Jumbo Banana-Walnut Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream

Behold, the diet-buster, in all it's glory. I'm not going to lie, it's been two days and I'm still snacking on these suckers. Here are the ingredients:

Banana-Walnut Cupcakes:

3 ripe bananas
2 cups cake flour ( I just used regular flour and it turned out just fine, beautiful crumb and all)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (you know what, I ALWAYS use salted. It makes all the difference, I swear. Just give it a go, just once.)
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
handful and a half of chopped walnuts - the original recipe didn't actually call for them, but who doesn't want walnuts in their banana cake?

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add bananas, and beat to combine. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of sour cream, and beating until just combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

3. In another bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, whisk egg whites to soft peaks. Don't forget, if there is any fat in the bowl the egg whites will not do their thing. Make sure you use a clean bowl, and if there are any doubts you can rub a halved lemon all over the inside of the bowl to get rid of the fat! Handy tip I just learned the other day. Once the egg whites have reached soft peaks, fold one-third whites into the batter to lighten it. Gently fold in remaining whites in two batches. It should look like the third picture above when folded in.

5. Naturally, I forgot to take a photo at the point at which I added the walnuts, but this would be about the time to do it. Right here, after you add the egg whites and before you put it in the oven. 

4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean. You can choose to do 12 smaller cupcakes or do what I did and do 6 jumbo ones. If you do 12 then bake for about 20 minutes. If you choose to do 6 then bake for about 40 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely before removing from tins.

Maple Buttercream:

1 cup salted butter
3  teaspoons of maple extract
4 cups of icing sugar
4-5 tablespoons of cream
from: Kitchen Magpie

1. Cream the butter - if you have a paddle beater this makes for ultimate butter cream. It reduces the amount of air bubbles in it and makes for uber-awesome piping. If not, don't worry about. I'm poor and don't have a paddle beater either. One can dream though, can't they?

2. Add the icing sugar. I like to do it one cup at a time and taste it between each addition, just to make sure it's not going to be too sweet or too dry for me. As Bob Ross says, "This is your world" so make your damn butter cream however you want. He probably didn't say that last bit. I did though. Also, note that the consistency will change after you add the liquid.

3. After all of the icing sugar has been added, add your cream. I've found that using real cream has always granted the best results but I've also used things like soy or almond milk in a bind.

4. Add the maple extract. I suppose you could add whatever extract you wanted, really. Coffee would probably taste really good with this too. Or even chocolate. Mmmmm....I'm hungry now.

This is what it should look like when done

 Piping and decorating:

If you're like me chances are you got a star tip that was too big for your pastry bag. Which resulted in this MacGyver:

Note: if you squeeze too hard the seams will burst and icing will come shooting out in all directions causing the user to shout a stream of profanities against their will. What do you suppose a "crap weasel" is anyway?

I used a Wilton 2D Star Tip for this number.

A General with a cupcake army in the background.

The finished product.