Recipe | Choco-Banana Cupcakes

If you follow this blog for sometime now, you might already know that I into cupcakes as they are big enough to satisfy the sweet tooth, but small enough to ease the guilt. It's been a while since I last shared a cupcake recipe here, so here is a very easy one you can try making.

Of course, this isn't my own recipe, but another I learned from my favorite educational channel on earth - YouTube. Hehehehe. This particular recipe is by Joy of Baking.



Choco-Banana Cupcakes
makes: 12 regular sized cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
• 1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup (35 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (regular or Dutch-processed)
• 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 1 medium sized banana)
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) warm water
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) canola, corn, or vegetable oil
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350*F and line your cupcake / muffin tin with your choice of paper liners, or just butter or oil the surface if you don't have any paper lines or if you are opting not to use any.  
•  In a large bowl whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
• In another large bowl, whisk together the egg, mashed banana, water, milk, oil, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir, or whisk, until combined.
• Pour or scoop the batter into the muffin cups, about 3/4 full
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. 

Things to know - choose very ripe bananas as they are softer and sweeter. The milk, you can use any liquid milk you want - be it full cream milk or skim milk. Personally, I used evaporated milk for this and it came out well.

It is good enough to eat as is, or you can add frosting of your choice.


Joy of Baking used chocolate frosting, but I tend to prefer the white and dark brown contrast, so I went for the Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting, which I did here for the first time. It was good way to frost cake without too much sugar, and I think this will be my go-to frosting from here on out.

Though easy, this is a tricky one to make, so I suggest you check different videos on YouTube to find different techniques. I used Bake Like a Pro's recipe for this. We don't own a standing mixer, but I was able to create the frosting using our handheld mixer.