Banana Cranberry Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache

I love birthdays. I don't understand people who hate to celebrate their birthdays, or who hide the day from well-wishers, misanthropically defying community celebration. After all, unless one has a genuinely traumatic memory associated with his birth date (and I did know one such boy), isn't it nice to be alive for another year? And to have a day on which all of the people who love or even just know you celebrate the fact?

This debate came up during the most recent Leadership Meeting at work. In a discussion about how to boost morale around the warehouse, I suggested making a birthday calendar. (Which, incidentally, I thought to be an embarrassingly innocuous suggestion. I just figured that a pizza party and raises for everyone was a pipe dream.) Immediately, half of the lame indie posers I work for asserted that no one would want to participate in this, people hate sharing their birthday, it was a terrible idea, how would they fit into their skinny hipster jeans if they ate cake, etc. I like how no one wondered how this crushing criticism might affect my morale. I also thought the objections stupid.

"Why not make it volunteer?" I asked, "Besides, doesn't the fact that the leadership team won't assert the warehouse as a caring community suggest an origin for the low morale levels?"

One day, prior to speaking, I'll just remove my shoe and sock and insert my foot into my mouth. Unfortunately, at the meeting, I exacerbated my blunder by staring stubbornly at the management team, silently daring them to come up with a better idea.


I won, ironically by dint of the management's genuine lack of interest in employee happiness; the lanky wonders who boss me around all day were too antsy for a smoke to continue arguing. I'll be sure, however, to honor their original wishes by ignoring their birthdays. Which is a shame, because tomorrow someone else will get these cupcakes.

Banana Cranberry Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache
Adapted from How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

This cupcake batter is assembled in one pot, and bakes up with delicious results. The moist little cakes taste like banana bread, with bursts of cranberry and a wonderfully deep, adult dark chocolate lid.

For the cupcakes:

3 overripe bananas, mashed
1/2 C unsalted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C dried cranberries

For the frosting:

1/2 C dark chocolate chips or pieces(I used Ghiardelli 60%)
100 ml heavy cream

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put 12 cupcake wrappers into a muffin tin and light mist cups with cooking spray.
• Melt the butter in a large pot. When melted, pull off the heat and whisk in the sugar, vanilla and mashed bananas until blended. Next, whisk in the the eggs and sour cream until incorporated. Add the salt, baking soda and baking powder, and mix well. Finish by adding the flour and cranberries and mixing until just blended.
• Bake for around 20 minutes, or until the cupcake tops are golden and springy, and a toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out relatively clean (a few moist crumbs are fine, you just don't want batter still clinging to it).
• Let cupcakes cool in wrappers on a rack.
• When the cupcakes are cool, add the chocolate pieces to the cream and heat to a boil in a saucepan. As soon as the cream boils, remove from the heat and whisk until smooth and thick. You can adjust the texture by adding more chocolate or cream.
• Using a spoon, frost the top of each cupcake, smoothing with the back of the spoon. It may run a bit, so place a sheet of wax paper underneath your baking rack.
• Let cool and enjoy! (Or, as I did below, take a gigantic bite while the chocolate's still warm and resign yourself to happiness.)