Red and green cupcakes

There was a little get-together planned with three of my friends and for the occasion I offered to make some treats. I decided to make thumbprint cookies (next post I'll talk about that) and some vanilla cupcakes. 

To decorate I used the fondant icing that I'd been given by the same friends with the explicit message to make them some cupcakes. Well, they got what they asked for! ;)

Ingredients for 12 well sized cupcakes (you can make them smaller and distribute the batter in 15 cupcake liners also!):
- 225 grams sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 113 grams butter
- 3 eggs
- 150 grams Greek yogurt/cottage cheese/curd cheese/milk
- 140 grams flour (or 190 grams flour and vanilla extract = instead of using pudding powder)
- 50 grams instant vanilla pudding powder
- 300 grams fondant icing (in two colours: I used red and green of Dr. Oetker)
How to:
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Cream the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer. When combined and creamy, add the eggs one at the time and keep on mixing. Then add the yogurt.
Add the salt, the flour and the pudding powder or vanilla extract. Mix well.
Line a baking tray for 12-15 cupcake. Divide the batter over the cupcake liners.

Put the tray in the oven and bake for 18-22 minutes. Check the cupcakes before taking out of the oven.
Leave the cupcakes to cool before decorating.

For decoration, divide the icing into 12 small balls. Roll each of the balls of icing out until a thin and round sheet (1-2 mm thickness) is formed. When too thick, the icing is too present on the cupcake and the taste will dominate the taste of the cupcake. With a cookie cutter (any shape), cut a shape out of each rolled out ball. Now you can interchange the cut-out shapes of the red and green sheets of icing.
Cover the cupcakes one by one and enjoy!

Smakelijk!

Banana-chocolate cupcakes

With my parents and sister going away for the long weekend and three ripe bananas left in the fruit bowl, I came up with a delicious idea: banana-chocolate cupcakes. Of course, of course, this isn't my idea. Hundreds of food blogs display pictures and recipes of these two ingredients combined. Even though I wasn't the most original, it was - in my opinion - a good way to 'dispose' of extra fruit.

sweet and luxurious!

You have to know that I'm not the banana addict. I'm a fruit consumer to the extremes. The reason is that I have the constant feeling of being hungry (is that normal?) and luckily I don't like most sweets nor savory snacks. I snack on fruit all day and when I don't control myself, the whole plate of grapes is gone in no time. My day starts with at least two oranges and on top of that I have at least two but more often than not 4 to 5 pieces. But banana is not one of them. I only like banana when it's incorporated into something else: banana cake, banana bread, toast with banana slices and chocolate, banana milkshake, ... My favourite combination is banana-chocolate. 

a little grated coconut on top

Something about my snacks in the more unhealthy category: The only sweets I love are, pudding (chocolate or vanilla is good but rice pudding is the best!) cakes and cookies (but then home made), and especially when they contain chocolate.
My everyday (yes, every day ...) after dinner snack is therefore a piece of cake or a cookie and when the weather permits (any day apart from the really sunny summer evenings when you feel like you're melting away in your chair - read: about 1 day a year in Belgium, on average - a cup of hot chocolate. 

Call me indulging, call me crazy, but that's the way I like to end my day. Healthy all day permits me to have a good snack that says: 'Hey, you've done okay, here's the treat you deserve!'

Ingredients for 6 cupcakes:
- 2 ripe bananas
- 35-40 grams butter
- pinch of salt
- 75 grams light brown sugar
- 1 egg yolk or 1/2 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 table spoon cinnamon
- 38 grams flour
- 50 grams instant chocolate pudding mix (Oetker is what I used)
- 15 grams cocoa powder
- 100 grams chopped chocolate bar
- optional: a little grated coconut

How to:
Preheat the oven to 175°C.
Line a cupcake tray for 6 cupcakes.
Mash the bananas with the butter. Mix in the sugar, the egg, the pinch of salt, the vanilla extract and the cinnamon. Then add the flour, the pudding mix, the baking powder and the cocoa. Mix just until combined. Add the chopped chocolate to the batter and devide the batter over the 6 cupcake liners.
Put the tray in the oven and bake for 15-18 minutes.
Let cool slightly and take out of the tray to cool further on a plate or a wire rack.
When desired you can sprinkle some grated coconut on top. For an extra exotic accent.

Beware: they are rich! The chocolate is in there in the form of 3 ingredients and especially the chunks make these decadent. You will smell the banana well but in the taste the banana is only secondary to the chocolate that does take the lead. No bad deal for me of course! :)

All of this talk about snacks can be summarized to this: yesterday I had a great evening watching the Eurovision Song Contest snacking on a banana-chocolate cupcake. Two guilt pleasures at the same time and then it was only the second semi-final of this year (by the way: Belgium is in the final, something that doesn't happen every year ;) )

Today I started on my very first Daring Baker's challenge. The May challenge will be posted on the 27th of May, that's just a few days away and I'd been thinking when and how I would bake the challenge presented. I'm not telling you what it is of course. I will have only one person who'll know in advance and that will be the friend who's visiting tomorrow. Will talk all about the experiences of baking and taste testing coming week so stay tuned!

But today I have one of these cupcakes left and I will devour it tonight.