Banana Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I swear. Time sure flies when you are having fun!

I meant to post this recipe almost a week ago. But time got away from me.

With Little Butt home from Grandma's house and our countdown to the first day of school it's been a bit busier over here than it has been this summer.

I can't believe my baby girl is going to kindergarten on Monday!! It's crazy!

Not only that, but now my baby boy is ONE!!

I cannot believe how quickly time is flying by. Before I know it, The Hubble will be home and it will be time to pack up the house and head to Florida. Phew!

So yeah. Our last couple weeks has been filled with school supplies, new clothes, Kinder Camp, open house (tonight), and finally going to the Y and getting some workouts in.

I have SOOO enjoyed having this little girl home! She fills the house with a bunch of noise and energy. It's great! Baby N has been getting more adept at walking and has even started getting faster with his big sister chasing him. Haha! It will be a sad day for Baby N and I when she heads to school all day.

Now. Onto the recipe. These are the cupcakes I made for Baby N's first birthday. His cake was made from this same batter. It's a large recipe. I was able to get a 6 inch cake and easily 24 cupcakes (may have been more, I don't remember now) out of this recipe alone.

The original recipe calls for walnut but I substituted chocolate chunks for the chunky monkey theme.

The cake was dense and more like banana bread than cake. But it was yummy. I loved the addition of the cinnamon and cardamom (two of my all time favorite spices. Those and ginger). I thought the spiciness of the cake, paired with the chocolate chunks studded throughout and topped with a rich chocolate buttercream frosting was tons of fun! And if you read my last post, you know that Baby N loved it too!

I would definitely make this recipe again. But next time I think I will add walnuts as well as the chocolate chunks. Y'all know I love me some texture in my baked goods!

Let's bake!

Whisk together your flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and cardamom. Mmmmm...cardamom. I love that stuff!

In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the mashed bananas and sour cream.

Cream up your butter then add the oil, and sugars.

Mix in the eggs, one at a time.

Then add the vanilla.

Now add in the flour mixture in 3 additions...

Alternating with the banana mixture in 2 additions. Stir in your chocolate chunk and nuts if you are into that kind of thing. Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 of the liner full. Then bake them up and cool them down.

Make your buttercream frosting and frost the cupcakes.

Serve and enjoy!!!


Banana Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes
Adapted from The Cake Book

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Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 11 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 6 Tablespoons safflower oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (11.5 ounce) bag chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pans with liners. Set aside.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom. Set aside.
3. In a small mixing bowl, combine the mashed bananas and sour cream. Set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium high speed until creamy, about 30 seconds.
5. Add the oil, granulated, and brown sugars and beat on high speed until light and creamy, about 3 minutes.
6. Reduce speed to medium and mix in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
7. Beat in the vanilla extract.
8. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the banana mixture in 2 additions. Mix until just blended.
9. Remove bowl from mixer and stir in chocolate chunks by hand.
10. Scoop batter into cupcake liners, filling each liner 2/3 full. 
11. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.
12. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes then place cupcakes on a cooling rack to cool completely. 
13. Top cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting.
14. Serve and enjoy!!

Black Forest Cupcakes

Last month, my facebook baking group chose a black forest cake as the group recipe.

The girl who hosted the month said that black forest cake was traditionally served at Okterberfest celebrations. She thought this recipe would make a great October selection for the group.

I was very excited about the recipe...except for the fact that I don't really care for chocolate...or cherries. Other than that? This recipe was awesome! LOL!

As the group began baking this cake some members were having difficulties with the frosting. Other's had issues with the cake itself.

So I decided to make the cake into little cupcakes.

Seeing as how I don't like cherries or chocolate and was none too thrilled about the combination of flavors in this dessert, I took these to a dinner party. 2 out of 3 people thought they were delicious.

One woman who tried the cupcake mentioned that the German idea of 'sweets' was not the same as the American idea. The Germans tend to favor desserts with less sugar than the Americans.

That being said, these are a great treat for those of you out there who do not care for body twitching sugary desserts.

Either way, the recipe was fun to make and I liked how they turned out looks wise. I enjoyed making the recipe into cupcakes instead of a 3 layer cake.

Here's how I made these cupcakes:

Grab your ingredients: eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, bread flour, cocoa powder, pastry flour, vegetable oil, cream of tartar, cornstarch, butter, whipping cream, cherry brandy and cherries (I could not find fresh so used canned. You can also use jarred if you wish).

We are going to start by making the cake. Place 5 eggs in a mixer and whip on high speed for 5 minutes.

Once the eggs are whipped up, add the sugar, salt and vanilla and mix well to combine.

Take the bowl off the mixing stand and place it atop a pot of simmering water. Heat the mixture to between 110 and 115 degrees F.

