Banana Cupcakes -- The Cake That Said Two Years

February 6th, 2025. Two years. I woke at 4:47 AM without an alarm, because my body has remembered this time since the first February, and lay in the dark and thought: two years. Two years of Owen and Nora in the world. Two years since Ryan slept in a hospital chair and Patty brought food in containers and Babcia Rose prayed in Polish next to an incubator and I talked to my babies through incubator glass about the apartment and the city and everything they were going to grow up in.

Priya came again. She drove from the hospital in her own car on her day off and walked through Steve and Patty's door and Owen ran to her — he has seen the photographs from his first birthday, the photograph of Priya crouching, the one we printed and put on the wall — and he ran to her and she crouched down and he looked at her and said "you" with the certainty of someone who knows a face. She looked at me over his head and I saw the same thing in her face I have seen since the NICU: she holds all the versions of him, the four-pound version and the running version, and she is carrying both at the same time. I understand this. I am carrying both at the same time too.

Nora ate three slices of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Owen ate his slice and then half of the slice set aside for Priya, which Priya said was fine, he could have it, she wanted him to have it. He ate it. He is two years old and he eats birthday cake and runs through rooms and builds towers and says "I love you, Mama" on Tuesday mornings and he is fine and healthy and exactly right and two years ago I did not know if he would be.

After the party, in the car on the way home, Ryan drove and I looked out the window at Chicago in February, grey and cold and stubbornly beautiful, and I thought: we did two years. We did the NICU and the survival year and the school year and Babcia Rose and the first Christmas without her and the notebook in the kitchen drawer. We did two years. Whatever comes next, we will do that too.

We had yellow cake with chocolate frosting at the party — Patty made it, because that is what Patty does — but I wanted something I had made with my own hands for Owen and Nora, something small and theirs. Banana cupcakes felt right: soft and sweet and not too much, the kind of thing a two-year-old can hold and eat without ceremony. After two years of holding so much, I needed to bake something simple and joyful and watch them eat it.

Banana Cupcakes

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 18 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups)
• 1/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
• Cream cheese frosting or buttercream, for topping

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin (and a second tin for remaining batter) with paper cupcake liners.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Add bananas and sour cream. Stir in the mashed bananas and sour cream until just combined. The batter will look slightly curdled — that’s normal.
6. Combine wet and dry. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and fold gently until just incorporated. Do not overmix.
7. Fill and bake. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake for 18—22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and tops are golden.
8. Cool and frost. Let cupcakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting. Frost generously with cream cheese frosting or buttercream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 115mg