banana and macadamia cupcakes with passionfruit icing

I had three very sad looking bananas languishing in the fruit bowl. Normally I would make these into muffins for the freezer, but on Sunday afternoon I decided to use them to make banana cupcakes. I think just plain old banana cake can be a bit boring, so after looking through some books and magazines I based my recipe on the one below from an old Donna Hay magazine. I had also bought some macadamia nuts last week and being in danger of eating them all I decided to add them to the banana cakes for a bit of texture. It worked really well actually. Macadamia nuts have a slight tropical feel to them and they seem to go well with bananas. They are my favourite nuts and sometimes I will get a few at the supermarket to eat while I am packing my groceries!!

The recipe I followed had a passionfruit drizzle, but cupcakes require something a bit more than that I think, so I made a passionfruit butter cream icing and swirled it on the top of the cakes. I think they looked pretty good and they tasted nice as well.

By the way, my limoncello is delicious!!!! I decanted it last night and have put one bottle in the wine cellar and one in the freezer. Now I just hope that I have the willpower not to keep having a wee tipple from the freezer each night!!!

Banana & macadamia cupcakes with passionfruit icing (adapted from Donna Hay magazine)

125g softened butter
¾ c castor sugar
½ c brown sugar
3 eggs
2 c flour
2 tsp b powder
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice
¾ c sour cream (I used cyclops natural yoghurt)
1 c mashed banana (I used three)
1 c chopped macadamia nuts (my own variation)

· Cream butter and sugars; add eggs, one at a time
· Fold in dry ingredients and then mix in sour cream, bananas and macadamia nuts
· Spoon into 24 cupcakes cases and bake at 180 for about 18 minutes
· Ice with the following passionfruit icing

Beat together 50g softened butter, ¼ c passionfruit pulp, 1 tbsp milk and about 5 c icing sugar