Banana-Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate-Honey Syrup

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I am baking these cupcakes again to use up some over-ripe bananas, I go back to Madhuram's Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake, only this time I decide to up the fat. I followed her recipe to the T and substituted oil with butter (just like how it's written in her Notes). Adding butter does make a difference, the cake was softer compared to when you use oil. This is a great recipe for moist, dark brown, vegan cupcakes :) HERE is my earlier post on this banana cake.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake

by Madhuram @ Eggless Cooking

Vegan cakes, according to me, taste better with a sweet topping. You could increase the sugar content in the cake itself but I think topping works better and also, a topping gives you the chance to introduce another flavor (honey, pomegranate for e.g.).

I had a little bit of a challenge with the topping. I didn't have the right ingredients for icing or buttercream or ganache ...sigh!! and I wanted a topping with honey (just like that!) There had to be something I could do with what was in hand, and after a desperate search I came across a recipe for chocolate mousse. All I needed was chocolate, honey, pomegranate juice and water - that's easy and the combination tasted yummiieeeeeeeeee!!! so I followed the recipe but I did not follow the measurements. Also, half way along I got lazy and decided to use the mix as a syrup so I didn't use a hand mixer to fluff it up! For the chocolate, I used a combination of some organic milk chocolate and some Honey and Almond Nougat Toblerone (you can spot some almond pieces on the cake!).

Chocolate-Honey Syrup
Inspired by Mika's Water Chocolate mousse @ Mess In The Kitchen

Notes/changes for next time:

• The syrup tasted great but I would want it a tad bit thicker next time, so either use the hand mixer method or just beat it a little longer, I wonder if refrigerating it for a little bit would work. 
• Also, let the cake sit with the syrup for a while. I thought the cupcake tasted much better the next day.
• I made 1/2 the quantity of the cake mentioned in Madhuram's recipe and I equally divided the batter to make 12 cupcakes. 
• I am updating this post (2 days after I posted it) with a new note, it suddenly occurred to me that a perfect topping for this vegan cake (in case you don't have the right ingredients and/or lazy to make one) would be tadaa! Nutella :) Just spread it over or you can even pipe it into the cupcake or treat it like icing and go crazy designing, Nutella has a good consistency for some basic icing tips.