Banana Party, Part 2: Banana Milk Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe

How cute was that banana garland from a coupla days ago? Well clearly you need the cupcakes recipe to go with it, to send your banana party into the stratosphere! 

My one year old is banana-crazy... he gnaws away at bananas until it's a mush in his hands. Then he reaches for me to pick him up and I have to freak out because I don't want gross banana hand on my nice shirt. I need to stop wearing nice shirts. Because obviously I pick him up! Little munchkin! 

So anyhoo because he's loco dingo about bananas, naturally I buy a fair amount of them... and they almost always go brown before Teddy has a chance to gobble his way through the bunch. 

Did you know banana bread is just so easy to make? And, if you throw in milk chocolate, bake the batter in cupcake pans and cover it in chocolate ganache, it becomes a cupcake? 

Banana Milk Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache (you read that right)

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cup golden brown sugar 

4 eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 ripe bananas

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 cups of milk

2 cups of good quality milk chocolate, roughly chopped into chunks (or milk chocolate chips!)

For the ganache: 

1 cup of heavy cream

21/2 cups of dark chocolate pieces

Make it!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners - I used yellow for more banana power! 

1. Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy. 

2. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, vanilla extract and peeled ripened bananas. Mix until blended. 

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. 

4. With the mixer on low, add 1/3rd of the dry ingredients to the banana mixture, alternating with the milk. Keep mixer running, then add another 1/3rd of the dry and then the milk, and one more time - the last 1/3rd of the dry ingredients and the rest of the milk until incorporated. Do not overmix. 

5. Fold in the milk chocolate pieces with a spatula. Or your bare arm. I dare ya. 

6. Pour batter evenly into cupcake-liner lined pans. 

7. Bake for 16-18 minutes, turning pans halfway to ensure even baking. Test the cupcakes by inserting a clean toothpick into the center of one - if it comes out clean, cupcakes are ready!

8. Set cupcakes on wire racks to cool. 

9. In a small pot on the stovetop, bring cream to a low boil over medium-high heat.  

10. Remove from element and set aside pot. Add chocolate pieces so cream covers the chocolate. 

11. Set your timer for ten minutes. Go check your email or surf the net. 

12. After ten minutes, using a wire whisk, stir the chocolate gently into the cream as it forms a shiny ganache. Let stand for another 20 minutes to cool. 

13. Spoon chocolate ganache on top of cooled cupcakes. Top with fresh raspberry if desired! 

If you missed it... check out my super cute banana garland DIY!

Happy Friday, everyone! xo Lyndsay

Banana Party - Banana Garland DIY

BANANA GARLAND DIY

How cool was I when I was 19. Real cool. So original with my Velvet Underground and Nico Andy Warhol poster hanging in my room. I remember first hearing a Velvet Underground song, I was 17 and driving in my new university city and listening to the college radio station. Nico's voice came on, droning "Femme Fatale" and I had never heard anything like it. 

Couple of years later we were on vacation in San Francisco with my family and I always liked to go to Amoeba Records because there's nothing like that anywhere else. They had loads of cool rock posters you could buy there - I remember pointing to the iconic Velvet Underground and Nico banana poster and asking for it and the guy rolling his eyes and yelling out to his friend, his voice dripping in sarcasm, "grab me a VELVET UNDERGROUND BANANA poster, please." 

You gotta start somewhere! 

Anyhoo this garland reminds of my old Velvet Underground banana poster. Wish I still had it. 

You will need: 

1 sheet of banana yellow craft paper (a slightly heavier weight paper)

scissors, black felt, mini hole punch, baker's twine, a pencil for drawing

Using your pencil, trace some banana-ish shapes on your yellow craft paper. Or you can free-hand cut out your banana shapes, like I did.

Get out your black felt! Colour in the "stems" black, and add a few random dashes and lines for banana markings. I snuck in a new happy face, too!

Using a mini hole punch (found at craft stores), punch two holes in the "black stems" of your paper bananas. 

String your baker's twine through the holes. 

