Old Bananas

After a weekend away in Christchurch, there were two very sad looking bananas in the bottom of the fruit bowl (as well as some well past their best kiwifruit which went straight in the bin). When this happens, I usually make them into muffins, or pop them into the freezer to use another day. But last night I decided to make some little banana cupcakes for the tradesman on site – Yes, not just the builders. We now have electricians, plumbers, gib fixers, block layers, painters and plasterers all on site!!

I based my cakes on a recipe I had clipped from the newspaper a few years ago (I cant even credit the original writer as I don’t know who it was it was that long ago), for a four spice banana cake. I substituted a few of the ingredients and scaled the recipe down a bit to make 16 cupcakes, so actually it is more my own recipe than the original. I topped the cakes with cream cheese icing.



The cake is a very moist and soft banana cake with lots of spice in it to make it more interesting. It makes quite a few cupcakes and you could even leave them un-iced for a slightly healthier lunch box treat. I rolled the edges in some yellow sprinkles which looked kind of cute, or you could pile the icing high into lovely swirls (I didn’t really think that the tradesmen would be into that!).

Four Spice Banana Cupcakes

125g butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
½ c natural yoghurt
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 c flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp each ground cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and allspice

· Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs, one at a time
· Combine mashed banana and yoghurt and fold in alternately with the dry ingredients to the butter mixture
· Spoon into cupcake cases and bake at 180c for 18-20 minutes or until a thin knife blade comes out clean
Once cooled ice with cream cheese icing