Banana Nut Bread and Orange Spice Cupcakes!

I started Weight Watchers 3 weeks ago and it is going great. The weird thing is, I generally hate to bake and now it is all I want to do. I don't necessarily want to eat what I bake, I just want to bake. Weird, huh? Today I made banana nut bread, my husbands favorite and Orange Spice cupcakes!  Forgive the mismatched seasonal wrappers, I am trying to use up all the extras I have and am going to just buy white from now on!

Orange Spice cake

• 3 cups cake flour sifted
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup butter or margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp grated orange peel
• 1 1/2 orange extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together flour, baking powder, spices and salt; set aside. Cream sugar and butter together until light. Add eggs, orance extract, orance peel and vanilla to creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Continue beating one minute. Pour into cupcake liners. Bake 15-18 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove and cool completely before decorating. Yeilds about 12 standard cupcakes.  ( I doubled this recipe)

The frosting is 3 tbls butter, 8 oz cream cheese, 2 tsp orange extract, and orange food coloring creamed togerther then slowly add 4 cups powdered surger.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!