Tiramisu Cupcakes

I accidentally told Brian that my used craft sale was yesterday... nope...I accidentally messed up the dates. So he had to wake up early two days in a row (on a weekend -- the horrors!). As a way to repay, I decided to make him some tasty cupcakes.

Martha Stewart, my baking hero, is coming out with a new cupcake book. One of the recipes in it is a Tiramisu cupcake. It sounded tasty and once again, I needed an excuse to use the kitchen aide. Oh it's so pretty!

**Pic from MarthaStewart.com - I can't get a pic like that if I tried.

Once again, Martha didn't let me down. The cupcake was tasty and fluff-tastic! The coffee touch was great and it was cool to see it seep in. I would probably recommend just a little more coffee since it didn't seep as well as I thought it would. The icing -- well, I love me some mascarpone frosting and it was quite tasty.

All that said though, I will admit that there was a lot of work involved and I think you could find an easier base cupcake. While I understand the science behind beating an egg/sugar mixture over a pot of simmering water, there are easier ways to achieve a fluffy cupcake. Perhaps the Cake Doctor will have some easier suggestions for those of you who don't have 2 hours to make a cupcake...

Bring on the Banana Bread

Banana Bread has always been one of my favorite quick bakes. It comes out moist, is not overly sweet, and tastes great warm or cold.

When two friends of mine were leaving the area, I wanted to make something special. However, our schedule did not allow me to host them for a nice dinner. Instead they swung by for an hour to hang out. Since I had some banana turning black, I thought banana bread was the perfect fast item to serve. I had just enough time to make it, so that when they arrived, I could serve up fresh-baked Banana Bread with Vanilla Ice Cream. Who wouldn't want to eat this?

In my attempt to rush all the ingredients together, I noticed that my oven was not preheating correctly. Evidently, there was something wrong with my oven and I quickly realized to my dismay that this was my first oven project since I've moved in to my new place. Duh--the oven was broken! But I was so determined to bake those banana loaves that I was ready to jump into the car and break into my parents house to bake these up, or "borrow" my neighbors oven. However, just as I was ready to put on those shoes, my little Black & Decker Toaster Oven was looking to innocently at me. Yep--it was the Black & Decker Toast Oven that saved my day. I "heart" you, lil Toaster Oven!

So this post is in honor of my friend, Karin, who will hopefully be able to make this in a real oven, with a little less crust on the banana bread ;)



I made this recipe last week again (in a real oven) and here are my thoughts:
The banana bread came out moist and was just right with the sweetness level. I cut the sugar by 1/4 c, since ripe bananas are generally already very sweet. The bread also came out on the denser side, was less fluffy from another recipe that I have made in the past. This banana bread lack the height that my other recipe has, but the dense, short piece of banana bread seemed to complement the vanilla ice cream.

Banana Bread
adapted from Allrecipes.com, "Banana Bread I"

Ingredients:
* vegetable shortening, for greasing pans
* 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour (non-bleached)
* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1/2 tsp salt
* 3/4 c sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 c butter, softened (equal to 1/2 stick butter)
* 3 overripe bananas
* milk (optional)

Directions:
01. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
02. Grease two 7x3 loaf pans.
03. Sift flour, salt, baking soda.
04. Place butter and sugar into a mixing bowl; cream butter with sugar on low speed.
05. Add one egg at a time, while mixing on low speed.
06. Mash bananas with a fork in a separate bowl.
07. Add milk, if the bananas are not ripe enough. The consistency should be mushy banana pieces and a little liquidy.
08. Add bananas to the mixing bowl; mix on low speed.
09. Add dry ingredient slowly to mixture; mix on low speed.
10. Once everything is incorporated, mix on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes.
11. Split the batter into both pans evenly.
12. Bake for 35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out cleanly.
13. Remove pans from oven, and let stand for 10 minutes.
14. Remove from pans, and serve immediately.

Banana bread can keep up to one week, unrefrigerated. Just wrap it well in plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.
Banana bread can easily keep up to six months in the freezer. Just wrap it well in plastic wrap and place it into a freezer Zip-lock bag.

Molten Cake

Heehee, I'm a smallhanded person too! I figured I'd start my first post with a recipe for Kahlua molten cake. You can never go wrong with chocolate and booze... right? ;-D

I based this recipe off of a recipe from Everyday Foods (my favorite source of simple recipes). We made a variation of this while I was still in NC so I knew it wasn't too complicated. I wanted to christen my new Kitchen Aide** with a tried and true recipe.

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for ramekins
• 1/3 cup confectioners sugar, plus more for ramekins and serving
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon Kahlua (we used a hazelnut Kahlua)
  
• Pinch salt
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Prep two ramekins (or small little cake pans or something...) and preheat oven to 400
Melt chocolate and butter together. (Although I'll admit that I actually only melted the chocolate and then creamed the butter... still tasty)
Mix sugar, egg, yolk, kahlua and salt in small bowl. Whisk in chocolate mixture.
Whisk in flour until just mixed - important not to overmix. Pour into ramekins.
Pop the suckers into the oven (400 F) for about 10 minutes. Your favorite poking utensil should come out clean on the edge and not so much in the middle.

Eat quickly with some tasty whipped cream. Letting it sit too long means less molteny more cakey...

**Disclaimer - the cake disappeared before we could take a pic... sorry dudes. Just imagine chocolately goodness

**The stand mixer is not necessary (or even recommended) for this recipe. This post writer just loves her mixer!