Banana Cream Cupcakes

Recently I was involved in a garage sale, which was two days. The first day I went to a garage sale and they had food for sale. I didn't think much of it until I got home and thought, cupcakes, I'll make some and sale them at the garage sale for the second day. That night I went home and made 48 cupcakes for the garage sale. I made a regular chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and a banana cream cupcake with banana frosting.

I am not a fan of banana's. I only eat them when they are green and if they have any bruising at all I refuse to eat them. I'm so bad that I make the Dairy Queen workers to show me their banana's before I order a banana split.

I had some banana's in the freezer. They were older banana's that I had peeled and stuck in a freezer bag so that when I wanted to make banana bread for my husband I could.

I recently got the Cupcakes! From the Cake Mix Doctor book. They have a recipe for Banana Pudding Cupcakes. The problem was I didn't have a lot of the ingredients they called for so I had to improvise.

For the cake I followed the directions from the Cake Mix Doctor. I used a yellow cake mix, the one I used was a yellow butter cake. I used 3 medium sized ripe banana's, I mashed them with a fork and then used the blender to get them smoother. My husband doesn't like chunks, he's a strictly chuckless guy. He asks waiters if there are chunks in milkshakes and if there is he get's something else. Then I added 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 cup milk, 3 eggs and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. I use the pure vanilla so I tend to add less since the flavor is more intense in pure vanilla.

After the cupcakes were cooked for about 20 minutes I let them cool on the wire rack. I have to say that I was hesitant to eat the banana cupcake but I had to taste it to see if it was any good. Even though I don't like banana I thought the cupcake was yummy!

After the cupcakes were cooled I cut the center our and filled them with a banana pudding. I took a instant sugar free package of vanilla pudding and added a 4 tablespoons of banana extract to the 2 cups of milk. I blended them together and then spooned them into the cupcake. This time I filled them a little differently. I wanted to put the top of the cupcakes back on after the filling so I used my steak knife, cut out a cavity, filled the cupcake, took the part I took out and took of the extra at the bottom. Then took what I had left and put it back on the cupcake.

The frosting. This was an interesting frosting to make. In the end I think it turned out ok but if I make these cupcakes again I'll just stick to a regular plain vanilla buttercream frosting. I started with 1 cup shortening then added 4 3/4 cups of powdered sugar. I added 4 tablespoons of banana flavoring. I think that was my problem. the banana flavoring gave it a weird flavor. Almost like banana but not quite. Tasted fake. I added 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and then 4 tablespoons milk. I also added 1/2 tablespoon of meringue powder.

Ingredients:
3 medium-size ripe bananas
1 yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla

Filling:
1 package (3 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups milk
4 tablespoons banana flavoring

Frosting:
1 cup shortening
4 3/4 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons banana flavoring
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons milk
1/2 tablespoon meringue powder