Potato & Cheese Soup - ish

So, yesterday on twitter, Sparky mentioned the wonders of Potato and Cheese soup. Being a massive fan of cheese-in-soup (actually, cheese in anything, but for now we'll stick to soup), my ears pricked up.

Lo, I said unto myself. It is unseasonably cold, and therefore miserable. What better way to banish misery and warm one's insides than with a lovely pot of hot, cheesy soup?

Alack, dear Sparky had not a recipe - so I turned to that trusty demon, Google. My favourites were the easy version and the complex version.

However, as you're all aware, I'm also in the middle of moving - and I had some corn that was begging to be used up. And I quite like corn and potato and cheese soup........

And thus it began.

The resulting recipe is some sort of weird cross between the easy version above, and the corn chowder, also linked to above.

The Recipe

2 white or brown onions
1 very heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic
2t cumin
olive oil for frying
3c chicken stock
3 largish potatoes, cubed to about 1cm3
400g can of creamed corn
420g can of corn kernels (which, I was disgusted to discover, is only actually 61% corn)
2c milk
salt (preferably of the sage, lavendar and rosemary variety)
~7 sage leaves
sprinkle of rosemary
2c grated cheese (cheddar or tasty)
sour cream and chives for garnishing

In a large pan over a high heat, saute the onions, garlic and cumin. Don't let the onions brown. Add the stock, and bring to the boil. Add the potatoes, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the corn (both varieties, and I threw in the liquid from the corn kernels too) and simmer again for 10 minutes. Add the milk and seasonings (be generous with the salt, esp if you don't have the delicious sage/lavendar/rosemary variety), allow to simmer. Don't boil the milk too vigorously. Remove from heat, stir through cheese until melted, and serve garnished with a dollop of sour cream and some chives.

Makes 5 generous servings.

The Results

Taaa-sty. Exactly what I felt like, for which I was glad. Those of you that have tried it will recall that the corn chowder soup is somewhat Asian-styled - clear broth, corn, etc. This soup is like the non-Asian version. The milk and different proportions makes it creamier and less broth-like, and (strangely) altogether more like what I would consider a chowder to be... Most odd.

My only complaint was the type of potatoes I used; no idea what they were, but they held their form well throughout cooking, which is excellent for baking, but not so good for a soup where you want them to starchify the soup, making it even thicker, and releasing the potato flavour into the whole soup, rather than greedily confining it to the potato chunks.

Still. Definitely something I'll make again :)

Returning with Risotto...

So, yes, it's been - lots - of months since I've been here. I've been doing my masters degree this year, and it's all been rather insane.

However, I finished yesterday (woo hoo!!), so I am back! :D

To celebrate, I actually felt like cooking for the first time in ages last night, and despite the warmth of the days recently, the nights have been lovely and cool - so risotto it was :) This meal was especially exciting because it gave me an opportunity to use fresh herbs from my very own herb garden for the first time! Hoorah!

The Recipe
1 large sweet potato
1/4 of a butternut pumpkin
olive oil
salt
1 small onion
1t of crushed garlic
~7 medium mushrooms
1c arborio rice
3 stock cubes dissolved in 4c water
~1.5T sweet chilli sauce
3 smallish sprigs of fresh greek oregano
3 twigs of garden thyme
1/3c grated parmesan cheese

...My mouth is watering just typing out the ingredients! Hoorah that I have left overs for lunch :)

Roughly dice the pumpkin and sweet potato. You can make the cubes whatever size, but bear in mind that a) smaller cooks faster and b) they will shrink quite a bit upon baking. Mine were ~2cm cubed. Microwave on high or steam for 5 minutes. Spread onto olive-oiled tray, sprinkle liberally with salt, and place into a hot oven (200C).

Place stock in a covered saucepan and keep on a low heat constantly, to keep the liquid warm (it will cook quicker/easier when added to the rice if it doesn't have to heat up first).

Finely chop the onion. Fry in oil with the garlic until translucent. Slice mushrooms, saute with onion until cooked. Add the rice and 2 ladlefuls of stock. Stir well.

Add sweet chilli sauce.

Add a ladleful of stock periodically, whenever the mixture starts to look a little dry - if you can scrape the rice away and see the bottom of the pot for more than a second, it's ready for more liquid.

Once all the liquid is absorbed, add the (finely chopped) herbs and stir through. Remove from heat if it's starting to dry out. Stir through the baked pumpkin and sweet potato, then stir through the cheese.

Serve hot :)

The Results
Okay, so risotto is a fairly standard meal in our house over winter. That said, we didn't have much this year, as I've been pretty slack when it comes to cooking. But regardless, I've made squillions of varieties of this recipe: and this, officially, is the best. My husband, who is not free with compliments, said he'd gladly pay $40 in a restaurant for this risotto :)

I attribute the great success to two things:

Firstly, instead of taking the quicker cop-out method of just grilling (broiling) the vegies, I actually baked them with salt and olive oil and all. Much, much tastier.

Secondly, the difference that fresh, home-grown herbs make is absolutely INSANE. And Greek oregano is my new favourite: besides the amazing salty-savoury complex flavour it adds to the dish, it's purple and fuzzy! What's not to love?!

Hehe.

As I was making this, I lamented that I didn't have any feta cheese to add, being the feta-addict that I am; but it turns out that it really didn't need it. The flavours were beautifully subtle and complex, and husband was absolutely determined that I must have used more herbs than I had (I'm usually prone to throwing in at least 5 or 6).

So, an all-round fabulous success, and definitely one I'll make again, instead of my usual 'what do I have in the cupboard' approach :)

Passionfruit Truffles, Round Two

Wow, how surprising!

Recipes sometimes actually work better when you follow them!

