Week Five: Banana - Toffee Cupcakes

Welcome to Week Five with Banana Toffee Cupcakes!

These fantastic cupcakes were found in the Big Book of Cupcakes.

These cupcakes were really good, really rich batter and cake. The icing was absolutely delicious, really smooth, creamy, and very chocolaty. You could really taste the banana flavor but not so much the toffee.

Some tips:

As I just mentioned, I would probably add more toffee. Probably half a cup more, maybe more, just to enhance the toffee flavor.

I had accidentally added more butter than I was supposed to so I had more batter than needed. These two tips come from this little mishap:

1. I added too much butter. And along with the banana, it would have been extremely soupy if I added all the milk. In the ingredient list, I'll add both what I did and the revised recipe. I ended making 24 regular cupcakes and 3 big cupcakes.

2. I ran out of chocolate frosting.  I didn't have enough unsweetened to make any more chocolate frosting but I did happened to have a jar of store bought vanilla icing. I just plopped a couple of big spoon fulls of the store bought icing into the piping bag along with the left over chocolate frosting. When I frosted the 3 big cupcakes with this mismatch of frosting's, it had a cool effect:

But besides those things, the cupcakes were really good.

Cake Ingredients:

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup softened butter (Original), 3/4 cups softened butter (Revised)
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cups milk (Original), 1/8 to 1/4 cup milk (Revised)
+ 2 mashed bananas (about 1 cup)
+ 1 cup toffee bits (I used Heath Bar bits)--from 8 oz bag

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cupcake pan. In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. In large bowl, beat butter on medium speed (30 seconds). Gradually add in sugar (1/4 cup at a time). Beat well after each addition and scrape bowl occasionally. Beat 2 minutes longer.
3. Add in eggs, one at a time. beat well after each addition. Add in vanilla.
4. On low, add in flour mixture a little at a time (1/3 of mixture), alternatively adding in your milk (1/2 of milk). Beat until blended.
5. Fill liners till 2/3 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let cool, frost, and enjoy!

Frosting Ingredients:

1/2 cup softened butter
3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled
3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 to 4 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Cream butter and cooled baking chocolate together until blended.
2. Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth.
3. Add in milk if frosting is too thick.
4. Frost and enjoy!

Just sprinkle the frosted cupcakes with the left over toffee bits and enjoy!

Thanks for baking with me!

-Laura