Monkey Butt Cupcakes

I was intrigued by the second annual Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup. What could be better than ice cream and cupcakes combined together?

Within minutes of reading about the roundup, I had my entry formulated in my mind if I could find and adapt the recipes. Peanut butter, chocolate and bananas have been a long-standing favorite flavor combination of mine. When I recently added heath bits to the mix, I knew I created the concoction worthy to enter the contest.

Here's my Sunday adventures with Monkey Butt Cupcakes. And you might be asking yourself the same question my husband did, "Why do you call them Monkey Butt?"

The answer is simple ... because I can. :-D


Monkey Butt Cupcakes

I knew I wanted a banana cupcake, so I looked online for somewhat healthier options. I found a recipe that I adjusted by adding wheat flour, using egg substitute and swapping in a portion of splenda rather than all sugar. The cupcakes turned out moist and sweet.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup splenda
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup egg substitute
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 medium ripe bananas, mashed

Preheat oven to 350ºF. In large bowl, combine the flours, sugar, splenda, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, blend the remaining ingredients together well. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just moistened.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 20 to 24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool five minutes before cooling completely on wire racks. Makes 18 cupcakes.


In an ideal world, I would have made my own ice cream. However, I opted for convenience's sake today and used store-bought chocolate ice cream to fill the cupcakes.

Once cupcakes are completely cool, remove tops of cupcakes with sharp knife. Be careful to keep tops intact. Spoon one to two tablespooons of slightly softened chocolate ice cream onto each cupcake. Then press the cupcake top back on the cupcake to seal in the ice cream. I found it helpful to put the cupcakes in the freezer at this point to let the ice cream freeze solid before I attempted to frost the cupcakes.











I found my peanut butter frosting recipe on www.allrecipes.com, and it didn't need any adjustments for my cupcakes. I absolutely love this frosting!

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used approximately 1/3 cup crunchy because I ran out of creamy)
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbsp. milk (or as needed)

Beat butter and peanut butter together until well mixed. Gradually add powdered sugar. When mixture gets thick, slowly incorporate milk one tablespoon at a time as needed to keep frosting spreadable. Beat at least three minutes to make frosting fluffy.

Spread frosting on top of each cupcake, sealing in all cupcake and ice cream. Since this frosting is so delicious, I don't see any reason to use a thin layer. This frosting recipe also will probably make double the frosting you need for your cupcakes ... unless you eat half of it while making your cupcakes.


The final step is to roll the cupcakes in a bowl of toffee bits to generously coat each cupcake with toffee. Well, that's the penultimate step. The true final step is to bite into a Monkey Butt!