High Altitude Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes
Fluffy banana cupcakes, filled with homemade banana custard, and topped with mascarpone whipped cream frosting.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
- Cupcake Pan + 15 Paper Liners
Ingredients
Banana Milk
- 2 cups whole milk
- 3 very ripe bananas (with speckled brown/black spots on peel)
- 1 vanilla bean, split open and seeds scraped
Banana Custard
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tbsp corn starch
- 2 large egg yolks (save the whites for another use)
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp banana milk
- 1 ½ tbsp unsalted butter
Banana Cupcakes
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tbsp cake flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- ¾ cup banana milk, room temperature
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting
- 8 oz mascarpone cheese (or block cream cheese), softened to room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups cold heavy whipping cream
- honey or cinnamon graham crackers, or shortbread cookies, crumbled
Instructions
Banana Milk
- Peel the bananas, discard the peel, and slice the bananas into 1/2 inch pieces. Combine the milk, vanilla bean + scraped vanilla bean seeds, and the sliced bananas in a saucepan. Over medium heat, bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
- Pour the milk with the bananas into a lidded container, and refrigerate for 12 hours (overnight) to infuse the milk with banana flavor. After 12 hours, use a slotted spoon to remove the bananas and the vanilla bean pod from the milk.TIP: You can either throw out the bananas, or mash them and use them in banana bread.
- Let the banana milk come to room temperature for about an hour, before mixing up your cupcake batter. You'll be using 3/4 cup of the banana milk in the cupcake batter, and 1 cup + 2 tbsp in the custard.
Banana Custard
- In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar and corn starch. Whisk in the egg yolks and banana milk.
- Over medium heat, whisk the custard constantly and bring it to a boil. It should take about 8-12 minutes of whisking before it begins to boil and thicken. Once this happens, continue to cook, whisking constantly, for 1 full minute, until the custard is very thick.
- Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter until smooth. Pour the custard through a mesh strainer to remove any bits of cooked egg. Take a piece of plastic wrap and press it right against the hot custard. Refrigerate the custard for several hours, until thoroughly chilled, before filling the cupcakes.
Banana Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line your muffin pan/s with 15 paper liners.
- In a bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder, then whisk until everything is well distributed.
- Separately, whisk together the eggs, banana milk, melted butter and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and whisk just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the paper liners, filling them no more than 2/3 – 3/4 full.
- Bake the cupcakes on the center oven rack for about 18 minutes, until the centers of the cupcakes spring back when gently touched, or a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Cool the cupcakes in the pans for several minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting.
Mascarpone Whipped Cream Frosting
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or with a hand held electric mixer), beat the mascarpone cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla on medium speed for 1 minute until smooth.
- Gradually stream in the cold heavy whipping cream. Beat on medium/high speed for several minutes, scraping the bowl down several times, until the frosting is fluffy and thick enough to hold its shape.
Cupcake Assembly
- Use a cupcake corer to remove the centers of the cooled cupcakes. Set aside the centers of the cupcakes for later.
- Fit a piping bag with a medium round tip, and fill with the chilled banana custard. Pipe the custard into the cupcakes, then set aside any leftover custard.
- Fit a piping bag with tip 1M, and fill with the mascarpone frosting. Pipe the frosting on top of the cupcakes, then set aside any leftover frosting.
- Sprinkle the crumbled graham crackers or cookies on top.
- Refrigerate the cupcakes in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Banana Pudding Cups
- Since you'll have leftover banana custard and whipped cream frosting, as well as the centers of the cupcakes, you can use it all to make a few servings of the best ever banana pudding in glass jars.
- Alternate layers of the cake, custard and whipped cream in several glass jam jars. You could also add some more crumbled graham crackers or cookies.
- Cover the jars and keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
https://curlygirlkitchen.com/