I Love Banana.

Why do bananas take so long to ripen? It's such a tease. They sit there for days...and you stare at them when you walk by..thinking...blacken, blacken, blacken. When they finally start to mottle, the excitement begins. Then suddenly before you know it, they are almost entirely black and the panic sets in. Are they ready? Are YOU ready? Do you have time to make something?

People say...'Just freeze them when they are ready'...but they don't know how our freezer tends to sometimes get left open a slight bit so we don't notice and everything grows a sheer layer of ice. I hate freezer burn on yummy tasties. So I tend to not want to freeze my precious blackened bananas.

So I bake with them...regardless of whether it's convenient or not. Thursday night, I used 2 out of 4 that are ready (now the other 2 are REALLY ready, as in tomorrow ready!). I made banana cupcakes and little experimental banana mini 4" cakes. Tossed a little surprise into the cupcakes before baking.



I adapted a recipe from Baking from My Home To Yours for any which way Banana Cake...and forgot that bananas are inherently very moist themselves, so I put a little too much buttermilk. Interestingly enough, the cupcakes made in the silicon cups and the mini cakes came out way too soft and sticky for my taste...but the ones in the nut and party cups (or leftover cupcakes as I tend to call them since I just put them anywhere on the cookie sheet) baked up perfectly, not too moist, not sticky. Something about the heat conducting through the paper directly I would imagine. Love these things.



Topped them with some cream cheese frosting then dipped them in coconut. Cute, fun and tasty...what else is there? I was surprised at how well the coconut and banana PB worked together, they were really yummy.



Part Two of Banana Love to come later..I've got 2 more that are so ready it's scary.