Dairy Free Banana and Cinnamon Cupcakes

A little while ago as I was exploring the wondrous aisles of a local Chinese supermarket when I spotted a little bottle of coconut oil (of the culinary variety as opposed to the oil used for hair slicking purposes!) I had seen coconut oil used as an ingredient in numerous recipes on line, providing an alternative to butter for dairy free recipes, so popped the little bottle into my basket and later stashed it in my cupboard for future use. And there it sat in my cupboard until last week when I noticed that there were a couple of rather sad and squishy looking bananas in the fruit bowl. Brown bananas automatically means banana bread or cake in my mind and I decided it was time to crack open the coconut oil too. So I combined the two to create mini banana and cinnamon cupcakes with a dairy free icing recipe to top off these perfect little bite-size morsels.

Makes 20 mini cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

75g plain flour

50g brown sugar

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

60ml coconut oil

170g mashed ripe banana (approx. 2 large bananas)

1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C / 350 deg F

Line a mini cupcake tin with mini cupcake cases (or use normal sized cupcakes but be aware this will make fewer cakes!)

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl and stir until well combined.

In a separate bowl mix the remaining wet ingredients together until combined.

My coconut oil was a solid mass within the bottle so to be able to get the oil out of the bottle I placed the bottle in a large glass measuring jug and poured boiling water into the jug. I then left this for a few minutes before carefully removing the bottle. The oil inside had now melted down so could be poured out of the bottle.

Now add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix again until a smooth mixture is produced. Spoon the mixture evenly between the cupcake cases.

Place the cakes in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden in colour and springy to the touch.

Allow to cool a little in the cupcake tin before removing from the tin and allowing to cool completely on a cooling rack.

ICING

100g icing sugar

50ml of coconut oil

1 tablespoon honey

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl and stir together until a smooth icing is produced.

If a little thick add a couple of drops of water to loosen up the mixture (be aware that the mixture will firm up a bit as the melted coconut oil solidifies).

Spread the mixture onto the top of each cooled cupcake and then tuck in!