Chocolate and banana is a well known delicious combination. The only way that I know of to improve on this is to replace the chocolate with Nutella. That’s exactly what I’ve done in this delicious cupcake recipe. Back in undergrad, when I was studying frantically for my pre-clinical exams, I’d just be too exhausted and busy to make dinner. So when I wanted a quick meal that would keep me full for hours, I would toast a pita bread and split it in half, then slather peanut butter on one side, Nutella on the other, and slice a banana to be sandwiched in between them. O my god. It was one of the richest things ever, but it truly fuelled hours of revision.  So when I look at these cupcakes, I feel like I’m being relatively restrained – only Nutella and banana and no peanut butter? ;)

The cupcakes themselves are so moist and delicious. Dry banana cake is a crime and is usually the result of over mixing the batter. These cupcakes could easily be eaten without icing, especially if you stirred in either nuts or chocolate chips into the batter before baking them. The Nutella icing is the same as the icing I concocted for my Henna cake that I made a little while ago. I made a half recipe of the original and at first I was worried there wasn’t going to be enough. However, rest assured a half recipe make plenty enough icing for twelve cupcakes. The Nutella icing is very smooth and fluffy — deceptively light tasting.

Eating these could potentially be a challenge. I tried biting into one and succeeded in getting buttercream all over my nose. After this, I changed tactics: I pulled apart the cupcake so that it was in two halves and put the bottom half on top of the icing. The result is a mini cupcake sandwich and you avoid the problem of having too much icing on the top which just goes all over your face. :)

Happy baking!

Banana Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream

makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

•  3-4 spotty bananas, mashed (~350g)
• 200g/1 cup white sugar
• 175ml/3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 250g/2 cups plain/all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 300F/150C. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners. Set aside.
2. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
3. Whisk the sugar and oil by hand until thorough mixed. Whisk in each egg, one at a time and mixing well after each addition. The batter should increase in volume and lighten in colour. Stir in the vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Divide the batter equally amongst the cupcake liners. If your cupcake liners are small, you may get more than 12 cupcakes.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for ~25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Place on cooling wrack. Remove the cupcakes from the muffin tin after 10 minutes and cool completely.
8. When completely cool, top with Nutella buttercream.

Nutella Buttercream

Ingredients

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 125g Nutella
• 180g icing sugar
• 65ml cold double cream

Instructions

1. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and Nutella until fluffy and smooth.
2. Gradually mix in the icing sugar. Once all the icing sugar has been added, beat on high for another 30 seconds.
3. Add the double cream and beat on high for around a minute or until the icing becomes very fluffy. Use immediately.
4. Optional: fill a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (e.g. Wilton 1M) and pipe swirls of icing on each cupcake. Top with a Minstrel/Smartie etc.