When it comes to fruits that go wonderfully with baking, bananas are in like the top five options. This sort of potassium-rich produce gives a wonderful sweetness and creaminess to baked goods, provided you can hold off on devouring them long enough to properly ripen them up. This is one of my favorite recipes involving bananas because it gives me a way of satisfying a craving for banana pudding while being able to move about.
Before you go preparing this recipe, or any other recipe involving bananas, one excellent trick you may want to bear in mind is how to expedite the ripening process. The only thing you will need to speed up the time it takes for your bananas to go from green to lots of black spots is a paper bag. By placing the bananas you plan to work with inside of a paper bag and tightly closing up the bag, you trap the natural ethylene gases released as part of the ripening process. Because the ethylene has nowhere to go, it continually cycles through the limited space of the bag, resulting in perfectly ripened bananas over a span of time between 12 and 24 hours instead of the natural rate of several days.
Ingredients for Banana Cream Cupcakes with Banana Whipped Cream
- Bananas, medium-ripeness, two, mashed up
- One box of yellow cake mix
- Eggs, three
- Oil, 1/4 cup
- Milk, 1/2 cup
- Sour cream, 1/2 cup
- Vanilla extract, 2 tsp
- Banana slices
- Nilla wafers
Whipped Cream Component
- Cream, whipping, heavy, 1 pint
- Pudding mix, instant, banana flavor, 2 tbsp
Necessary Equipment
- Oven
- Baking pan
- Cupcake liners
- Mixing bowl
- Fork
- Toothpicks
- Stand mixer
- Whipping attachment for the stand mixer
- Piping bag
Directions for Making Banana Cream Cupcakes with Banana Whipped Cream
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and line your baking pan with cupcake liners.
- Use a large bowl and a fork to mash your two bananas. Add everything but the slices of banana and Nilla wafers to this bowl and stir everything until you reach a smooth consistency.
- Fill each liner 3/4 to the top and transfer them to the oven.
- Bake at 350°F anywhere from 15 to 18 minutes; just long enough for a toothpick to come out clean when inserted into one of the cupcakes.
- Remove the cupcakes from the oven and give them time to cool off.
- Make the banana whipped cream by whisking the two ingredients together with a stand mixer until you have a thick and creamy frosting.
- Transfer the whipped cream to a piping bag and give each cupcake a generous amount of cream.
- Finish the cupcakes by placing the Nilla wafers and banana slices on top, orienting them vertically. Feel free to even make little “sandwiches” with two wafers and a banana slice in the middle.
So there you have it! One tasty treat has all the elements of a bowl of banana pudding without needing any utensils or working the whipping cream into the stiff peaks of a proper meringue. I guarantee that by knowing how to make these, you will run out of them far sooner than you anticipated because they are just that good. Two batches may be necessary to satisfy all parties.
Adriana is a baker owns her own bake shop. She also teaches classes at a local community center and workshops. She also volunteers on various feeding programs.