Recipe Tuesday :: Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

When I said those words one coworker was like, "Omuhgosh Yes!"  It was one of three options I gave another coworker for cupcake choices for her birthday.  I love making cupcakes and bringing them into work.  I get to moderate the amount of desserts I eat and then I enjoy getting critiques.  Too dry?  Didn't like the frosting?  For the critiques on these I got 10 out of 10!  They were so delicious!

Thanks to Pinterest I have a large retinue of cupcake recipes.  I'm trying to make as many as I can and I really think these will get a repeat which is always a good sign of an excellent recipe.  The wonderful Sally's Baking Addiction is the author of these amazing Banana Chocolate Chip cupcakes and her original frosting was a swirled chocolate-peanut butter masterpiece that I didn't have the time to make.  So I went to another of her winners...Nutella frosting.  I have to tell you that this frosting was so delicious that the leftovers were handed back and forth between Mom and I and delivered directly from the piping bag into our mouths.  And then said piping tip was cleaned out as well as the bowl...and anything else this frosting was on.  So yummy!

These required three very ripe bananas and make a good option when you just don't want to do banana bread.  You could even top these with streusel and call them "muffins" if you'd like!

Making your own cupcakes isn't as difficult as it sounds and I'm always a little surprised at how quickly they go together.  Also I swear they taste better the next day!  For these I got to use one of my new gadgets, Batter Spoons.  They propose that they'll deliver the right amount of batter to fill the cups 2/3 full, giving you perfect cupcakes.  What do you think?

And if you hate frosting cupcakes you seriously need to invest in a 1M piping tip and some piping bags.  After making the frosting it takes about 2 minutes to frost all those cupcakes!  Boom!  And they look so pretty and professional too!

Don't worry there's another coworker birthday (actually one of our students) coming up soon!  And he used to be a baker, so I'm pulling out all the stops to make truly impressive cupcakes...