Banoffee Cupcakes

This is the first recipe to be made that I am not actually that keen on tasting. Banana is one of my least favourite foods, not something I ever eat, to be honest its the texture of them, so squishy I cant stand it and the noise people make when eating a banana too, yuck. Decided that since I have to make everything, might as well make something that isn't one of my favourites. Settled on the Banoffee cupcakes for Saturday as taking them to a family BBQ so thought they would go down well there.

The sponge part of the recipe is the same as all the others, just your basic ingredients but with two ripe bananas added to the mixture at the end before it is poured into the cases and into the oven. I think I had quite large bananas as once they were mashed it seemed quite a lot in volume and even with filling the cases by two-thirds I had enough batter to make 20 cupcakes. Because it had made more than the usual 12-16 I decided not to half the quantity of the topping, especially as this was actually the longer and trickier part of the baking.

The topping is a caramel custard one rather than a frosting but it meant I had to actually make the custard myself. Not particularly hard, just a few more steps than usual. Firstly had to bring milk with vanilla essence to the boil and make a paste with the other dry ingredients of sugar, flour, cornflour and egg yolks, not whites. Then you add a little of the milk to the paste before adding the paste to the remaining milk on the boil and whisking it until it is thickened and basically looks like custard. This is then spread onto a clingfilm-ed baking tray, covered and left to cool for 30-40 minutes. We were actually heading out to lunch with family at this point so the custard had a little longer to cool than was needed.

Once we were back it was a rush to get the cupcakes topped before the BBQ. All that was needed was to whip the double cream and then fold the custard into this, after stirring the custard to remove any lumps beforehand. It states in the cook book you can pipe this onto the cupcakes but I just used a tablespoon. One heaped spoon was enough to cover each cupcake and because it was a custard it smoothed out onto the cupcakes so easily it didn't take nearly as long to ice them as usual. I then finished them off with some grated dark chocolate. Looked fabulous and off they went to the BBQ.

At first I was apprehensive about tasting them as when the sponges were cooking you could smell the banana in them. We all had a cupcake once the BBQ steaks and chicken had gone down and I have to admit that after the first bite where I did grimace slightly at the banana they weren't actually that bad. The other family members that are not as strange as me to dislike bananas thought they were wonderful. The custard and the sponge were not too overpowering in flavour, it was delicate and went well together. The chocolate shavings on top also just helped to add that little extra something to them. For something I wasn't looking forward to making, I have to say I am actually rather proud of myself to making one of the longer recipes and trying something I would usually avoid due to personal preference. That was what this challenge and 

blog is all about though.