When life hands you bananas... (Banana Cup-fins)

Make some cupfins!

I had some brown bananas, left over from my first Cooking for Canines experiment.  (More of those to come, hopefully in the upcoming week.)  I have a fantastically easy recipe for banana bread that seems to be a big hit with everyone (including my former boss - I'm still required to take him two loaves every Christmastime) but honestly, another loaf of banana bread sounded so boring.  Also, since this week was our return to school (ahhh!  where did all this reading come from?) I wanted something that was relatively easy to grab and go.  I thought about banana bread muffins, but I wanted to try a few different things with them.  

The end result tastes pretty delish, but is a little heavier than I anticipated.  If I was going to make them again, I would probably either 1) substitute baking soda for the baking powder, which should work because of the yogurt, or 2) use self-rising flour, or 3) eliminate the almond flour, which in my opinion tends to be a little heavier than regular wheat flour.  The result that I got was flat on top, like a cupcake, but heavier and substantial, like a muffin.  Hence, my sister dubbed them "cupfins", which was cute enough to stick.

Since the little buggers had flat tops, I decide that they needed something to dress them up.  Fortunately, I had a cabinet full of peanut butter and a fridge full of cream cheese.  They met, fell in love, and took up residence on top of my cute little cupfins.  Yum!

Banana Cupfins 

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup almond flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder (see above)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 bananas, pureed

5 tablespoons vanilla yogurt

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla; beat until smooth.  Stir in the bananas. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Add half the flour mixture to the banana mixture, then half the yogurt, then the rest of the flour, then the rest of the yogurt.  Mix well but do not over beat.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, until pick inserted inside comes out clean.  Cool completely before frosting, but you can eat the plain muffins warm - they are already pretty good.

Peanut Butter Icing

4 ounces cream cheese

1/2 cup peanut butter

1-1/4 cup powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and peanut butter until completely incorporated.  Add the powdered sugar, beat until stiff.  Store in the refrigerator.