Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare a muffin tin with nonstick liners.
If you are making gluten-free cupcakes, I recommend mixing the flour and buttermilk together first. It helps to fully hydrate the flour. If you want to presoak and ferment the flour, see the section above for details. All-purpose flour should be added with cinnamon, salt, and baking soda.
Mash the banana in a large bowl. Stir in the melted butter. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Add the vanilla extract, buttermilk, and flour. Stir in the salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.
Divide the batter among the cupcake liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick, comes out clean.
Crunchy Cinnamon Sugar Coating
Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before coating.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl. The amount of sugar to use will depend on how sweet you want the cupcakes to be. To fully coat the cupcakes in sugar, use 1/2 cup of sugar.
To coat in cinnamon sugar, first, brush each cupcake with melted butter. Then roll the cupcake in the cinnamon sugar.
The cupcakes are best if served immediately after coating. Feel free to top with a cream cheese frosting.
Notes
For a classic cupcake, use my gluten-free baking flour blend and don’t preferment the flour. Otherwise, see the section above for details on how to preferment whole grain gluten-free flour (like oat or buckwheat).
If you want to completely avoid refined sugar for this recipe, coat the cupcakes in sifted date sugarinstead of white sugar.