Sunday 12 February 2012

52 Recipe Challenge - Week 31.

For this week's recipe I decided to try another sweet recipe from one of my cupcake books as I wanted to use up some overly ripe bananas but am sick of making the same banana bread recipe! So I consulted Cupcake Magic and found a banana cupcake recipe right opposite the tried and tested Ginger and Lemon Cupcakes recipe.  I took this as a sign and decided this was the right recipe to use!

To make this recipe you will need:

250g/ 9 oz Butter
225g/ 8 oz Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
3 Bananas
375g/ 13 oz Plain flour
1 Tablespoon of Baking powder
75ml/ 2 1/2 fl oz Milk
1 Teaspoon of Lemon juice

I started off by turning my oven on to the top temperature to preheat as I gathered the bananas, flour, eggs, etc. When I had all my ingredients together I lined my muffin tin and turned the oven down to 180c/350f/ gasmark 4.

I looked at the recipe and it said whisk the butter and sugar together but I decided instead to put all the ingredients bar the bananas in my food processor and mix them together.

By doing this I could weigh the dry ingredients like the flour and sugar without worrying about them sticking to the measuring bowl... this always happens to me when I weight the butter first! After I mixed the flour, butter, sugar, milk, eggs and baking powder together in the food processor I took my bananas peeled them, put them in a bowl and them mashed them using a potato masher. Once the bananas were mashed together I stopped, then I mixed the ingredients in the food procesor again before adding the bananas.

I briefly used the food processor to mix the bananas to the rest of the mixture before stopping it and removing it from the stand and spooning some of the mixture into the muffin cases. When I filled the muffin cases I put them into the oven for about 25 minutes, then removed them after they had risen and were golden brown. As I only have a 6 space muffin tin I took these out and put them on the side to cool and then refilled the empty holes.

 In the end this recipe made 15 banana muffins, maybe if I had used smaller bananas they would have been cupcakes but they seemed too large to ice.

The original recipe suggests using cream cheese frosting on top but they were light and airy enough not to need any icing. I'll definately be making these again!

Thursday 2 February 2012

52 Recipe Challenge - Week 30 recipe 2.

Last week I decided to try a couple of recipes.  This was partly because I was enjoying trying new recipes but also because I was getting more job interviews and increasing in confidence, so I thought I'd transfer the confidence this was giving me to the kitchen. (Well at least a little bit of it!)

The recipe I decided to make this time was one I had seen on another foodie's blog Missie Cindz, this was around Christmas time but it stuck in my head... so I decided to get my ingredients and give it ago.

The original recipe can be found on Missie Cindz blog.  I would suggest if you'd like to try this to get the recipe from her blog!

When making this recipe I changed it slightly from the original one by only making white chocolate fudge and not using any cranberries or fruit in it.

To make it I used:

400g White Chocolate
1 Tin of Condensed Milk
A drizzle of Vanilla Essence

To start with I broke up the white chocolate and put it in a pan.

Then I opened the condensed milk and poured it on the white chocolate.

After that I turned the hob on and stirred the mixture to melt the white chocolate.


When the white chocolate had completely melted with the condensed milk I took it off the hob, added the vanilla essence and poured it into my waiting baking tray.

Job well done I thought, then I looked at Missie Cindz recipe again and realised I had forgotten something vital... the baking paper on the tray to help remove it!  It was too late for it at that point so I just put it in the fridge and hoped for the best.


The fudge set well! The only problem was getting it out of the baking tray...


In the end I just ripped the baking tray appart and was thankful I didn't make it in something sturdier!  The fudge itself turned out quite well, I'm pleased to say!


Now I just need to work out what to do with it!