Banana Split Cupcakes

​The soccer team celebrated the end of a great season with a party a couple of weekends ago.  The girls had a great time.  They swam in the pond and paddle boated and went into the chicken barn and played in the cotton seed barn and ran through the irrigation system on the sod farm and jumped on the trampoline and took a hayride.  (I'm tired just thinking about it.)  

​The team also had a cookout at the end of the party and I had offered to bring cupcakes.  I knew that I wanted to make something special but I really didn't know exactly what I wanted to make.  My inspiration came from 3 bananas that had been sitting on my counter waiting to be used.  

​My mind instantly went to banana splits.  I spent an afternoon trying to figure out how to get all the flavors of a banana split into my cupcakes.  In the end, I decided to bake a banana cupcake, topped with chocolate ganache, a scoop of whipped cream and a cherry on top.  

Banana Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 banana
2 Tablespoons sour cream
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

​Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.

​Use a fork to mash banana and sour cream.

​Beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. 

​Add egg, vanilla and lemon zest.

​Add flour mixture. 

​Fold in banana mixture.

​
​Divide batter among 12 muffin cups.

​Bake 18 minutes at 350.   

​Cool on wire racks.

​Top with chocolate ganache.

Ganache
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
pinch salt
8 ounces semisweet chocolate

In saucepan, combine cream, corn syrup and salt.  Bring to a simmer.  Remove from heat, add chocolate.  Let stand 5 minutes.  Stir until chocolate is completely melted.  Cool to room temperature.  Spread over cupcakes.

​Top cupcakes with a dollop of whipped cream.  I made my own but you could also use cool whip.  I used a small cookie scoop to get a dollop on top of the ganache.

​Top with a maraschino cherry.  I tried drizzling a little strawberry syrup over the whipped cream but it didn't turn out very well.  It made a sticky mess so I decided to leave it off.  I bought some chopped nuts to sprinkle over the finished cupcake but I forgot all about them.  It wasn't until a day later when I found the can of nuts that I even realized that I had left them off.  (oops)  I guess nobody else missed them either because nobody even mentioned nuts.  

I'm so happy with the way that these cupcakes turned out.  They were beautiful AND delicious.  Give these a try at your next cookout.

​Ciao!

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