Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

The Cupcakes without their frosting.
Frosting Recipe from 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly
Cupcake Recipe from Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella

I'll admit, I don't normally use cupcake recipes from this book because the one time I did, the cupcakes didn't come out at ALL like I had hoped. So I'd been a little hesitant about using other recipes from the book. But my Absolutely-Stellar-Hero-Man had a craving for banana cupcakes and I told him the only way I'd make these is if they had chocolate in them. So we found this recipe and I decided to give it a go. The cupcakes will last about a week if you're not going to freeze them, but I suggest making sure they're eaten within three days. Just sayin'...

Also, when I made these, I doubled the recipe. So you won't need 5 bananas mashed. You can just use 1 cup.

Yields 24 cupcakes

Ingredients for Cupcakes

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp/softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar (That's regular sugar for you kids not really following along.)
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (To make them super banana flavored I mashed up 5 decent sized bananas. And to mash them I just used a potato masher... it worked out fine... I promise.)
• 1 3/4 cups All-Purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  

Ingredients for the frosting

• 1 cup cream cheese, room temp/softened
• Up to 3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted (I didn't sift mine. I'm lazy.)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (again, I used the prepared lemon juice. I'm not going to juice a lemon just for one tablespoon. Lazy! Hello!)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• OPTIONAL: 1 banana thinly sliced for decoration (I didn't do this. For the third time, I'm lazy! I just want yummy cupcakes for people. I don't really care about decoration.)

So here's what you do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line your muffin tins with cupcake papers.
2. Beat sugar and butter together in large bowl until light and fluffy.
3. In a separate bowl - sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set this mixture aside.
   
4. Add the eggs to the mixture (ONE AT A TIME!!!) until completely incorporated.
5. Add in the bananas to the butter/sugar/egg mixture and mix well. Mix like your life depended on it!
6. Add in your flour mixture. To avoid lots of flour all over the place, I recommend (yet again) adding the mixture in 1/3 at a time. You really don't want to have to clean up flour out of your hair and the floor.
7. Add in your milk and vanilla.
8. Now stir in your chocolate chips by hand! ( Check out what I said in the Chocolate Chip Cupcake recipe about why you should do this by hand.)
9. Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins. (Be careful not to over fill!)
10. Bake your cupcakes for about 20 - 25 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.) Make sure to keep an eye on them at about the 15 minute mark.

For the Frosting:

1. Beat the cream cheese until soft and smooth.
   
2. Add in the confectioners' sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla. (I like adding the confectioners' sugar 1/2 a cup at a time just to make sure I don't have a huge cloud of sugar in my kitchen. Believe me, you only have to do it once to learn your lesson.)
3. Beat all of it together until you get the consistency you want and it is nice and smooth.

Wait until your cupcakes have completely cooled (aka room temperature) before you attempt to put frosting on them. Otherwise, your icing is going to melt and just run all over your cupcakes and become a huge mess.

And last, but not least, ENJOY!