I have recently discovered that I like to bake. And although in my first ever attempt at making Red Velvet Cupcakes I missed out three of the main ingredients – I now understand what baking powder is for – I have come a long way since then and have mastered cupcakes and will soon move on to more complicated sweets but I thought I would share my latest creation, Banoffee Cupcakes. Toffee flavoured butter icing atop moist banana sponge, decorated with dark chocolate
Now I have to admit, I am not a big fan of banoffee but as it was someone’s birthday recently I thought I would make his favourite. In the recipe book the cupcakes are topped with a custard based icing, but because I hate custard and because that seemed like a little too much effort I adapted it to toffee butter icing.
For the sponge:
80g unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1 tbsp. of baking powder
¼ tsp. of salt
240ml of milk (book says whole milk, but you will never find me using that)
1 tsp. of vanilla essence
2 large eggs
2 ripe bananas
For the icing:
500g of icing sugar
160g of unsalted butter
3 ½ tbsp. of tinned caramel
50ml of milk
Dark chocolate to decorate
Once I pre-heated the oven to 190’C and filled muffin tins with 16 muffin cases, I moved on to the real ingredients. I mixed the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt on a low speed in an electric mixer until all the ingredients are well mixed together and it looks like breadcrumbs. Then whisk together the milk, vanilla essence and eggs in a jug and pour three quarters of it into the dry ingredients. Mix on a low speed, scraping the bowl to make sure it is all incorporated. Increase the speed to medium, adding the rest of the milk mixture from the jug until that batter is smooth. TRY IT, IT TASTES GREAT! Peel and mash the bananas and stir them in. I did not mash the bananas too much so that you have bigger chunks in the cakes, but you can do as you please.
Divide the batter between the muffin cases, filling each one two thirds of the way up and if there is more, just use more cases. Bake the cupcakes for about 16-18 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed. Once they are ready, take them out and leave them to cool on a wire rack. Once completely cooled you can begin the icing.
Mix the butter and icing sugar in an electric mixer until powdering in texture. Gradually add in the milk and increase the speed, the mix will become smooth a thick. Once this is done, slowly mix in the tinned caramel, one-tablespoon at a time until the colour turns caramel. Spoon the icing on to the cold cupcakes, smoothing it out with a paddle knife and swirl to finish. Grate some dark chocolate on top to finish it off.
