Weekend Bakes: Banoffee Pie Cupcakes

Banoffee pie is one of my favourite desserts and I have been meaning to get them into cupcake form for a while. So when Kat Buckley , aka The Baking Explorer made a batch of delicious looking banoffee cupcakes and we happened to have a few over ripe bananas I knew how I was going to spend my afternoon.

We seem to have had a bit of a run of bananas that were ripening far too quickly, hence the two weeks running of banana-related recipes!

Having made the banana loaf the week before, I already had a good idea of what was going to go into my mix and used light brown sugar and butter as opposed to caster sugar and margarine.

The batter smelled lovely and banana-y and there was a lovely sugary aroma when they were baking. I was a little disappointed when they came out of the oven because every single one of the cupcakes had sank. The mixture made about 16 cupcakes so I'd put 12 in my gas oven and the rest in the electric oven and, as you can see, they all sank so I think this must have been a problem with the mixture rather than the ovens. I'm thinking maybe the bananas were too heavy for my usual, light sponge mixture?

However, I was not to be deterred: the middles were coming out anyway so I could fill them with lovely sweet toffee sauce. I did cheat a bit on the sauce. We had some ready-made toffee sauce in the cupboard and I opted to use that instead of making my own and perhaps having a lot left over.

The usual topping for a banoffee pie is lovely thick whipped cream but because I wanted the cupcakes to last a few days I chose to top mine with buttercream but I think this worked ok. It gave a different flavour and texture being heavier and sweeter than whipped cream but as it was on a cupcake I think that was allowed.

The cupcakes were then topped with grated chocolate and were ready to eat.

Banana and toffee is such a fantastic combination, so when you take that first bite and you get the lovely moist banana-y cake mixed with the smooth toffee sauce, you know you're on to a winner! I think this would have worked as a 'naked' cupcake with a dollop of whipped cream or buttercream on the side.

The only thing lacking with these cupcakes was the biscuit element. Kat added Speculoos to her batter to get a biscuit flavour. I did think about crumbling some biscuit on the top with the chocolate but I didn't want it to go soft. Maybe I need to experiment with a  biscuit base at the bottom of the cupcake case! After all it is all about the buttery biscuit base... 

Recipe:

For the Cake:

6oz soft light brown sugar

6oz unslated butter, softened

3 eggs

6oz self raising flour

2 ripe bananas, mushed

For the middle:

toffee sauce of your choosing

For the buttercream:

400g icing sugar

100g unsalted butter, softened

a few tablespoons of milk

To top:

- chocolate to grate

Method:

- pre-heat oven to gas mark 4/170 degrees C

- line baking tins with cupcake cases

- cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

- lightly beat the eggs then add them to the sugar mixture a bit at a time

- add the occasional tablespoon of flour to stop the mixture curdling

- add half of the remaining flour and fold in gently

- add the remaining flour and the mushed up banana, again folding in gently

- spoon into the cupcake cases about 2/3 full and pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes and 

  hope they don't sink!

- in the meantime, make the buttercream by mixing the butter and icing sugar, adding the 

  milk a bit at a time until you get a good piping consistency (soft enough to pipe, firm 

  enough for it to stay piped!)

- when the cupcakes are done, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool

- when fully cool take out the middles of the cupcakes with an apple corer or knife, fill 

  the holes with toffee sauce and then pop the removed cake back in

- top the cake with a swirl of buttercream then sprinkle over some grated chocolate

- stuff your face!

Vicky xx

Weekend Bakes: Nigel Slater's Black Banana Cake

For a while now I have been meaning to try my hand at making some banana bread. It seems to be everywhere at the minute; just the other morning someone was making it on Lorraine and it made me a bit sad that my breakfast was rather boring. When I was on holiday in Australia the other year I had it for breakfast all the time like it was just a standard thing. I'd get it toasted, smoother it in butter and then just be in a banana, buttery paradise for the duration of breakfast. I think if I started everyday like that it would be pretty sweet; cake that is positively encouraged as breakfast food is fine by me.

We had a bit of a run a couple of weeks ago of getting really bad bananas; they were ripening very quickly and ended up getting wasted. So I decided that was the perfect time to have a go at some banana bread.

Except I didn't.

What I actually ended up making was Nigel Slater's Black Banana Cake made with banana, chocolate chip and hazelnut loaf. (And I didn't even really make that because we didn't have any hazelnuts and I had to use walnuts.) I'm not sure what happened between me looking for banana bread recipes and ending up with a cakey loaf but it happened. The worse thing being I couldn't really get away with eating that for breakfast. Well... maybe not on a daily basis.

But I did end up with a really nice, light loaf full of flavour and texture that was excellent for eating during the day with a cup of tea.

I won't type out the whole recipe here as it can be found here. It varies on a normal sponge by using butter and light brown sugar instead or margarine and caster sugar. I love baking anything that uses brown sugar instead of caster sugar; the smell when it is in the oven is a delicious caramel-type smell that makes your mouth water. I also think that anything that smells like that lends itself to be eaten when warm and melty.

Look at all that chocolate!

Only problem with the recipe was maybe the cooking temperature could have been a touch lower; I was surprised at how quickly I had to cover the loaf because the top was browning very fast but the middle still wasn't anywhere near ready. I think this explains why my loaf came out sunken because I'd had to open the oven door sooner than I would  have liked.

It was also quite crumbly which is fine, I guess, when you are just going to eat it, but it made it really difficult to cut up into nice slices.

Crumbly goodness

There was no frills and bows with this one, just the cake as it was and that was all that was needed. There was enough moisture in the cake from the bananas that it wasn't dry to eat on its own and there was a lovely sweetness from the chocolate and a crunch from the walnuts. My next door neighbour and chief taste tester, Uncle Ian, said he didn't think it needed the chocolate but I think banana and chocolate is such a wonderful combination.

My favourite part of the taste test was when my mum claimed that it was a shame when you use apples in baking that it makes the cake look like it's not cooked... Two thumbs from her then: bananas that taste like apples and a stodgy looking loaf.

This one is definitely worth having a go at, and I won't shout if you eat it for breakfast!

Vicky xx