Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream

 Hello, all! As you may already know, fall has finally arrived and I am so excited!! Not only is it my favorite season, but it also means everything will be pumpkin-flavored! So there will be many, many pumpkin recipes coming soon!

So I had a banana lying around (OK well, I stole it off of Roger's bunch), and I decided to make just enough cupcakes for that one banana (which is about 9). I found a recipe for banana cupcakes and cut everything in half. This is the whole recipe:

• 1/2 c shortening
•  1 1/2 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1c mashed bananas (about 2 bananas)
• 1/4c buttermilk*
• 2c all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• **1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg** (I added this and it's delicious!)

1) Cream shortening and sugar.

2) Add eggs, vanilla, bananas, and buttermilk.
3) Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add to the banana mixture.

4) Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Insert a butter knife in order to determine doneness.

They look a bit overfilled, so I'll make 9 next time

Meanwhile, I made a Martha Stewart recipe for peanut butter buttercream (yields one cup-- perfect for this amount of cupcakes!)

• 2/3 c peanut butter
• 8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c confectioner's sugar
• fine salt (like popcorn salt)

1) Cream peanut butter and butter on high speed using the paddle attachment.
2) On low speed, mix in the sugar until combined, then beat the mixture on high until fluffy (about 3 minutes).
3) Add salt to taste.

Yum!!

  And when the cupcakes and this buttercream are combined...

... something delicious and magical happens! These are amazing! My Betrothed (who is a huge fan of bananas and peanut butter) loved them! So these recipes are definite keepers! I can't wait to pair these banana cupcakes with other buttercream recipes (cream cheese? salted caramel? Brown butter?). Stay tuned!

Ah, yes. About that pesky asterisk up there...

*I didn't have buttermilk on hand when I was making this recipe, but I did have milk and lemons, so this is a way to make buttermilk for baking: Combine 1/2 cup of milk (I had 2% and it worked fine) and 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Let sit for 15 minutes, and voila! You have buttermilk!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Filling and Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Last night, my beloved and I went to a very fun and romantic Valentine's Day dinner party. It was hosted by our really good friend, Voltage (yes, it's his real name), and the food was excellent. I was to bring the dessert, so I wanted to make something rich and decadent. So why not chocolate filled with chocolate topped with chocolate?

I started with Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix.

I think this flavor is relatively new, and I used it for the Virginia Tech cake back in November. This mix makes a very moist cake that is super rich and chocolatey. I used little heart-printed cups, even though they'll be hard to see once the chocolate cake is baked in. Hey, it's the principle of the thing!

I baked the cupcakes according the the package and set to work on the ganache and buttercream while they cooled. The recipe for the ganache has just two ingredients:

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2/3 cup heavy cream

I warmed the cream on the stove on low heat, then I poured it over the chips. I let the bowl sit to cool a bit.

I got started on the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Some are afraid to make this buttercream because there are a lot of steps that can go wrong (and if one thing goes wrong, it's all ruined!) I found a recipe on Martha Stewart's website. I made half the recipe, which works great for 12 cuppin' cakes. This is is the full recipe here:

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 pound (4 sticks ) butter, room temperature, and cut into tablespoons
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine the egg whites, salt, and sugar into the bowl of your mixer and place it over a saucepan with simmering water. Whisk constantly until the mixture is warm and the sugar is dissolved (you shouldn't be able to feel granules between your fingers). This should take about 8 minutes.

It'll go from this...

...to this.

 2. Move the bowl onto the mixer with the whisk attachment and mix on medium-high speed until stiff peaks (but not dry!) form. This is about 8-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I was cutting up my butter...

Make sure it's room temperature!!!!

3. Mix the butter in on medium-low speed, adding a couple tablespoons at a time. Make sure the butter mixes well before you add more. Once all the butter is in, add the vanilla. Switch to the paddle attachment and mix it until smooth.

Yum!

You can stop there if you want just vanilla buttercream. Seriously, it tastes exactly like vanilla ice cream. So good! I decided to add 2.5 ounces of melted and cooled semi-sweet chocolate.

