Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

This week I have another dessert that uses a health alternative to the usual ingredients of baked goods. These banana cupcakes are made using unsweetened applesauce instead of butter or oil. What does one gain in substituting all the butter in a recipe with applesauce? Primarily the benefit is a massive reduction in calories, fat, and cholesterol. A half cup of applesauce contains 6.25% the number of calories in a half cup of butter. Additionally the applesauce contains no fat and cholesterol compared to butter’s 88g and 240mg, respectively. Below is a chart illustrating this comparison.

*%DV is percent daily value based on a 2,000 Calorie diet.
I haven’t put much effort in to using healthy alternatives in my baking before, but it is surprisingly easy. It doesn’t even require going to a specialty food store. If you are interested in substitutes that can be used for an ingredient, whether you are trying to make a recipe healthier or you don’t have an ingredient, a great resource is the Cook’s Thesaurus website.
The recipe I used today comes from an NPR article “Have Your (Less Sinful) Cupcake And Enjoy It, Too” which can be found here.
Here’s what you’ll need

In that plastic bag in the back is some 60% cocoa chocolate to melt down for the frosting. The iPad with recipe instead of a regular paper recipe is optional and not particularly recommended. The bananas could be even more ripe/black if you have any.
With an electric mixer if you’ve got one available, beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until they are “thick and light” (this could take a few minutes).

Mix in the smashed banana, bananas, buttermilk (or homemade sour milk in my case), applesauce, and vanilla.

Add a mixture of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just blended.

And that’s it! Load up your cake pan or cupcake pans/tins and pop ‘em in the oven for 18-20 minutes. Make sure they are not sticky on top when you pull them out. Even after you can insert a fork/toothpick and pull it out clean, the tops might still be a little sticky. They’ll come out better if you wait until they aren’t sticky any more. Here’s what slightly sticky looks like:

Here’s what an appropriately baked cupcake should look like:

Let the cupcakes cool off for awhile while you make the frosting. I forgot to take pictures of making the frosting, but here’s the end result.

And that’s it! Go hand ‘em out to your friends or fellow med students, whatever you have on hand.
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Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting
Cupcake Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups smashed, ripe bananas (~ 3 medium bananas)
• 1/3 cup low-fat buttermilk*
• 4 tbsp (1/2 cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
•  1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar (or confectioner’s sugar, if you must)
• 1 tbsp unsweetened almond milk, plus more if needed (I used regular milk)

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa), finely chopped or dark chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 F
2. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl until thick and light, around 5 minutes.
3. Mix in the smashed bananas, buttermilk, applesauce, and vanilla.
4. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt over mixture and beat until just blended.
5. Transfer batter to prepared pan, sprayed or with cupcake holders. Fill to 3/4 full.
6. Bake cupcakes until golden brown on top and a toothpick or fork inserted into center comes out clean. Around 18-20 minutes.
7. Let the cupcakes cool.
8. For the frosting**, add sugar and milk to a small saucepan over heat and mix until sugar is dissolved into the milk
9. Slowly stir in chocolate and mix constantly until fully melted.
10. Dip tops of cooled cupcakes into icing, twist and let the icing harden completely (~10 minutes)

* You can make sour milk and use that instead of butter milk. Add 1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar to measuring cup. Add enough milk to make 1 cup. Stir and let stand 5 minutes.
**We didn’t actually follow these directions for the frosting. We carefully melted the chocolate in a microwavable bowl in the microwave. This involves lots of stopping, stirring and restarting. Then we mixed in the powdered sugar and milk. We used more milk to thin out the frosting. If you accidentally make it too thin, you can thicken it some more either by adding more powdered sugar and melted chocolate or unsweetened cocoa powder.