispanic grocery for sure doll]

1 Recipe: for cream cheese frosting below

Directions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 standard size muffin/cupcake tins with paper liners. No need to spray.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment until light & fluffy; or if you don’t have a stand mixer you can do it with a hand mixer on medium.

Add the eggs one at a time and stop after each one; scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Continue to mix at medium speed until incorporated. Don’t beat the hell out of it, just get it together. Add the vanilla paste/or vanilla- combine. Add the mashed bananas, combine for say 15 seconds.

In a separate bowl whisk with a fork all the dry ingredients.

Starting with the dry ingredients add about 1/3 of it to the batter and mix on med speed, then add about 1/3 of the buttermilk, mix, and continue in this alternating pattern until you end with the dry ingredients.

Fill the cupcake liners until almost to the top; should yield about 24.

Bake in a preheated 350 over for 20-25 mins. until they are light golden brown, and a toothpick comes out almost clean when inserted but has a few moist crumbs. Check them at the 20 min. interval.  Everybody’s oven is different, so watch them closely they have a tendency to get a wee bit dark at the end and if they get too dark, loosely cover the pans with tinfoil tented so it doesn’t touch the cakes.

Take them out; cool on a wire rack. Once they are cooled completely, now it’s time for some minor surgery. You will only feel slight pressure… 🙂Using an apple corer; go down about 1/2 way, and  you are going to remove a

portion of the cake to create a small hole so you can pipe in the filling. *

* I use a piping bag  and a large plain tip to pipe in the dulce de leche, but if you don’t have one you can use a large ziplock bag and simply cut off one of the corners to fill in the holes.

Frost the cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting.

Cream cheese frosting:

1 pound cream cheese [cold]

1/2 stick butter

5 Cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

In a stand mixer bowl using the paddle attachment; whip [on high speed] the cream cheese and butter until very pliable. Stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add a cup of the sugar at a time and beat on med high speed until you have added all of the sugar. Add the vanilla and beat again until combined. Frost the cupcakes and store them in the fridge.

Happy Baking! Buka Buka ka chow…

Suzie