Banana Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Do you have overripe bananas sitting on the kitchen counter? You can either freeze them with their skins still on then dip in chocolate or mash and make into yummy cupcakes or breakfast muffins. Add crunchy peanut butter to the cake mix then top the cakes with caramel or coffee flavored meringue frosting and your breakfast is good to go.

Banana Peanut Butter Cupcakes
makes approximately 1 dozen
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup mashed banana
½ cup crunchy peanut butter
1 egg
¼ cup light olive oil or soft butter
1/3 cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• Preheat oven to 350°F. 
• In the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together dry ingredients. On low speed beat in the rest of ingredients until fully combined. Fill paper-lined cupcake pans 2/3 full and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until cake test done. Top with your favorite frosting.

eat with a fork or just take big bites off it

The frosting here is meringue or what is called 7-minute frosting which uses egg whites. I prefer it to buttercream which is too rich in my opinion for these cupcakes.

For the 2 or 3-tone frosting effect, fill small pastry bags separately with each flavor/color. Snip ¼ inch opening. Place a large frosting tip (I used star) in a larger third pastry bag and place the 2 filled bags in. Pipe out the frosting on the cupcakes. *Sorry, I couldn't take photos while working with sticky stuff.*

Meringue Frosting

½ cup sugar

¼ cup light corn syrup

2 tablespoons water

2 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Mix sugar, corn syrup, and water in a small saucepan. Cover and heat to rolling boil over medium heat. Uncover and boil rapidly to 242°F on candy thermometer. 
• While mixture cooks, beat egg whites on medium speed in a standing mixer just until stiff peaks form. Slowly pour hot syrup into egg whites while constantly beating. Add vanilla and continue beating until stiff and bowl is cool to the touch. 
• For caramel frosting, substitute sugar with dark brown sugar and light corn syrup with brown sugar corn syrup. For coffee flavor, add 1 teaspoon espresso powder to egg whites just before adding cooked syrup.