Banana and Toffee Cupcakes

Bannoffi cakes

Banana sponge with toffee buttercream. YUM! To counteract the sweetness of the icing, I made some quite bitter caramel shards to decorate them. The sponge is a classic 3 egg Victoria with a few mashed up super ripe bananas. I would usually fill the cases up a little higher so that there is a better cake-icing ratio (I can't stand it when there is more icing than cake on a cup cake), but I fancied making a couple of chocolate banana mini loaves. I made my own toffee/caramel sauce for the icing in a very slapdash taste-it-and-see way. You could also use an actual recipe or the stuff that comes in a tin. I just had a few left over bits and pieces. This recipe makes 12.

Ingredients:
3 eggs. Weigh them in their shells and then use that weight for the self raising flour, butter and caster sugar.
2 very ripe bananas 
125g very soft butter
300g icing sugar
tsp milk
a few tablespoons of toffee sauce (I used a few tablespoons of sugar, a large knob of butter and a tablespoon of double cream boiled together and cooled)


Method:
- heat the oven to gas 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cases
-cream together the butter and sugar
-add in two of the eggs. If it looks a little curdled, add in a little of the flour
-mash the bananas with a fork and mix in the 3rd egg. Add this to the mix and whisk.
- add the flour and mix to a smooth batter. Distribute evenly in the cases and bake for 20 minutes. 

Chocolate banana mini loaves

At this point I had a little batter left over and added 2 big tablespoons of cocoa powder and some chopped up chocolate and made these. Two wee loaves in my under used mini loaf tin.


When cooked, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
To make the icing, beat the butter with half the icing sugar until well incorporated. Add in the rest of the sugar and the milk and beat well. Add the (cooled if just made) caramel and mix in. Decorate!


I made the shards of caramel by cooking some sugar with a dash of water in a frying pan until it turned a dark brown, then quickly tipped it on to some greaseproof paper until cold. I think it would have worked better if I smashed it up in to tiny crystals. NEXT TIME!

oodles of sugar