Celebrating St. Patrick's Day with cupcakes!

Today's cupcakes are a chocolate banana with what turned out to be a frosting that ended up like a syrupy caramel.....all good in my book! Celebrating the holiday for looks, the pretty cupcake is adorned with a colored coconut dollop. This recipe comes from The Novice Blog

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup ripe banana (about 1 1/2 bananas)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners. Makes 12 cupcakes.

In a small bowl, mash the banana with a fork. Whisk in the coconut milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until incorporated. Mixture will still be a little lumpy because of the nature of the banana, but whisk out as many large lumps as you can. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in banana mixture. Stir until just smooth (do not overmix).

Pour into liners, filling each with 3 tablespoons of batter (cups should be no more than 2/3 full). Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

The frosting came from this site, and I will change the directions to reflect what I had to do with it...Grist.org

Vegan Coconut Milk Chocolate Fudge Frosting


Make sure you have your cupcakes ready to ice before beginning the frosting. It will set up quickly. If it fully sets up before you finish icing your layers, warm it slightly in a bowl set over simmering water. You can thin it further with a few drops of coconut milk.  (I found this wasn't necessary)

1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the coconut oil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.

Add the coconut milk, stir well, and bring the mixture to a boil. Adjust the heat to a steady but gentle boil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. The mixture should begin to thicken.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool for about 30 minutes. ( I needed to put my pan in a cold water bath to get it to thicken up enough to spoon over the cupcakes. Make sure it's thick enough, or you'll lose alot with it dripping off of the cupcakes!)

Beat the frosting until it thickens, about 20 strokes with a wooden spoon. Spread it over your cupcakes.

Any leftover frosting can be poured in a pan, allowed to harden, and cut into squares like fudge.

The green coconut is approx 2/3 cup of coconut placed into a ziplock bag, drop 2 drops of green food coloring in, zip the bag closed, and shake till color is evenly distributed. Apply coconut evenly over all 12 cupcakes, while frosting is still wet, and not set up.