Challenge #9: Moving Blues Banana Caramel Cupcakes

Ron wanted me to make cupcakes; not for any specific reason, just because he wanted some and felt that I hadn't made any for awhile. (awhile being a couple of weeks)

Who am I to say no, when

A) I love my Man

B) I love making cupcakes

C) I get to use a recipe to further my challenge

D) I get to be the awesome girlfriend that everyone loves and is jealous of, when he takes them to work with him 

E) I have an excuse to blog about it

So I read off the recipes in The Icing On The Cupcake and he chose Moving Blues Banana Caramel Cupcakes.

1/2 cup (or 1 stick) unsalted butter, room tempurature

2 room temperature eggs, separated (will use the yokes in the frosting)

3 tbsp whole milk

1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp potato starch (corn starch)

1/2 tsp finely ground salt

5 pieces of soft caramels

Preheat the oven to 350'. Place 10 paper liners into cupcake trays.

Cream butter and sugar (1/2 cup only) together with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

Add bananas, baking powder, potato starch, and salt and beat until smooth. Fold in the flour with a rubber spatula

 Add milk and mix until combined.

Beat the egg whites in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Do not overmix. It's better if the peaks are slightly soft than too stiff. This takes about 3 minutes on high speed with an electric mixer. Gradually add the 2 tbsp of sugar.

Fold egg white mixture into the batter until combined. Scoop into lined cupcake pans. Fill each cake 3/4 of the way to the top. Cut 5 caramels in half and submerge one piece into each cupcake.

 Note: you'll probably want to push the caramels in deeper than I did.

Bake 25 minutes and then move to baking racks.

Caramel Frosting

6 caramels

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup banana

1/4 tsp finely ground salt

2 egg yolks, room tempurature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup (or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, room tempurature

Place the caramels, milk, banana and salt in sauce pan over medium heat. 

Remove from heat when caramels are melted.

in a separate bowl beat egg yolks and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until thick, about 3 minutes.

Slowly add the yolk mixture to slightly cooled caramel mixture. I suggest placing the caramel mixture into a cool sauce pan to aid in dropping it's temperature. (I just put the whole thing in the fridge for a few minutes) If the caramel is too hot, it will cook the egg. But we don't want to completely cool it because the mixture is about to be heated on the stove again. Place the combined mixture over medium-low heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until cool.

Beat 2 sticks of butter, room temperature, at high speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.

With mixer on low speed, slowly add cooled caramel mixture. Once caramel is added, beat at high until frosting is fluffy.

I adorned the tops of each with a banana chip

These cupcakes were pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of banana bread, but the caramel helped a lot. The icing was good, but very buttery. Just a little on top would've been better than the big swirl. (so much for presentation) I think I would've preferred a nice banana caramel sugar glaze. Perhaps I will give that a try next time.