Wednesday, September 30, 2009

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.

15 comments:

kyooty said...

Lovely! is there a recipe?

Colleen said...

Mmm, I love the frosting to cupcake ratio!

Unknown said...

I haven't gotten the new cupcake book yet. I've gotten mixed reviews, so I'm checking out what everyone has to say about it. I do love cupcakes! I would love for you to join me for Crock Pot Wednesday at diningwithdebbie.blogspot.com. Come check it out. Mister Linky is up and ready for your favorite slow cooker recipe.

Dreamgirl said...

Banana pecan muffins... sounds yummy!
And your picture sure looks better. Good for you!
Just stopping by from SITS wishing you a fabulous Wednesday!

Kayte said...

I thought there were an excessive amount of dishes used for this also! Especially with that caramel buttercream icing...which I did not totally love, too buttery, not enough caramelly going on, so I will work on tweaking that for our tastes. I think your choice of cream cheese icing (which we did love) was a great one...I can see that pairing very nicely with this. Great job on refocusing that camera, the cupcake looks great!

Monica Lifferth said...

I was thinking mid caramel that I should have done the cream cheese. As usual it was a learning experience for me.

I love baking but honestly the whole photographing thing is my favorite part of my posts. Good job!

k.a.r.e.n said...

Great looking cupcake and I Love cream cheese frosting.

Together We Save said...

Oh my, yummy!!

Stephanie said...

Lovely tip about cutting down on the cream cheese to stiffen the icing. I would not have thought of that!

betty geek said...

Thanks for doing the bonus round!

I thoroughly enjoyed this recipe. I used super ripe black bananas to add extra depth to the flavor of the cupcakes. I also skipped the caramel buttercream frosting.

Yours look divine! :)

Julie said...

I love the mini cupcake idea. I made the regular size but cut the recipe in half.

Soy*Baby said...

They look delicious. I love mini cupcakes. They are always so cute.

Alyssa said...

Good idea to go with the cream cheese and cutback on the amount. The buttercream was quite laborous.

And I HAVE to say that I LOVE LOVE your layout..

I love pink and brown and well.. I just love it.

Cheers!

Cindy said...

Fun blog! This was a yummy recipe, I went with a chocolate sour cream frosting. So good!

Just Anything said...

I will have to try cream cheese frosting next time! Have fun with the picture taking! :)

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