Banana Chocolate Cupcakes

I wanted to do something different with my over-ripe bananas besides make boring old banana bread, so I decided to go for banana chocolate cupcakes! I used a recipe from The Cupcake Project which also includes a home-made Macadamia nut butter frosting. I just used store bought cream-cheese frosting because I think its the yummiest frosting EVER. I also used semi-sweet baking chocolate instead of dark chocolate just because I already had it on hand. Next time, I think I will try the dark chocolate.

• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 8 oz dark chocolate, melted

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, flour, and baking soda. Add vanilla and mashed bananas. Stir in melted chocolate. (To melt chocolate, I used a pot of boiling water with a metal bowl sitting on top and let the chocolate slowly melt in the bowl).

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. Cool completely before frosting.

Makes 18 regular or 36 mini cupcakes.

I also tried a new frosting method. Instead of just smoothing the frosting on with a knife or a spatula, I spooned the frosting inside a baggy and smooshed it all down to the bottom. I cut off the tip of one of the corners of the baggy and ta da! home-made icing bag! So I just slowly squeezed out the icing from the tip of the baggy and made a spiral pattern on the top of the cupcake. Pretty!