Once the mixture is heated, place it back on the mixing stand and whip for another 15 minutes to stabilize the mixture.

While the mixer is mixing for 15 minutes, go ahead and sift together the bread flour, pastry flour and cocoa powder.

Gradually fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture. While folding, slowly add in the oil.

Continue folding until all the ingredients are well combined.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured muffin pan. Immediately place in the oven and bake until the cake springs back to the touch, about 18-20 minutes. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

While the cake is baking, make the syrup. Combine the sugar, water, cherry brandy and cream of tartar in a small saucepan. Cook on low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Cover and let simmer about 2 minutes then remove from heat to let cool.

Next up, the cherry filling. Place the cherries and cherry brandy in a small saucepan and stir to coat the cherries.

Cook over medium low heat until most of the brandy evaporates, about 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool.

Now we can work on the pastry cream. Reserve 2 Tablespoons of the milk. Then combine the rest of the milk with half the sugar in a saucepan and bring to a gentle boil.

In a small bowl, combine the reserved milk with the cornstarch and whisk to make a slurry, or thin paste.

Then whisk in the rest of the sugar and the eggs.

Temper (or warm up) the egg mixture by slowly whisking in some of the heated milk to the mixture.

Now pour the warmed egg mixture into into the pot of boiling milk. Bring back to a boil, whisking constantly, and cook for 1 minute.

Remove the mixture from the heat. Then whisk in the butter and vanilla until the butter is melted and everything is combined.

Pour the cream into a large pan, cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool.

Now that everything is cooked and cooled it is time to start assembling the cupcakes! Take your cooled cupcakes and cut them in half horizontally.

Grab your cooled syrup and a pastry brush. Brush generous amounts of the syrup onto each cupcake half (or you can try to drizzle/pour the syrup over the cupcakes but I was too scared to do that).

Spoon some of the cherries onto the bottom of each syrup covered cupcake. Then spread some of the pastry cream onto the tops of each cupcake. Place the tops onto the cherry covered bottoms.

Whip the heavy cream and sugar on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Using whatever method you enjoy, top the cupcakes with the whipped cream. I placed my whipped cream into a pastry bag with a 1M decorating tip and swirled it. You can get a similar effect by putting the whipped cream in a large ziplock bag and cutting off the corner. Or you can spread or spoon it on.

Decorate with cherries or sprinkle cocoa powder on top.

Serve to your friends. And enjoy!!

Oh! And if this recipe interests you, come on over to our group and join us!

Black Forest Cupcakes
Slightly adapted from Food Network

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Ingredients

For the cake:

• 5 eggs
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon bread flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon pastry flour
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon oil

For the syrup:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 4 teaspoons cherry brandy
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the cherry filling:

• 1 quart fresh cherries, pitted and halved
• 1 cup cherry brandy

For the Pastry Cream:

• 1 1/3 cups milk, divided
• 1/3 cup sugar, divided
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the whipped cream topping:

• 1 pint heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

For the Cupcakes:

1. Heat a skillet full of water to a bare simmer. 
2. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, whip eggs on high speed for 5 minutes. 
3. To the eggs add sugar, salt and vanilla and combine. 
4. Set the bowl into the hot water bath to heat the mixture to between 110 and 120 degrees F.
5. Stabilize the mixture by whipping on medium speed for 15 more minutes.
6. Meanwhile sift together the bread flour, the cocoa powder, and the pastry flour. Prepare the baking pans by greasing 2 cupcake pans and dusting with flour.
7. Gradually fold the sifted dry ingredients into the egg mixture by hand. Slowly pour in the oil while folding.
8. Fill the muffin pans approximately 2/3 full with the batter and place immediately in the oven. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes. (The surface of the cake should spring back when touched.) 
9. Cool 10 minutes in the pans, then remove to wire racks to let cool completely.

For the syrup:

1. Combine the sugar, water, cherry brandy, and cream of tartar in a small saucepan. 
2. Cook over low heat stirring only until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is hot. 
3. Cover and simmer gently for 2 minutes. 
4. Remove from heat, uncover and let cool.

For the cherry filling:

1. Place cherries in a small saucepot and add brandy, stirring to coat cherries. 
2. Heat over medium low heat until most of liquid evaporates, then remove from heat and let cool.

For the pastry cream:

1. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the milk then combine the rest of the milk with half the sugar and bring to a gentle boil. 
2. In a small bowl whisk the 2 tablespoons of reserved milk into the cornstarch to create a slurry. 
3. Add the other half of the sugar and then the eggs to the slurry and whisk to completely combine. 
4. Temper the egg mixture with the boiling milk. (This is done by spooning some of the milk into the egg mixture to equalize temperatures without cooking the eggs.) 
5. Return all liquids to the pot and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Cook for 1 minute. 
6. Remove the milk mixture from the heat and whisk in butter and vanilla extract. 
7. Pour into a large pan, put plastic wrap directly on the surface, and allow to cool.
8. Slice each of the cupcakes (horizontally). 
9. Place the cupcake halves onto baking sheets (which have a rim) and pour or brush cherry syrup over the layers, allowing them to soak.

