Banana Muffins With Caramel Frosting

Banana Muffins with Caramel Frosting
I tried this recipe yesterday, when we bought 8 overripe bananas at the store.  I tripled the recipe, but 8 bananas wasn't quite enough, so I used some ripe banana I had stored in the freezer to make up the difference.  Then I froze some of the muffins and 2 mini loaves for later.  I love this recipe, and want to make it again when we have the cider-pressing party in October.  Allen and Anna should be here then, visiting before they go to do charity veterinary work in Delhi, India for 6-12 months.
This recipe is from Taste of Home, 2007 Annual Recipes, and was submitted by Katherine McClelland from Deep Brook, Nova Scotia.  Katherine made them into jumbo muffins, but I don't have a jumbo muffin tin, so I made regular-sized muffins.  Tripling the recipe made 2 dozen muffins and 3 mini-loaves.
1/4 cup shortening (I used butter-flavored Crisco)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 ripe)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Caramel Icing:
2 Tbl butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbl milk
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

In electric mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar.  Add egg; beat well.  Add bananas and vanilla; mix well.  Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl, and add to creamed mixture.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.  Bake at 350 degrees for 23 - 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
For icing, in a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.  Stir in brown sugar and milk; bring to a boil.  Cool slightly.  Whisk in confectioners' sugar.  Use small whisk to drizzle over muffins - hold it straight upright, and the caramel will come out in streams.  Recipe calls for putting icing in a ziplock bag, and cutting a small hole in a corner, but I didn't want to wait that long for it to cool.  The small whisk worked very well.  This icing hardened when cool, and would have been harder to drizzle that way.  But it means the icing stayed on top of the muffins, and wasn't too messy later, which I appreciate.  They tasted great without the icing, but with the icing they became good enough to serve to company.  It's a good thing I froze most of them or