Indecisive Banana with Cinnamon Cupcakes and Cinnamon Frosting
January 25th, 2012 § 1 Comment
A weather post hasn’t been seen here in a while, perhaps some of my regular readers were happy about this, but not me. The post felt overdue. Especially considering that the weather is probably the greatest factor influencing what I cook. Right now, on this day, it is, technically, winter. I’m not sure this technicality is known by weather. Walking outside, I’m not sure if it feels more like Spring, Fall, bizarrely mild Summer or unseasonably warm Winter.
The weather seems confused, uncertain, indecisive on what to do.
It really should get it together because the rest of the world is being affected. Without weather acting as a proper guide the trees are bare yet the lushest grass I have ever seen in Austin is growing in yards and abandoned lots all over the city. And, every time I decide to take a walk outside my work, I find myself walking through the perfumes of Mountain Laurel. Then there is my stomach — also feeling a little confused. Winter should mean stews, soups, roasted potatoes. Instead I buy ice creams and eat green salads. During the days I go on bike rides in short sleeves. At night I open my windows and drink hot tea.
One night last week, I sat at home wanting to bake, but not certain on what. Banana bread? Cake? Maybe cupcakes as it was rather warm. Cinnamon sounded excellent. Frosting was again tempting me to be foolish. This was the result. A lip-licking result. After eating two when I only intended a bite I knew these could not stay in my home. They went to work. Here I found out that the same indecisiveness that caused these seeped into them. As often as I called them cupcakes my co-workers stubbornly called them muffins. Muffins don’t have frosting.
Banana Cupcakes
adapted from these Banana Cupcakes
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ butter, melted
about 4 very ripe bananas mashed
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
6 tablespoons water
The Cinnamon Filling
about 2 tablespoons butter, softened
some brown sugar
some cinnamon
Cupcakes Combine the flax seed with the water and set aside. Melt the butter. Mash up the banana. Mix together the dry ingredients. Form a well in the middle. Mix in the bananas, butter, flax seed and vanilla. This is very fast to put together so don’t over think it. I used a whisk for this, but believe a wooden spoon would have worked just as well.
Filling Using a fork or fingers mash this all together. You will end up having extra of this mixture. Since it is good with lots of things, like spoons and toast, that’s okay.
Cupcake + Filling Now get your cupcake pan filled with the cupcake liners. Take a large spoon (one you might use for eating soup) and put one spoonful into each cup. Add ½ teaspoon of the filling into the middle of each cup. Divide the remaining batter evenly between each cup. This is about a small spoonfuls worth.
Bake at 350° until done – golden and all that. Set on a rack to cool.
If you clicked on the link slightly above you would notice that this is a Martha Stewart recipe. I do not normally choose recipes by her — partly because there is something unlikeable about someone who thinks things should always be perfect. Yet, while looking through the various banana cupcake or banana muffin recipes out there this was the one I had all the ingredients for and the one with the ingredient ratios that sounded good at the time.
Things still didn’t go perfectly. I forgot to add the butter. The cupcakes were set in the oven and there was the butter in its little pot, still sitting on the stove top. I decided that a sort of basting method would do very well. Throughout the baking, I spooned small amounts over the tops. After, I discovered that most of the butter had pooled at the bottom of each cup. The cupcakes weren’t at all bad. Still in the future, I will add the butter to the batter.
Cinnamon Frosting
3 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk
about 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
cinnamon
Briefly beat the butter with the milk. In three batches sift and beat in the powdered sugar. I really did not measure this, but was aiming for about ½ cup each time. Once this is like whipped frosting add in the cinnamon. Once again there was no measuring. I put in a little at a time a few different times.
Frost the cupcakes. This is just enough frosting to add a large dollop to each cupcakes.
The “basted” cupcakes were decisively delicious. Thank you for them. And I enjoyed having dinner with you.