With that done, it's time to put everything together! I cut holes into the cupcakes...

Then poured in the ganache...

And topped with buttercream!

This is what the ganache looked like immediately after topping it...

If you like that consistency, by all means, leave it. But I wanted it set a little bit more, so I put the guys in the refrigerator for about half an hour. The ganache came out perfect! It was smooth but it had set a little so it didn't run out. The cupcakes were a definite hit, and everyone loved them! :)

Thanks for dinner, Voltage!

Martha's Pumpkin Cake

 Since my beloved and I are not Mr. and Mrs. yet, we still spend time at our respective family's homes for Thanksgiving. I wanted to make a dessert for his family as a little gift, so I tried a new pumpkin cake recipe. I turned to Martha Stewart (she has yet to fail me in the recipe department) for her Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe. It can be found here, along with a tasty Honey Frosting recipe.

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 (15-oz) can solid-pack pumpkin puree

1) Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 6" pans (could potentially be three pans) with Baker's Joy.

2) In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. In a larger bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and sugar. Combine the dry with the wet, and gently mix until smooth.

3) Spoon batter into pans and smooth out the tops. Bake until a butter knife inserted comes out with only a few moist crumbs. (I would go for 55- 60 minutes with these 6" pans. The original recipe called for a 9" square baking pan.)

4) Cool the cakes for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn them out onto a rack (right-side-up) to cool completely.

And, of course, I used my reliable little cream cheese buttercream to pair with this delicious cake. I wanted it to look like a carrot cake, so I made little pumpkins to go around the edges with some hanging vines. Just a simple little design.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Welcoming Autumn: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Buttercream

It's been a bit gloomy outside, so it's perfect weather for staying inside and baking! So what to bake...? I decided to celebrate the arrival of my favorite season with my favorite flavor: PUMPKIN! I love love love fall, and I love the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin filling the air. I chose a recipe from Lauren Chattman's Cake Keeper Cakes: Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. Instead of putting the batter into a loaf pan, I put it into two standard cupcake pans. The recipe is as follows...

1 3/4 c unbleached flour (I used bleached but Chattman stated there would be a cleaner flavor with unbleached)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
pinch nutmeg
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 c sugar
3 large eggs
1 c canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 c milk
1 c mini semisweet chocolate chips ( I just used normal sized chips)
1 c chopped walnuts (can easily be omitted... or replaced with pecans yum!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Place cupcake papers in pans.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl

3. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, and mix for about 3 minutes. remember to scrape down the sides!
4. With mixer on medium-low, add the eggs one at a time. Stir in pumpkin puree, vanilla, and milk.

5. Turn the mixer to low, and add the dry ingredients 1/2 cup at a time. Scrape the sides of the bowl after each addition. I waited until there was about a half cup of dry ingredients left, then I added my chocolate chips and walnuts to that. Then I slowly added it into the batter. It's a good way for the chips and nuts to stay suspended in the cake batter while baking and not sink to the bottom!

6. Portion out the batter into 24 cupcakes and place in oven for 20 minutes. Insert a butter knife (not toothpick!) into a couple of different cupcakes to determine if the knife comes out clean (well, clear of batter, but melted chocolate is OK!).

The cupcakes can be stored in a cake keeper for up to 3 days, or wrapped up in the fridge for up to one week.

I figured a pretty delicious flavor combination would be cream cheese. So I found a cream cheese buttercream recipe from Martha Stewart.

1 8-oz package of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 lb (about 4-ish cups) of confectioner's sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Cream butter and cream cheese in a mixer for 30 seconds. It calls for the paddle attachment, but I like the whisk. It makes for a much fluffier buttercream.

2. With the mixer on low, slowly add in the confectioner's sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Add vanilla, then increase the mixer to medium. Blend until fluffy (about a minute).

There's enough frosting here to cover the 24 cupcakes the way I did with about a cup or so left over.

If you wanted to do a huge swirl on each, you can. I garnished with a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice, but I think a cool idea could also be toasted walnut pieces. These were super delish, and I'm so proud of meself! *grin!*