Sinfully Delicious Sunday Treats: Fudge Marbled Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

It's Monday morning which means it's time to highlight the yummy cupcake goodness from this past weekend. However, because I made a 3D city scape cake featuring not one but THREE quarter sheet cakes carved into 5 separate buildings which all but zapped my creative energy for the weekend, my super cool band peeps got plain, old, white-on-white vanilla cupcakes last night. Well, I also used up the remaining flavored buttercream frostings in the fridge, but most were vanilla on vanilla.

So today, the second edition of Sinfully Delicious Sunday Treats will feature the cupcakes from a few weeks ago. This one has a few more steps than my typical cupcake, but it is so worth it. Enjoy!

Fudge Marbled Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Before frosting

Ingredients:

1 Duncan Hines Fudge Marble Cake Mix

¾ cup water and ½ Tbsp. water, divided
1/3 cup oil
3 eggs
1 cup banana, pureed or mashed
1 batch chocolate buttercream frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Combine large bag from cake mix with ¾ cup water, eggs, and oil. Mix well. Remove ½ cup of mixture to another mixing bowl and set aside.

Add banana to remaining mixture and mix well. Pour into prepared muffin cups, about halfway full. Combine the set aside mixture with the ½ Tbsp. water and the small fudge packet from the box mix. Stir until creamy. Drop fudge by spoonfuls onto each cupcake. Swirl fudge into cupcake with a knife. The more you swirl, the deeper the fudge will incorporate into the cupcake.

Bake for 17-19 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring baked when gently pressed. Allow to cool before topping with frosting.

After frosting

Chocolate Buttercream

1 cup shortening
½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick), room temp.
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
3 Tbsp. cocoa powder
4 cups powdered sugar
½ Tbsp. Meringue powder, optional

Combine shortening, butter, and salt in stand mixer for about 5 minutes on low setting.

Add the extracts and mix well.

Add 2 cups powdered sugar and meringue powder. Mix well.

Continue adding powdered sugar ¼ cup at a time until you reach the desired sweetness and consistency.

Add cocoa powder and mix well.

Store unused frosting in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator. It will save for weeks.