LOLA’s Banana Chocolate cupcake brings together our favourite flavour combinations. It combines the sweetness of ripe, mashed bananas with a delicious cocoa powder in our chocolatey buttercream. Bananas and chocolate are used together in so many treats – the ‘banana boat’ stuffed with chocolate and marshmallows and eaten by the campfire in the USA and, most famously, the banana split, with chocolate ice cream and syrup. Healthy and delicious don't always go together, but this one is a winner!
muffin pan lined with 12 muffin cases
Makes 12
Preheat the oven to 190˚C/375˚F/ Gas 5.
Sift together the flour and ground cinnamon in a bowl.
Put the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer for 5–8 minutes or until thick and pale. Add the oil and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the mashed bananas and beat on low speed until combined.
Mix the warm milk and baking powder together, then beat into the banana mixture. Gradually beat in the sifted dry ingredients and beat on low speed until combined. Finally, chop the pecans and fold them into the mixture.
Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until well risen and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
While the cupcakes are cooling down, make the chocolate buttercream.
Put the butter in a bowl and beat with an electric hand mixer until very soft and smooth.
Sift half the sugar and half the cocoa powder into the bowl, beating until incorporated. Add the second half of the sugar and cocoa and beat on low speed.
Slowly pour in the milk and when it is mixed in, beat for 3–5 minutes on a higher speed.
Spread the frosting over the cold cupcakes using a spatula, or spoon the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle/tip and pipe it on top of the cupcakes.
Pour chocolate sprinkles into a saucer and roll the edge of each cupcake in the sprinkles to coat. Top with a slice of banana.
