Hummingbird Cupcakes

I had never heard of hummingbird cake until a lady that Randal works with made one for the office, she has now given me her recipe to try, but the recipe for these cupcakes are from Brown Eyed Baker, I thought the dried pineapple flower decorations were really cute.

Cupcakes:
2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp cinnamon
3 bananas, mashed
2/3 cup crushed pineapple, drained
2/3 cup walnuts, chopped
2/3 cup shredded coconut
1 and 1/3 cups granulated sugar
11 tablespoons unsalted butter
1½ tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

Frosting:
12 ounces cream cheese
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 cups icing sugar

Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

In a small bowl whisk together the  flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In a large bowl mix together the banana, pineapple, walnuts, and coconut.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar untillight and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and the vanilla.  Add in the flour mixture and beat until just combined.  Stir in the banana mixture.

Fill each liner 2/3 full with batter and bake for 20 minutes.

To make the frosting, in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese for 5 minutes.  Add the vanilla and icing sugar and beat together for 2minutes, until smooth.

To make the dried pineapple flowers, preheat the oven to 225 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Remove the top, bottom and rind off a fresh pineapple.  Slice the pineapple into very thin rounds and place the rounds onto the parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake for 45 minutes, flip over the pineaplle rounds and bake for a further 30 minutes or until they are completely dry.  Place the driedpineapple rounds into muffin tins to form he flower shape and leave to cool overnight.




Linked to: Couponing and Cooking, Create With Joy, Serendipity and Spice, Tutus and Tea Parties