Banana Nutella Cupcakes

These are the cupcakes that I made over Easter and wrote an article about for my university's online magazine. It hasn't been published yet, so you get to see it here first!

It was basically a hybrid of 3 different recipes; the banana part came from a WeightWatchers recipe for breakfast muffins, the bones of the recipe came from Baked and Delicious magazine, and the nutella frosting can be found here, at My Kitchen Notes.

The end result was the most moist, perfect, delicious cupcake. It was honestly one of the best i've had, and i'm not big-headed about my cooking at all. So if there's one cupcake recipe you have to try, it's this one. It's so easy even I could do it, and do it well at that.

So here's the recipe, with pictures.
 
Ingredients - for the cupcakes

125g unsalted butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs
125g self raising flour
2 bananas
1tsp vanilla extrac
1 tbsp honey
 
for the nutella frosting

175g cream cheese
175g icing sugar

125g nutella

 Method – for the cupcakes

1)    Line a cupcake tray with 12 cases.

2)    Beat together the butter and sugar in a large glass bowl until they are light and fluffy. You need to ensure the butter is softened before you do this, so best to get it out of the fridge the night before.

3)    Beat the eggs in a measuring jug and add into the sugar and butter mixture. At this stage add a spoonful of the measured flour to stop the mixture curdling.

4)    In a small bowl, mash the bananas and honey with a fork, and then fold this into the sugar, eggs and butter mixture.

5)    Gently fold in the rest of the flour and the nutmeg, making sure it’s folded in so that there are no floury patches.

6)    Add the vanilla extract. Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases. If you’re like me, you won’t avoid the temptation to lick the spoon (and mixing bowl) after. You will ignore potential admonitions and warnings about raw eggs, and go for it anyway.

7)    Bake in an oven preheated to 190°C/375°F/gas 5 for 20 minutes, until well risen and golden. Check if they’re cooked through by inserting a skewer into the centre of the largest cupcake. If it comes out clean, they’re ready, if not, they need a bit longer in the oven. Remove from oven and leave to cool on a wire tray.

For the frosting

8)    In a large bowl cream together the cream cheese and nutella until nicely blended. Try not to eat it all.

9)    Gradually add icing sugar and continue to mix until creamy and divine.

10)                       Take a palette knife and plop a large blob of the nutella mixture onto a cupcake. Smooth it down to one side of the cake, then repeat to the other side until the cake is layered as high as you desire. Remember; don’t use it all on one cupcake. You still have 11 to go.

11)                       This is where it gets tricky. From the centre outwards, move the palette knife anti-clockwise to make that swirly effect you see on all the great cupcakes. Or, just lob it on and hope no-one cares. For this part I used my new icing set from HobbyCraft with a star nozzle attachment to get the swirled effect.


12) Decorate with whatever you see fit. I used Dr. Oetker's wafer daisies and silver balls, as we had some lying around. 

Here's the finished product!!