THIS is what you need on your Easter dessert menu. Easy to make, plus they are such a great crowd pleaser! And learn how to pipe those adorable Ruffle Flowers too! Every now and then as I browse through my recipe archive I will realize something that makes me stop and wonder. Like this one time when I realized that I had never shared a scone recipe on my blog. And then went about fixing that problem with a variety of delicious scone recipes like these beautiful date scones, classic cream scones, blueberry scones, pumpkin scones, whole wheat scones, and even these amazing savory breakfast scones! Most recently, I was surprised to find out that I had not ONCE shared a cupcake recipe on this blog before. Gah! I mean I only make a batch of cupcakes every other week, so how is it that not one of those bad boys made its way to The Flavor Bender? Unacceptable! Well, let’s take care of that today shall we? I’ve since rectified that problem too with these classic vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, gingerbread cupcakes, santa cupcakes, Halloween cupcakes etc.! 🙂
Spiced banana cupcakes
And there’s no better time for a cupcake than Easter (other than Christmas and New Year at least), a time of the year when my baking hat hardly ever leaves my head. And this recipe is a doozy and I KNOW you guys are going to absolutely LOVE it! Spiced Banana Cupcakes with Apricot Frosting. Soft and light, Oh-SO moist, spiced and studded with raisins and then topped with a sweet, buttery apricot frosting, these spiced banana cupcakes taste almost illegal. Or they should be, because these are downright addictive. And what’s even better is that I made sure these had ALL the flavour of (buttered) Hot Cross Buns too! 🙂 I love baking with bananas. We all know that mushy, squidgy overripe bananas are one of life’s constants. They sneak up on you in the dark of night and the bustle of busy week days. So instead of fighting them, I have joined forces with them. Now I buy ripe bananas and over ripen them on purpose JUST so that I can make delicious banana bread (and whole wheat banana bread too!) or banana layer cake, or spiced banana cupcakes like these. Back when I used to work in my Audiology clinic in Australia, there used to be a bakery downstairs in the building that always had the most amazing hot cross buns (which are really popular around Easter in that part of the world). I loved their chocolate and chocolate chip hot cross buns and I used to buy from them so much that I used to get a whole package of them for free from the lovely people there every now and then! 🙂 But at the end of the day, nothing beats a classic spiced, raisin studded hot cross bun with a glistening apricot glaze, and slathered with some creamy butter! And that’s exactly what we have here today. The cupcake version of it at least. So if you want to skip the Easter bread baking custom this year, then these spiced banana cupcakes are what you need to try! They are so easy to make, and oh boy, you’re gonna love ’em!
How to make spiced banana cupcakes
First, I like to mix butter and oil (instead of using only butter for the cupcake batter), as it makes these banana cupcakes incredibly moist while still retaining the flavour of butter. I reduce the amount of sugar as well and there’s extra spices (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves) in there too to make these taste even more like hot cross buns. Plus they impart such a wonderful warmth too. The overripe bananas add such a wonderful depth of flavour, bordering on boozy almost. If you like banana bread and banana muffins, you will love these even more. These are softer, lighter and irresistibly moist.
Apricot frosting
This is not a classic American buttercream frosting, although you’re more than welcome to try it if that’s what you like. You could also try a classic cream cheese frosting recipe which goes perfectly with spiced cakes and cupcakes (and especially banana cakes and cupcakes). My frosting here is a white chocolate ganache whipped with butter and apricot jam, which actually isn’t as sweet as you might think. Instead it’s more fruity, buttery and fudgy. It’s so much better than your average buttercream frosting and gave me that flavour combo of classic buttered and glazed hot cross buns. Those little royal icing flowers are easy to pipe too. I used a small petal piping tip (Wilton #102), and simply did a layered wiggle for each flower petal. Check out the video below to see exactly how I did it. Really easy and they make a lovely decoration too. 🙂
Recipe video
If you liked this recipe don’t forget to subscribe for new (and free) recipes by entering your email address below or on the side bar (and get all these recipes delivered straight to your inbox), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find me on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST, YOU TUBE and GOOGLE-PLUS too.
