Chocolated Covered Banana Cupcakes

Ever since my daughter's baby shower, I've been obsessed with making the perfect cupcake. I've become a food reality show junkie as well, watching DC Cupcakes, Cake Boss, and Fabulous Cakes. I love watching how they make wonderful and artistic creations and my youngest child covers her eyes when they try to get their creations into the delivery vehicle.


The family has loved that I've taken on this adventure, but unfortunately, it's been hard to keep them from eating the cupcakes before I even frost them and even harder to keep them around to take a photograph!


We were invited to a cookout at my husband's co worker's house this weekend, so I decided to use them as guinea pigs to try out my latest creation. I'm getting pretty good at making banana cupcakes, so I threw together a batch. I wanted to try out a new frosting and the reality shows that I've been watching have been using chocolate ganache frosting, so I really wanted to try it. This is the first time I've ever tasted this topping and I totally fell in love-I AM a chocolate fan.


Introducing, chocolate covered banana cupcakes...yum.

I had a lot of frosting left, so I whipped up a batch of strawberry cupcakes-who wouldn't love chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes?

Everyone loved them and the adults actually ate them all before the kids had a chance-wow, I've created cupcake monsters.

Make it:

Chocolate Covered Banana Cupcakes

Banana Cupcakes Recipe:

2.5 cups granulated white sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium sized bananas)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 regular-sized muffin cups with paper liners In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, bananas, milk, oil, and vanilla extract. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Pour the batter into the muffin cups until about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting:

8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon butter

Ganache: Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. Set aside. Heat the cream and butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir with a whisk until smooth.

Strawberry and Chocolate Cupcakes-A Celebration.

My daughter's baby shower was yesterday and we went with pink and brown for the theme. We wanted to do cupcakes instead of a boring cake.

We went with a mixture of strawberry and chocolate cupcakes and put chocolate frosting on the strawberry cupcakes and strawberry frosting on the chocolate cupcakes. I came up with the idea of putting fresh strawberries on top of each of them at the last minute and it really added to the look.

I love the cupcake holders that Michaels carries, so I picked up one and we made it the centerpiece.

The bowl at the bottom of the photo is just some salsa in case you were wondering. For variety, I wanted some simple appetizers, so I scoured the Internet and found a recipe for these.

They are called French Dip Appetizers. I used Ritz crackers instead of wheat thins. They went fast. We still ended up with lots of leftovers because we had a lot of girls cancel, so I sent them all home with little mama.

Big brother will surely help her with eating them!

Make it:

Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

4 large eggs

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup buttermilk (room temperature)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cream together:
2 sticks unsalted butter (8 ounces)1 cup granulated sugar (7 ounces)1 cup light brown sugar (7-3/4 ounces)
Add:
4 large eggs (one at a time)6 ounces unsweetened chocolate (chocolate should be melted, then cooled for approximately 15 minutes before being added)
Add and alternate:
2 cups cake flour (9-1/4 ounces)1 teaspoon baking soda
With:
1 cup buttermilk (room temperature)1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Place cupcake paper into each cup of 2 muffin pans (each pan yielding 12 muffins). Then fill each cup with 1 leveled off scoop of an ice cream scooper.
Bake at 350°F in regular oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
Yields 24 to 27 cupcakes

Strawberry Cupcakes Recipe

Ingredients
10 tablespoons butter, room temperature
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon strawberry extract
1 3/4 cups self-rising flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries, drained

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease 12 cupcake pan cups or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the strawberry extract. Combine the self-rising flour and salt; stir into the batter just until blended. Fold in strawberries last. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with desired frosting.

Frosting-I used ready-made.

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French Dip Appetizers Recipe

Ingredients:

Roast beef lunch meat

Box of Ritz crackers

Block of chedder cheese

Container of fried onions

Directions: Place crackers on serving tray or plate. Tear off an inch of roast beef slice and fold over and place on cracker; repeat for all crackers. Slice thin slices of cheese and cut into one inch squares and place on each cracker. Place in microwave and set timer for 15 secs or just until cheese melts. Take out and put a couple of fried onions on each cracker as topping.

Whipped Lime Yogurt Dessert

After making the pound cake a couple of days ago, I found myself with lots of pound cake left over. In our house, I'm the one with the big sweet tooth, but I was not going to eat that whole thing. What to do with tons of pound cake in a house of non-sweet-eating-people?

I checked the fridge and found a container of lime flavored whipped yogurt and thought, why not? So, I opened it and got out the pound cake. I took the pound cake and cut up some squares and layered them in a small dessert glass, alternating with a layer of yogurt.

This is what I got.

You can't really see the lime green color of the yogurt in the photos, but the lime flavor really complimented the pound cake. I light snack or dessert that doesn't make you feel guilty afterwards. My five year old, Emily ate the rest and asked when I was going to take some more yummy food photos. lol.