For the cream topping:

1. Whip the heavy cream and sugar with an electric mixer on high to a stiff peak.
2. Assemble the cakes by spreading a layer of the pastry cream on the top half, then placing brandied cherries on the bottom half. Place cupcake halves together. Repeat with remaining cupcakes.
3. Frost top layer of cake with whipped cream topping and garnish with cherries or sifted cocoa powder.

Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

A few weeks ago I was looking through some blogs that I follow and I found that Jessica was hosting this little thing called a Bake-n-Blog.

What is a Bake-n-Blog you ask?? Well, let me tell you. Jessica challenged her readers to pick a cupcake from a site called Ming Makes Cupcakes (there are currently 33 cupcake options on this site). Each reader would choose a cupcake, make it and blog about it on the due date (today) and link up on Jessica's site.

I automatically thought of The Jane Austen Book Club and how each member read one of Jane Austen's books and reported back to the others about the storyline and so on.

And naturally, me being both a reader (though that really has nothing to do with this challenge) and a baker, I decided to play along.

I chose cupcake number 24, a chocolate coffee cupcake with a Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. And my oh my was I happy with my choice! When I tried the cupcake with the frosting I pretty much foodgasmed. There is absolutely no other way to describe my reaction upon that first bite. Remember that cafe scene on When Harry Met Sally? Yeah. That could have been me when I took that first bite.

I ended up making 2 batches of these cupcakes for two reasons: 1) one batch only makes 12 cupcakes and I needed to feed at least 16 people, and 2) I forgot the vanilla in the first batch - D'oh!

The cupcakes without the vanilla were still really good. But with the vanilla. Oh yes, with the vanilla... ::insert movie scene here::

One more thing. I made 2 batches of the cupcakes but only needed one batch of the frosting so when you make these, either double the cupcake recipe or halve the frosting recipe.

Ready to get started?? Good! Here we go:

Ingredients for the cupcakes: all purpose flour, sugar, VANILLA, butter, salt, baking soda, cocoa powder, eggs, coffee.

And the recipe calls for buttermilk. But I didn't have buttermilk so I made my own. Here's how. Take some whole milk and white vinegar.

You need 1/4 cup of buttermilk so pour your milk almost to the 1/4 line.

Then pour in the vinegar until you reach the line (I went a bit over but that's okay). Now set it aside and leave it alone for about 5 minutes. We are going to do the other stuff while that sets.

Toss your butter in a small saucepan stirring until it melts (sorry for the really bright picture!).

When the butter is melted, toss in your cocoa powder.

Whisk all that cocoa in the butter until everything is nice and smooth.

Then whisk in the coffee and set that aside.

Sift your flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl and set that aside.

By now our "buttermilk" should have had enough time to set so go ahead and stir it up.

Then stir in the baking soda until it is dissolved.

At this point it's time to add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix it until well combined.

Then add your eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between each addition.

Now mix in the buttermilk....

And trying hard not to forget this crucial step, add the vanilla. Go ahead, point, laugh and snicker at me because this picture was taken during the second batch. Go ahead...get it out of your system. Okay. Done? Ready to move on? Good.

Now, pour the batter into cupcake paper line muffin tins.

And bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 20 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Then take them out of the pan and let them cool on the rack completely.

Yay! Now it's time for the frosting. You will need Bailey's, confectioner's sugar, butter, milk, vanilla and coffee.

This is pretty easy, just throw everything into the mixer and mix it up until smooth.

Now frost the cupcakes!

And because you can't send anything into class with The Hubble without trying it first, go ahead and grab one (with vanilla).

Unwrap it...

And try not to embarrass yourself when you taste it. Enjoy!


Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting
Retrieved from Ming Makes Cupcakes

Printer Friendly Version

Ingrediets:

For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup buttermilk; room temperature (or use whole milk with a bit of white vinegar)
• 3 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup coffee
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the frosting:

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 4 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1/4 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• 2 Tablespoons Coffee

Directions:

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in buttermilk.
3. In a small saucepan, melt butter and cocoa powder together at a low temperature. When smooth, whisk in coffee.
4. In separate bowl, sift together flour, sugar and salt.
5. Add cocoa mixture and egg; mix at low speed.
6. Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla; mix until well combined.
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until tester inserted in center of cupcakes comes out clean.
8. Cool on wire rack in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

For the frosting:

1. Beat ingredients until smooth; spread on cupcakes.