MSC: Banana Pecan Cupcakes

Woo hoo, it's my second Martha Stewart Cupcakes Club challenge! This was a bonus challenge this month, since we already did the zucchini spice cupcakes earlier this month. I was all for a bonus challenge so I could work on my cupcake skills.

These cupcakes were relatively easy to prep, although they made lots of dishes! I am quite a mess-maker in the kitchen in the first place, but today's mess was pretty colossal. I also realized that Martha must be some kind of descendant of Julia Child, the way she uses butter. I buy butter in bulk (I know it's not super-spiffy European butter, but it saves a couple of bucks), and I've already gone through 4 pounds of butter in the last couple of months. It's not all Martha's fault - I happened to buy some crappy cocoa powder which screwed up two batches of my chocolate buttermilk cupcakes, but still.

I got a little creative on Martha this time - I didn't have buttermilk, so I made some sour milk out of whole milk and vinegar. I also made some kid-friendly cupcakes without nuts, since most of the kids I know are under the age where nuts are OK. The mini-cupcakes took about 12

minutes to bake, and they were kind of exciting - they were my first mini-cupcakes!

Husband said the banana flavor was a bit mild, so maybe next time I'd add another banana, but other than that, the flavor was quite good. I paired my cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, because I have a serious backache and couldn't stomach the idea of standing over the stove to make caramel today. So cream cheese was it. I also altered the cream cheese frosting, since this was my second time making it - I omitted the extra 4 oz of cream cheese, since the packages I buy are 12 oz. So instead of making cream cheese frosting with 16 oz of cream cheese, I used 12 oz, which yielded a much stiffer frosting that I much preferred. I will make a note in my book

about that.

I also learned how to use my camera better when it comes to photographing my cupcakes (and other food!). I learned about the macro function - yay! So instead of my cupcakes looking like this...

They look like this!!

The recipe is available in the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book, on p. 41. Don't forget to tune in around the 15th of next month, to see our next project, the Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes from p. 236, selected by Kim at What the Whisk.