Keep on stringin' until all those little banana buddies are strung along! 

Hang up your super cute banana garland on the wall or on a window and get ready to banana party it up!

I made a little banana party sign, too, and adhered it to a wooden skewer with some tape. 

Nothing screams banana party like an awesome cute banana garland! Now go put on your Velvet Underground records and stay tuned for the recipe for these cupcakes: BANANA MILK CHOCOLATE with DARK CHOCOLATE GANACHE. I will be posting it on Friday for your weekend baking!

xo Lyndsay

Neon Striped Cupcakes Tutorial

Zinnnng! I just zapped you with outrageous neon colours. No, I didn't. But I did create these neon striped cupcakes for you. They are cute and not really that outrageous at all. 

If I had piled on neon buttercream and a bunch of neon fondant doo-nads on top of each one and then dipped the whole shebang into a bucket load of rainbow sprinkles, that might be outrageous. These are more ... subtly neon! 

Perfect for an 80s themed party, a circus themed party, a primary colours party, a tight and bright party, a Pride party... oh, the list goes on. 

I used these cute little cupcake separator thingies that worked pretty well! They are made of food safe plastic and they nestle into your cupcake liner so you can pour the batter in stripes. Neat, right? You can find a link to the batter separators, called Batter Babies by Kimberware, here. 

Happy stripey times, cake pals!

xo Lyndsay 

cupcakes, photos and styling by Lyndsay Sung. 

Thank you Kimberware for sending me the batter babies! 

Cookie Problems: Kitchen Sink Cookies +Contest Winner!

So here we have some good old Kitchen Sink Cookies. It's when you have a cookie problem craving that just won't quit, and you simply MUST make cookies with whatever random ingredients you have in stock.

Chocolatey, crunchy, caramel-y, toffee-y. Sprinkles, even. Go for it.

Raisins from 2010? Jam 'em.

Toffee bits you bought on sale? Throw 'er in.

Crunchy nuts you use for oatmeal when you're trying to be healthy? Nut zone.

Rainbow sprinkles you bought for last year's birthday cake? No problemo.

Fancy expensive milk chocolate chunks? Oh yes.

I didn't include all of the above ingredients, but you get the gist. Throw the cookie dough together. Just throw it against a wall, practically. Then all you have to do is wait a measly 14 minutes max. Pour yourself a milky tea, get an epi of Orange Is The New Black ready and you will be in cookie couch potato heaven SOOOO soon.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

Ingredients: 

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup of milk chocolate pieces (I used Lindt milk chocolate)

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

a good sprinkling of, well, sprinkles. 

Make it!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

1. In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar on high until fluffy. 

2. Scrape down the sides of bowl. With mixer on low, add egg and vanilla extract.

3. With mixer on low, add dry ingredients. 

4. Throw in the chocolate pieces, butterscotch and peanut butter chips and mix for like, ten seconds until incorporated. 

5. Dole out 1 1/2 inch balls of cookie dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. Sprinkle the tops of each cookie. 

6. Bake for 11-14 minutes, turning pans halfway. 

Right? COOKIE PROBLEMS!

Annnnnnd announcing the delightful WINNERS of my Coco Cake Land 5 Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway - I did a very high tech method of scribbling everyone's names down on pieces of paper and we drew names out of my kid's plastic Star Wars bowl.

LOCAL WINNER: 

Rebadiva

WORLDWIDE WINNER:

Isabella from Italy

Winners, please send me an email to lyndsay (at) cococake (dot) com to arrange prizes. Thank you to all those who entered - gosh, doing a giveaway was fun! Chat soon, cake pals.

 xo Lyndsay

Dog Cake Topper DIY

Doggone it, you didn't even know you wanted to make a dog faced cake topper, did ya? Remember Teddy's doggy themed 1st birthday party? I made a cute little easy-as-dog-biscuits DIY on how to make the dog faced cake toppers over at one of my fave blogs You Are My Fave.

Blast on over to You Are My Fave now for the full tutorial!

xo Lyndsay