Hummingbird Cupcakes

I watched Cupcake Wars and they made hummingbird cupcakes. They looked delicious and pretty easy to make. Apparently hummingbird cake is pretty popular in the south. Traditionally hummingbird cake has pecans in it, but I'm allergic so I used sliced almonds.

I need to work on my icing skills.

ingredients

1C sliced almonds

4 bananas chopped into pieces

1C chopped pineapple

2 3/4 C all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 3/4 C sugar

3/4 C vegetable oil

2 8oz pkgs of cream cheese, room temp

12 tbs butter, room temp

1 tbs lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla extract

2C confectioner's sugar

directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line muffin tins or grease cupcake cups (I have silicone cupcake cups that I use instead of wasting cupcake liners).
3. Combine almonds, bananas, and pineapples in a bowl with 1/2 C of flour. Make sure all pieces are coated.
4. In separate bowl, combine 2 1/4C flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt.
5. Beat eggs and sugar in mixer until thick and creamy.
6. Add oil to the egg mixture.
7. Gradually add flour mixture to egg/sugar/oil mixture.
8. Fold in banana mixture.
9. Put batter into cupcake cups.
10. Bake cupcakes about 28 minutes, until golden brown.
11. Let cupcakes completely cool.
12. Beat cream cheese and butter in mixer until fluffy
13. Gradually add lemon zest and powdered sugar.
14. Beat until smooth.
15. Refrigerate ~20 minutes.
16. Frost cupcakes.
17. Enjoy!