Banana cupcakes

With Iron Chef: Battle Cupcake on the horizon I had some serious decisions to make.
Blueberry Lemon?
My classic Pumpkin Spice?
Something more classic?
Chocolate and. . . ? (banana, peanut butter, raspberry. . . . )
The options are limitless. However, I landed on chocolate and peanut butter. And banana. And butterscotch. Um. . .I may have gotten carried away.

Banana Cupcakes
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
5 ripe bananas, mashed
2/3 - 1 cup lowfat vanilla yogurt
Add ins: nuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, etc.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 2 - 8 inch round pans, or prep cupcake pans. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in the bananas. Add flour mixture alternately with the yogurt to the creamed mixture. Stir in nuts, or chips. Pour batter into the prepared pans.
I saw a lady on tv put the batter into a plastic bag and cut off the tip to pipe into the pans - this is my new favorite thing. I feel bad about wasting the bag, but it is so much cleaner and easier than spooning it in.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes (15 minutes for mini cupcakes, 20 minutes for full sized cupcakes). Remove from oven, and place on a damp tea towel to cool.

One batch I left plain. One I added semi sweet chocolate chips to. One I added butterscotch chips to.
Then I took a can of triple chocolate chip frosting and mixed 1/4 cup of peanut butter in. The results are pretty sweet; I may have to cut back on the sugar in the batter, or UCK make my own frosting so it's not so sweet. Of all the combos, I was the biggest fan of the plain cakes with the peanut butter and chocolate frosting; the boys like the chocolate chip with the peanut butter and chocolate frosting; we all agreed that while very tasty, the butterscotch chip version was just way too sweet.

I'm not in love with the results, but they're pretty damn tasty. I considered drizzling some bourbon caramel on top instead of frosting, but was too tired of baking to whip up a batch.

The next day I made the salted caramel frosting (which I added bourbon to, thankyouverymuch) I found on The Kitchn and this, my friends, was the winner. Definitely NOT on the butterscotch, but yes on the plain, and yes on the chocolate chip.
I think for my birthday I'll make my banana cake with the salted caramel bourbon frosting and maybe the drizzle of chocolate they mention in the recipe on Savour-fare.

**Update**
The more I think about it, the more irritated I am that these cupcakes were so DENSE and banana bready. This here recipe is incredibly similar, but they're promising light and fluffy results. . . maybe I'll give it a shot. Maybe instead of using so many nanas to get that nana flavor, I'll have to * gasp * use banana extract or something. I think it's the fruit that's weighing things down.
This one wants me to believe it's the best ever (some cakes are so full of themselves). We shall see people, we shall see. Now that I have to make them for Thanksgiving it seems I'll have plenty of time to experiment.