You guys you guys you guys you guys!!!!! I have the best house guest in the whole world right now!
So I’m going to keep this short so we can commence with cooking, baking, wine drinking, and goat cheese eating. I made banana cupcakes. Then I stuffed them with cream cheese frosting. Then I topped them with salted caramel. I mean, how could that even possibly be bad?
Did I mention that my “little” brother turned 16? He is also over 6′ tall, and has this deep man voice. When he calls me he just says “Yooooooooo” in this grumbly, ridiculously low-pitched man voice. Like, what IS that? I remember him being born. HOW CAN HE BE A MAN NOW????
I try to imitate the “Yo” voice, but ummm, I have a high-pitched little girl voice, so it doesn’t work. At all. Everyone laughs at me. So I just let him stick to the man voice, and I stick to what I’m good at, like making him perfect birthday cupcakes. And they are. The banana makes the cupcakes ridiculously soft, and they are totally stuffed with the cream cheese filling, and that salted caramel is just the icing on the cake. Literally.
Ingredients
- 2 cups white whole wheat flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 dash salt
- 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/2 unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup reduced fat buttermilk
- fleur de sel caramel for topping, optional
- 8oz reduced fat cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 375. Line 2 muffin tins with 18 paper liners. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat together apples, apple sauce and sugar. Slowly, beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla. Slowly beat in half the dry ingredients, then buttermilk, followed by the last of the dry ingredients.
- Evenly divide batter between 18 muffin tins. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with just a few crumbs, about 20-25 minutes. Cool completely.
- To make the filling, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla together until well combined. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a large tip. Insert tip into the center of cooled cupcakes and gently squeeze out 1-2 tbsp of filling.
- Drizzle with caramel if desired immediately before serving. Cupcakes are best the same day, but can be stored refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Is the house guest your brother? Or is it the cupcakes? Because I think these cupcakes would make a pretty darn good houseguest 😉 How do you get them to leave? Eat them! How do you enjoy their company? Eat them! How do you clean up after them? EAT THEM!
Please sign me up for like 10 of these!
Oh how fun!! Have a great time. I’ll take a dozen of these thanks. 🙂
Your blog is my main source of food porn, lol.
FUn!
Cupcakes looks deeeelish!
mmm! i just made a banana cream pie for mother’s day! love banana cream!
That. looks. phenomenal. These would make awesome 3 year old birthday cupcakes, too!
Yummmm! these look amazing!
Oh dear. This would be SO dangerous in my house Ari! The cream cheese filling alone is making me drool. Suddenly I’m starving for caramel and bananas. 🙂 These look wonderful and I bet the buttermilk makes them extra moist and soft.
These look so delicious! Banana, cream and salted caramel is such an amazing combination!
YUMM… Cute idea to stuff cupcakes instead of frost them. To me it seems healthier?!?! lol
Oh Ari these cupcakes look heavenly!!!! The caramel drizzle is an amazing idea! You make me wanna run in the kitchen immediately and re-bake them 🙂
Oh wow! Might be time I make some banana cupcakes. Going to have to try the cream cheese in the middle thing.
They’re great looking and I love the mounds of filling just puffed up on the tops!