Mar 08, 2005
I decided to try this recipe after apparently misplacing my usual family banana cupcake recipe. I cut this one in half and made 18 cupcakes and baked for about 15 minutes. It's a great basic banana cake recipe, very fluffy, although I guess it didn't "wow" me. I like that it uses sour cream instead of sour milk, because I've always hated the pain of remembering to sour some milk with vinegar an hour before mixing. I skipped the topping and used plain chocolate frosting because I didn't have the topping ingredients on hand (and I'm not sure it would work with cupcakes...). This recipe DEFINTELY needs some salt, which I planned to add on my own but forgot. Perhaps using salted peanuts in the topping would have made up for this though. It doesn't quite have the depth of flavor that a usual banana recipe with salt would have, but that would be easily remedied with a teaspoon or so in the full batch. When I tried it plain it almost seems to have a baking soda aftertaste (maybe just a hint?), but with the frosting it was undetectable. Considering how light and fluffy these were, I'd say it was just the right amount of soda and powder without being too much. The big plus, which I consider to be the "make it or break it" for any cupcake recipe, is that this cake came out of the "wrappers" (baking cups) very easily - no sticking.
—scientific mom
