I had quite a few bananas that were on their sad darkening way and needed to use them to avoid wasting. I remembered having absolutely loved the banana cupcakes and having had issues with the icing (mainly it was too sweet).

So, I made the cupcakes again, not changing anything in the recipe but looked for a different icing.

Frankly, my idea was to make a simple chocolate whipped cream topping, that I have done before. The purpose here was not to experiment but to avoid wasting bananas. But my daughter just begged for a banana icing again. So off I went on the look out for a banana whip cream.

The results:
TASTE -- Fantastic! Light, slightly sweet, with a good banana flavor.
TEXTURE -- smooth and nice in the mouth.
APPEARANCE -- not a problem here and for me but be aware that it does brown a little, to a light beige color.

Issues:

• I don't know if the banana is too heavy, if the proportions were off, if I didn't beat the mixture enough or if something was missing, but although I was able to pipe the topping onto the cupcakes, it was still a bit too runny to stay nice and firm. I usually put some vanilla pudding powder in my whip cream and maybe I should have done that, I don't know.
• One of the recipes was calling for the lemon juice to be poured over the bananas before smashing them. Others were adding it afterwards. I think I will try and use it to prevent the browning of the fruit next time.

Decoration:
Use chopped nuts, chocolate chips, chocolate shavings...

Ingredients:

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
  
• ¼ tsp salt
  
• ¾ cup butter, softened
  
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
  
• 3 eggs
  
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
  
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
  
• ¾ cup sour cream

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven 350°F.
   
2. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
   
3. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
   
4. Add eggs, vanilla and banana; mix well.
   
5. Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream; blend thoroughly but do not overmix.
   
6. Pour into prepared pans. Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
   
7. Cool 10 minutes in pan on rack; remove and cool completely before decorating.
   

Makes 18 cupcakes.

And once again, I had some bananas that needed using. It’s amazing! We love bananas but never can seem to eat them before they get to the point we don’t find them attractive anymore.

I didn’t want to make muffins again, so I went for a banana cake. Now, I had done this before, I had a recipe ready to use but decided to try something new. So, off I go, searching the net to find a recipe I could easily make with the ingredients I had on hand.

And I found this recipe. It seemed quite easy and the picture made it look good. I start reading the comments, because, well, you can learn a lot from comments... Of course, you can also get very confused. Some people loved this recipe, and found it foolproof. Some said it failed, fell, etc. Some people said the order of the ingredients was not important, others said you had to put them in the order listed. Some people said it was too sweet, they added more bananas, etc. The temperature of the oven and the baking time also seemed to be very different.

I have to say, I admire these people who try recipes and change quantities, ingredients, etc. I would be so afraid to do this, not knowing how the changes will affect the final product. But I guess this is also the point of these experiments, correct?

So, this banana cake came out delicious. I did need to bake it longer than the recipe called for. It did rise and then fall when I took it out of the oven. It is so moist that I can’t tell if it’s normal or not. BUT it tastes GOOD!!!! Especially with a chocolate icing...

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        What to do when you have a whole bunch of over-ripe bananas? You bake, of course. I looked up "what to do with overripe bananas?" and landed on this recipe. I added cinnamon chips to the batter and sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top.