Banana cupcake with Mocha frosting

I love cooking and feeding my friends and family. This has taken on a new level when we started blogging about what we were cooking. Some of my friends started making special requests. One of these was for a banana cupcake. I didn't want to make a plain one.. I actually wanted to fill this one with some kind of filling but in the end got too lazy to punch the holes for the filling. I ended up making them with just frosting on top.

As I mentioned before, bananas are available here year round and can be acquired any time and at minimal cost. So making these are not that difficult.

You can see from the pictures, my frosting ability has improved a bit. But still... I want to achieve a nicer looking cupcake. i guess practice makes perfect. (need to practice more)

1/2 cup shortening (like CRISCO vegetable shortening)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mashed ripe bananas *about 3 bananas
1/4 cup milk
2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

FROSTING:
1 cup whipping cream (pour and whip brand is the best)
2 tsp instant coffee diluted in 1/4 cup water

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla, bananas and milk. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to banana mixture. Fill 18 paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to wire racks to cool completely. In a small mixing bowl, whip cream till stiff peaks and add the coffee granules diluted in water midway.  transfer to bowl and cool in fereigerator for 10 minutes till piping consistency. (the whipped topping might be too soft to pipe.  Frost cupcakes.

Frosting: whip the cream in a mixer till light, slowly pour the coffee until well mixed and double in volume. ~ I use pour and whip (available in UNIMART or maybe landmark).. this non dairy cream is whips nicely than regular cream and is already sweetened so you don't need to add more sugar. If you are going to use regular cream, make sure to chill it first in the fridge before whipping-- it will whip better. Also, add some powdered sugar to the cream - if using regular (about 1/4 cup) to make it taste more yummy.

MOIST!!!

Notes:

you can substitute regular flour for cake flour, but the cake flour adds more fluff to the cupcakes. This is also the first time to use shortening to a cupcake recipe. Less fat and not a lot of difference in the taste- I think.

Make sure the cupcakes are cool before attempting to frost.... or else the frosting WILL RUN and MELT.

I used whipped cream frosting here because I really didn't want to use a buttercream frosting. It just seem so caloric. The coffee added a lot of dimension and blended well with the banana in the cupcake. a really nice combination.

If you don't have a decorating tip, you can use a ziplock bag, just snip the end off, fill the bag with frosting and squeeze.