Banana cake filled with pudding, bananas and vanilla wafers
Soooooo when I made these cupcakes, I realized mid-bake that my camera batteries were dead. I apologize for the low quality cell phone pictures. I think I deserve a little credit for not taking them in the mirror of the bathroom with the toilet in the background, Facebook style. I realize my regular pictures aren't super high quality, because I use a regular point-and-shoot digital camera, but these pictures are truly horrid. It's sad, because it was such a beautiful cupcake. Anyway, enough about my camera.
Most of the inspiration for the cupcakes I make comes from other people. My sister and her family are my biggest cupcake fans, and they offer suggestions for flavors to me from time to time. She asked me if I could make a banana pudding cupcake, and my mouth watered. I volunteered to give them a try and bring them to a giant waterslide party at her house a couple of weeks ago. I made a huge batch of them, and they were instantly inhaled. The next day, I made another batch and took them over for all the friends who didn't get one. Again, inhaled. These may very well be the best cupcakes ever, unless you hate bananas, but who hates bananas? They seem like a good amount of work, but they're not that bad... a doctored up cake mix, some instant pudding and an easy frosting. SO worth the work.
If you've never heard of the Cake Mix Doctor, you should check her out. The cake recipe I used was a slight modification of hers. I would have made it exactly the same way, but I bought the wrong cake mix and skipped a step. Oops. Honestly, they came out awesome, so I'm not complaining.
Here's the cake recipe.
Ingredients:
medium ripe bananas
3
Preheat oven to 350. Smash the bananas. You can food process them, mash them with a fork, or put them in a Ziploc and squish them until they are mush. Smash, mash, squish, mush. Lovely words. Anyway, once the bananas are pulverized, mix everything together until it is smooth. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake 18-20 minutes until they just spring back if you touch them on top. DO NOT wait for them to brown. You want them just done.
Let me tell you something about this cake recipe. It is moist and banana-y and delicious, and I will be using it again. Not only does it taste good, but it has a great texture and it is easy. I'm all about easy.
Now we're going to fill the cupcakes.
Here's what you need:
1 box vanilla wafers
1 box vanilla pudding, prepared according to directions
1 tub of Cool Whip
2 bananas, sliced into 12 slices each
You are probably thinking, "Shouldn't she have baked the vanilla wafers in the bottom of the cupcakes?" Yeah, that's the step I skipped. I remembered about 8 minutes before they were done baking that I forgot the wafers, so I came up with a Plan B. I have to do that a lot. I'm kind of forgetful.
Put about 24 of the cookies into a large Ziploc bag and crush them with a meat hammer (or a can, or a rolling pin) until they are in pea-sized pieces. Get your pudding out of the fridge and stir all but one cup of the Cool Whip into the pudding. For the love of all things Southern, please do not use banana flavored pudding. Vanilla pudding with banana slices is the gospel rule of banana pudding. Now you're ready to fill.
Wait! You have to actually core the cupcakes for this recipe. I love cramming a pastry bag tip into a cupcake and squeezing in the filling, but sliced bananas do not fit through a pastry bag tip. Take a sharp knife and cut a circle into the top of each cupcake, coring it to about 2/3 of the way down. Gently pull the middle out and slice the extra off the core so you have a flat top to put back on the cupcake after you fill it.
When you're done, it will look like this.:
 |
| Ready to fill tiny bowls of sweet banana goodness |
Now fill 'em up. A little dot of pudding, a sprinkle of cookie crumbs, a banana slice, more pudding. Put their little hats on them and they're ready to frost!
I was torn over what kind of frosting to put on these. I wanted to just put whipped cream on them, but that is just not a good plan for cupcakes that have to be transported and served outside. Nothing seemed quite right, so I made something up. I actually had banana flavoring in my cabinet, but if you don't, you can use a little vanilla instead.
Frosting Ingredients:
1 stick butter, softened
1 8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 C Cool Whip
3-4 C powdered sugar
1/4 tsp banana flavoring
Whip the butter. Whip in the cream cheese. Whip in the Cool Whip. (I say whip it! Whip it real good.) Add in the flavoring, then start adding sugar until you get a good, soft frosting that forms soft peaks. Eat a spoonful of it. Get a vanilla wafer and smear some on it, then put a banana slice on it and consume.
When you frost the cupcakes, it will cover your cuts. sprinkle on a few of the crumbs from the crushed cookes and stick a wafer on top. You will get around 24 cupcakes from this recipe. If you are making them for a party, make a double batch, because every last one will get eaten. Make them for your kids. Make them for your spouse. Make them for the people who just moved in down the street. Just make them.
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