Banana Pecan Cupcakes

Seems like I haven't been around a computer at all since Friday...had a pretty busy weekend. We travelled to the Valley this weekend to the Annual Apple Blossom Festival. Charlee's baton twirling group was in the children's parade Saturday morning, so Friday night we put her hair in rags...yes rags. (get the how to here.)Well actually one of her old receiving blankets cut into strips. It's the only way we can get her hair to stay in curls, and as a part of her uniform all the girls have curled hair pulled back in a pony tail, too cute!

getting lined up;  Charlee is the one spinning the hoop on her arm. We had to stay hidden so she would stay with her group, hence the creeper picture.

Saturday afternoon I went and got fitted for my bridesmaids dress for A's wedding, and also went and picked up her wedding dress from the Bridal Shop. Saturday evening we all relaxed with a BBQ, good food and great friends! Sunday my little Princess was pretty under the weather, really nasty cold set it...so Sunday and Monday were Dr Mom days. Busy Busy! Last night I finally made it to a computer to get back on track and today back to the kitchen to try a new recipe.

So! I have realized how much I love Martha's Cupcake book since I started this blog. It is my GO TO cupcake book, for cupcake and icing recipes. So I have made a decision...I am going to bake my way through this entire book. Eventually I want to say I have tried every recipe in the book at least once.

This weekend I have an order for a sampler platter of cupcakes for a party, as I was flipping through the book to get all the recipes marked I came across a recipe I had never noticed before. Banana Pecan Cupcakes...YUM! and whats even better...they are topped with Caramel Buttercream! CARAMEL!!! (I seem to have a little theme going this past week) For the caramel Butter cream I changed it up a little....I had some dulce de leche in my fridge, so instead of making the caramel in the recipe (because I really don't like cooking sugar) I used that instead. The icing still turned out, and is DE-LISH!

To put it into perspective ...they are like mini banana bread  but so much better!

Banana-Pecan Cupcakes, with Caramel Butter Cream

 

*Banana note* we always have at least one banana that ends up getting all spotty and gross looking. so what I do is put the banana whole, still in the peel in a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer for someday when I have more gross spotty bananas.

When you take them out to use them, they are going to be black all over and mushy I recommend peeling them when they are still a little frozen, then they just mash up with a fork for use in banana pecan cupcakes! =)



Caramel Butter Cream

This is a version of swiss meringue butter cream, only you cream the butter before mixing it into the egg white mixture.

1 c plus 2 tbsp sugar

1/4 c water

1/4 c heavy cream (or substitute evaporated milk)

1 1/2 c butter, room temp

4 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla

For the instructions I am just going to link up Martha's Site. There are multiple steps and I don't want anything to get mis-understood in translation. I am also very new to swiss meringue, so I suggest you learn directly fom Martha's Recipe .

As I said before I didn't use the caramel you make in the first step of the recipe. I used my dulce le leche and incorporated it the same way as you would the caramel made in the recipe.