For the cake batter I tweaked this recipe. Instead of the almond extract I added about a half teaspoon of banana flavoring. This gave the cake a slight banana flavor - not at all overpowering. I filled cupcake papers all the way to the top and baked for about 30 minutes in a 350ยบ oven. The cake came out incredibly light and airy. Yield: 20 cupcakes
Once the cupcakes were cool, I cut out all the "cake holes" with a sharp knife - make sure the cavity goes pretty deep into the cupcake so that you have enough room for a good amount of filling! My hubby gobbled up a bunch of the cake holes with buttercream icing - he was a happy camper.
In each hole I dropped a slice of banana, then filled all the way to the top with vanilla pudding (I totally cheated and used Jello Cook & Serve - I started to make the custard from scratch and it would not thicken for the life of me). On top of the pudding I placed a vanilla wafer (I actually used minis) - the bonus here is that it provides some stability - icing over a gaping pool of pudding would be a little tougher.
Once iced in vanilla buttercream, I added the finishing touch - another vanilla wafer on top of each cupcake. Voila! Banana Pudding Cupcake.