Like many people over the past year we've baked and eaten a lot of banana bread! We love it but thought we'd try something a bit different for our latest bake. 

The result was a combination of three of our favourite things: banana bread, cupcakes and Scottish drinks. We made BanANA Cupcakes which are infused with ANA Birch & Caramel Liqueur and topped with a cream cheese frosting.

The Buck & Birch ANA Liqueur

We love the ANA Liqueur as it's so smooth and sweet with notes of buttery caramel. This makes it ideal for baking with and the flavours complement the banana perfectly. The liqueur was added to the batter mix and we also substituted the vanilla in the frosting recipe for ANA.

The full list of ingredients and method can be found below.

This recipe should yield between 16-18 cupcakes depending on how big you make them (and how much mixture you eat along the way!). 

Ingredients

For the cupcake mixture:

• 250g plain flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 115g butter
• 150g light brown sugar
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• 3 large ripe bananas
• 2 tsp ANA Liqueur
• 70ml milk

Cream cheese frosting:

• 226g full fat cream cheese
• 2 tsp ANA Liqueur
• 500g icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 190°C and line your cupcake tray with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set this aside for later.
3. In another bowl cream together the sugar and butter. Once this is smooth add in the eggs until light and fluffy.
4. Mash the bananas and stir them into the wet mixture. The riper the bananas the sweeter they are. You can quickly ripen them in the microwave if necessary.
5. Add in the ANA Liqueur and milk to the mixture and combine well. Slowly sift in the dry flour mixture. Make sure it is well mixed before adding more.
6. Once the mixture is combined, spoon it into the cupcake cases. We used a just over a tablespoon for each cupcake.
7. Bake in the oven for around 18-20 minutes or until a knife comes out the middle of the cake completely clean. Take out the oven and leave to cool for around 10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
8. While the cakes are cooling prepare the frosting. To do this, add all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. If possible, use a mixer to do this as it makes the smoothest frosting. Place the frosting in the fridge to cool for around 10 minutes before piping on to the cakes.
9. Top with dried banana slices if desired.
10. Store the cakes in the fridge.