Banana Bread Cheat

Bananas don't usually last long enough in this household to get overripe, but, for some reason, this week we ended up with three over-ripe bananas. So, what do I do? Time to make banana bread!

As always, I decided to play around instead of following a recipe. We had a lovely box of white cake mix in the pantry, so I decided to base my banana bread off of that.

1 box white cake mix (bet this would be yummy with chocolate!)
3 mashed bananas
1 stick softened butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup water


I mixed it all together in my mixer until it was nice and smooth. I decided to make these into cupcakes, and it made 24. Baked in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 350.

So far I have just left them alone, but I am tempted to mess with toppings-- like chocolate ganache, or peanut butter honey whipped cream frosting... maybe dipped in homemade Magic Shell...

I think I will wait until my boys try them before messing with them!

Verdict: Leave them alone! These are light and yummy with all the banana flavor. They really don't need anything!

The Best Part

Easter Cupcakes

 I felt like baking today, as I was waiting for the people who adopted Orie to come and get her. I made some beautiful little cupcakes and I'm pretty proud of them.

These are Milk Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes laced with chunks of Hersheys Almond Milk Chocolate bar chunks, with a Bittersweet Chocolate Curd filling, Italian Meringue Frosting with a nob of Lavender (color, not flavor) Cream Cheese frosting, and edible pearls.

I have never actually made a filled cupcakes before today, and these turned out great. The curd filling is simply 1/3 Cup sugar, 2 tblspoons Corn Starch, 1/4 tsp Sea Salt put in a sauce pan and then a mixture of egg yolks (two from my MIL's chickens) and milk (1 1/2 C) slowly added at medium heat to the above dry ingredients, stirring constantly, I then added in a handful of bittersweet chocolate chips and stirred until it thickened and came to a boil for a whole minute. Then I chilled it, cored the cupcakes, filled a zip top baggie with the curd and cut the tip off the baggie to fill the cupcakes.