It's Basically Breakfast

Are you like me when it comes to bananas; you buy a bushel and then never eat them all before they are over ripe? If so do you throw them away or make banana bread? I am the latter, which my roommates and co-workers can attest to it. However I am over making just the regular old banana bread and have began experimenting with other recipes I have found while trolling Pinterest. They were all hits with the taste testers but my favorite so far has been the Strawberry Banana Bread with Blueberries from Julia's Album. Isn't her blog so enticing? The pictures and colors are what drew me in, plus she has some great recipes.

The other loafs I have made are Banana Mango Coconut Bread, Banana Bread with Applesauce & Honey, and Banana Bread with Greek Yogurt. You can find all of the links on my Pinterest Quickbreads board.

So why am I talking about banana bread. Well I had left over bananas again last week and decided that I wanted to make something other than a quickbread. So as usual I searched Pinterest and found a recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream & a Chocolate Ganache Center from Adventures in Cooking. The title alone had me hooked and after seeing the pictures and reading the recipe I knew there was no way I couldn't not make this decadent dessert.

The most important thing I look for when finding a baking recipe is if it is made from scratch or from a box mix. I understand the convenience of the box mixes but there is something satisfying about producing anything from start to finish. Also, it is just as easy if not cheaper to measure the dry ingredients yourself.

I was pleasantly surprised with the consistency and flavor. When using whole wheat flour it is easy for the wheat flavor to dominate but it didn't. You couldn't even tell that's what was used. You definitely had the banana flavor, with just the right amount of peanut butter coming from the buttercream and a few surprises of chocolate in every bite. It was like a peanut butter cup with bananas!

Some differences that I did was I used mini chocolate chips in the cupcakes and for the ganache I used Valrhona Dark Chocolate. I found the chocolate at Trader Joe's but I believe Whole Foods may carry it as well.

I had a lot of fun making these cupcakes and taking pictures to work on my photography skills. 

So why the title? Well it contains bananas, dark chocolate, peanut butter & whole wheat flour. Sounds like breakfast to me....Ok, well not quite but that is what you will be telling yourself when you eat one for breakfast.

Don't they just look delicious? It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup with bananas!

Guaranteed they will be a hit at any gathering you attend and will be gone within minutes. Just ask my friends.