Recipe: The Best Banana Cupcakes

I‘ve found them.  Seriously.  I’ve been on the hunt for the best banana cupcakes.  These are via Giada De Laurentiis, except that she calls them muffins.  They would make great muffins.   They are moist and the spices really make them stand out.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 4 ripe bananas, peeled and coarsely mashed

Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl to blend. Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the banana. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Bake the muffins on the middle rack until the tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out with no crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a rack and cool slightly. The muffins may be eaten warm or cooled completely and frosted.

Make sure to fill the cupcake liners to the top.  I also use 2 liners per muffin tin cup as the first liner always seems to get a little greasy if they are paper.  Somehow the second liner helps even though it will fall off, eventually.  I frosted them with Cream Cheese Frosting and made them look like Halloween skeletons (photo on frosting post). They were delicious days later.

You can probably tell that we have what seems to be an endless supply of ripe bananas. I have also posted recipes for Banana Caramel Cake and Emeril’s Banana Bread. La Jolla Girl loves to bake and mash the bananas.

Tagged as: Banana, Cupcakes, Food, Recipes