Bananas and Soda???

Yum! Those are some pretty nice looking banana cupcakes right? To be honest, that's not my picture I found it on Tesco.com but that's besides the point because all I wanted was the picture. For now at least!!

Here's my issue. I have a tried and true recipe for banana bread that I have tweaked and trimmed and I absolutely love it! I had some bananas lying around the other day but not enough for my recipe and coincidentally I received an email with a banana cupcake recipe that asked for the exact amount of bananas that I had! 

Well, needless to say I decided to try it out right away. Here's my problem, the recipe did not ask for baking soda. At first I didn't give it much thought, but after I had them in the oven (of course!) I thought what?? No baking soda?? That's weird. First banana bread or cupcake recipe that I see that has no baking soda.

I know what you're thinking, flat cupcakes right? Well no, rising wasn't the problem because the recipe did call for baking powder, so that was fine. So what was it??

Texture! And worst of all, color!!!

OMG!!!! Horrible, sad looking little cupcakes! And they were dense and not at all melt in your mouth good!!!

So, here's a tip, always, always, ALWAYS use baking soda, NO MATTER WHAT THE RECIPE SAYS!!! If you don't, your bread, cake or cupcakes will come out all gray looking and... and... and... just not right at all!

If you have a recipe disaster, please share it!!