Chocolate Banana Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

My darling husband bought me a huge Wilton cake decorating caddy for my birthday this year.  I have no idea what half of the tools are for, but I love to experiment.  I made these cupcakes for my friend's baby shower that I co-hosted a few weeks ago.  I usually use a large star tip to pipe frosting onto cupcakes but I wanted to try something a little different (these are made with the small petal tip).  I had seen this on another blog and thought they looked so pretty.  Not bad for a first attempt, right?

The cupcakes were delicious, I got the recipe from Joy of Baking, and they were moist and had lots of cocoa flavor.  There isn't a lot of banana in the recipe so it wasn't too overpowering.  The frosting was awesome, and even better the next day when each petal had gotten that crisp sugar texture.  I made the cupcake wrappers from a tutorial on Cupcake Project, it was super easy and I thought they looked quite pretty.  Thanks for visiting!

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes
from Joy of Baking.com 

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour

1/3 cup (35 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (regular or Dutch-processed)

3/4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 1 medium sized banana)

1/2 cup (120 ml) warm water

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

1/4 cup (60 ml) canola, corn, or vegetable oil

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven. Line 12 regular-sized muffin cups with paper liners or spray each cup with a non stick vegetable spray.

In a large bowl whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In another large bowl, whisk together the egg, mashed banana, water, milk, oil, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir, or whisk, until combined. (The batter is quite thin.) Pour or scoop the batter into the muffin cups, about 3/4 full, and bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.  

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Strawberry Frosting

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
1- 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons pureed strawberries (approximately ½ cup whole)


Combine butter and confectioner’s sugar in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat on low speed for about 1 minute, or until the butter and sugar come together (it will start off quite crumbly).  Add the whipping cream and beat on high speed until the frosting becomes light and fluffy, approximately 2 minutes.  Add the strawberries and beat until combined.