Almond Butter Cupcakes w/ Banana Buttercream

Since my favorite place to grab some noms, Sticky Fingers, has just won Cupcake Wars I thought this would be a good time to put up my cupcake recipe series.

I made banana bread one day and was enjoying it slathered with almond butter. I love the two flavors together, a kind of rich, sweet, creamy, nuttiness. I began to think that I would really fancy a cupcake with the same flavors. So I started playing...

Almond Butter Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup almond butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar or sucanat
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 375º F. Grease cupcake pan, or line with liners.
In a glass measuring cup vigorously whisk together the almond milk and flax. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder & soda and salt. In a separate bowl mix almond butter, brown sugar vanilla and oil until well combined. Pour the milk mixture and sugar mixture into flour and gently combine. Pour batter into cupcake pan, filling each 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 10-13 minutes, until a toothpick (or in my case, a skewer) inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before topping with banana buttercream.

*Make sure these cupcakes cool off completely before you handle them. Otherwise, they will crumble and fall apart. These babies are delicate!

Banana Buttercream

• 1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine
• 1 banana
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Using a hand mixer or stand mid mixer, cream Earth Balance and banana. Slowly add sugar until desired consistency is reached.