Banana cupcakes with coconut and chocolate icing

Here is a quick and mouth watering banana cupcake recipe. It is good to use ripe bananas - I had some leftover bananas on my kitchen bench I thought I would use before they go totally black. I searched for a cupcake recipe and found so many yummy ones on this website - www.taste.com.au

As I try to follow my clean-eating lifestyle, I usually substitute some ingredients in the original recipes with a healthier alternative and make them more 'mine'. I also made my own icing without butter.

INGREDIENTS:

2/3 cup self-raising flour (it's about 11 tablespoons of flour)
1/3 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup desiccated coconut
100g butter, melted and cooled
2 small ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup syrup or natural juice of any fruit (pineapple, apple, orange - I used lemon)

For icing:

175g Greek yogurt
100g dark chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/3 cup icing sugar
sprinkles

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 180C.
Line a 12-hole medium muffin pan with paper cases.
Sift flours, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon into large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut and make a well in the centre.
Add eggs, butter, banana and pineapple to the dry ingredients and fold together with a rubber spatula.
Spoon into paper cases.
Bake for 25 minutes or until the cakes spring back when gently touched.
Leave in the pan for 5 minuntes then lift them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For icing:

Melt dark chocolate with double boiler method - fill bigger saucepan with water and put the smaller bowl on top. Break dark chocolate to little chunks and stir constantly until melted.
Let the melted chocolate to cool for couple of minutes before adding Greek yogurt and icing sugar.
Mix it until smooth and creamy.
Spread icing over cakes.
Sprinkle the tops.

I love using bananas in baking - they make cakes moist and are a good alternative for sugar. The chocolate icing came out smooth and creamy, for a thicker texture it is better to keep them refrigerated for a couple of hours. I left mine out instead as I liked the soft result I got.