June Cupkins Double Whammy: Part 1

It's the first Monday of the month!  Welcome to CUPKINS, a collaboration between Meg at Mega•Crafty and I.  Each month, Meg shares a muffin recipe and I share a cupcake recipe with the same theme.  This month, we're giving you a double whammy of Cupkins with today's post themed around Father's Day, and a second installment in two weeks featuring 4th July themed cupcakes and muffins!

Check out my Chocolate Banana "Dad" Cupcakes and Meg's Chocolate Stout Muffins!

Chocolate Banana "Dad" Cupcakes

My Dad loves all things banana, and when we were kids my Mum used to make chocolate banana cake (it's a super easy recipe, made in a blender of all things!  I'll have to share it with you sometime...)  These cupcakes are a little bit of an homage to that cake.

To bake these cupakes, I simply used a box of chocolate cupcake mix and added one cup of mashed, ripe bananas.  This makes for a pretty moist cupcake, and some of the banana will rise to the top of the cupcakes making them a little sticky, so these are best eaten as soon as possible.  They don't keep long.

The decorating was the fun part.  I tinted some fondant a yellow-ish color (you can either make your own or buy the fondant pre-made at JoAnn's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, etc) and cut out lots of two inch circles using a fondant cutter (a metal cookie color will work fine as well)

Use plenty of powdered sugar when rolling and cutting your fondant.  When you have everything cute out, wipe the powdered sugar off with a paper towel spritzed with a little bit of butter flavored cooking spray.  It will clean up the fondant and give it a nice sheen.

I then used a tube of decorating gel (like this) to write "dad" on each circle of fondant.  So easy!

Using a piping bag filled with white buttercream (you could tint yours, or flavor it.  I stuck with white vanilla) and pipe a circle of frosting on the top of each cupcake.  Gently place a fondant circle on the top of the frosting.

Present your dad with customized cupcakes for Father's Day in whatever flavor, displaying whatever greeting you'd like!  They're easy to do and sure to be a hit!

Now hop on over to Meg's place to check out her Father's Day inspired muffins by clicking on the Cupkins logo below...