:)

Pulled the rest of the passionfruit ganache out of the freezer today to chocolate-coat. And, amazingly, it worked easily. Instead of melting and mixing with the chocolate, the properly frozen ganache worked like a charm :)

So, a lesson to all. When something tells you it needs to freeze for a certain amount of time - it probably does :)

Plum and Passionfruit Cupcakes

So, after deliberating all night, I finally figured how I wanted to do these. I remembered some other cupcakes that had a dual flavour combination, and thought about how they'd balanced the flavours... And these are what I came up with. Yes, they're tomato and basil cupcakes. And despite the fact that I can't stand raw tomato, I'm intrigued by these cupcakes. They're just the type of crazy thing I'd do.

As with the tomato cupcakes, the plum and passionfruit ones are not something that you can throw together in half an hour - though if you wanted to just make the cupcakes, I'd wholeheartedly support you as they're gorgeous.

As the recipe stands, it took me about seven hours to complete, with lots of waiting time and washing of dishes (and making of dinner) in between.

The truffles recipe is based on one I found at Gastronomicon. The cake recipe is my standard wet-ingredient cake which I modified from one I found ages ago on the internet. The glaze is based on the glaze from the tomato cupcakes at Cupcake Project, though mine's a lot runnier, and the cream... Well, it's just cream and passionfruit, after all.


Truffles

170g white chocolate, chopped
1/2c double thick cream
1/4c passionfruit pulp
1 1/2 T butter

Melt butter and chocolate. Stir through cream and passionfruit. Put in freezer for 4 hours, or overnight.

Scoop the ganache into balls with a melon baller or a teaspoon. Freeze again for 2 hours.

I was impatient waiting for the mixture to freeze the first time, and made it into balls after just two hours. Consequently, it took about three hours for the balls to freeze J

Melt some white chocolate. Dip the ganache balls into the chocolate and roll to cover. Place on a tray, and place in fridge to allow chocolate to set.

I think I just have issues with truffles. I've tried them once before, and the insides refused to set even after a couple of days. I decided it was cause I'd used plain cream, rather than double. So this time I bought double cream especially.

The insides got to a reasonable level of set-ness, but when it came to 'enrobing' them... Ick. The first three were okay, but the ganache melted so quickly that by the time I came to pick number four up it was a gooey lump. I still coated it in chocolate, which worked okay because the chocolate set, allowing me to recoat it without fear of melting, and resulting in some okay-ish looking truffles... But it was incredibly messing. I wonder if I should try to be patient and wait over night next time...

I still have rather a lot of ganache balls left that I couldn't be bothered to coat (I only did enough for the cupcakes), so maybe I'll try those tomorrow.

Plum Sauce

340g plums, de-stoned and roughly chopped
1/4c sugar
1/3c water

Stir over heat until sugar dissolves – about 1 minutes. Bring to the boil then simmer uncovered for 6 minutes. Allow to cool for 2 minutes, then puree if necessary (I didn't).

This makes slightly over the necessary cup. I added the leftovers into the glaze.

Cupcakes

1/4c sugar
1/2c margarine
1 egg
1/4t vanilla extract
1c plum sauce
1 1/2 c plain flour
1t baking soda

Cream sugar and margarine. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Alternately fold in plum sauce and flour/soda mix, some at a time, till all mixed.

Half fill cupcake tins, bake at 180C for 12mins. Tops will still be light when cooked. Cool on rack after 3 mins.

I got 19 cupcakes out of this, although they didn't rise as much as I was expecting - hardly at all. However, given the sweetness of the overall creation, this is probably a good thing.

Cream

mL cream
1/4 tin passionfruit

Whip cream. Fold in passionfruit.

May benefit from some icing sugar.

Glaze

1c honey
2 plums, chopped

Bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Cool for 10-15 minutes.

I had a whole honey-jar full of this left over. I guess I'll use it on ice cream or something, though it's not as scrumptious as the plum sauce.

Assembly

Cut a small cone out of the top of the cupcake and hollow the cupcake out a little. Fill with passionfruit cream; replace top. Dip cupcake upside down into the plum glaze – twist as you bring it out to catch drips. Allow first layer of glaze to soak into cake, then redip. Top with a truffle & serve. Mmm.

Don't they look awesomely shiny with the glaze? The colour is stunning, especially compared to the rather bland colour of the un-glazed cake. And surprisingly, they hold the second layer of glaze well - three hours later they look just as glazed.

Results

My first reaction when I tasted the batter was: ho hum… my goodness these are good! The batter, which just tasted like batter on first contact, has this amazing plummy kick to it which is just… amazing!

Fresh out of the oven and I just couldn’t resist, even though I knew there wasn’t many… So I only had a third of one. And they are just as good as the batter promised. A non-descript grey colour with flecks of red, these are the ugly ducklings of cupcakes – they taste SO good. The plum flavour is absolutely perfect, a great balance between tart and sweet, and you can taste it through the whole cupcake, not just if you happen to get a piece of plum. I just love the plum sauce, and will definitely make it again even just as an ice cream topping…

So now I’m wondering about the watermelon and pineapple cupcakes… Does this recipe just need saucy ingredients? I wonder how a watermelon sauce or a pineapple sauce would work… Would it work? Thoughts, thoughts…

…back to the cupcakes. The problem I had at this point was that the cupcakes were SO good I didn’t want to tamper with them and risk making them worse… Even the thought of icing them was scary. But I had a plan to follow, so follow I did despite my doubts.

As it turns out, they are absolutely brilliant. The passionfruit cream, which I feared might be too overpowering, was exactly strong enough to combat the strength of the plum flavour, and the glaze, which was a bit sickly on its own, was just right on the cake. And the truffles? To die for… However, a word of warning - these are sweet cupcakes. If sweet's not your thing, stick to the cake and cream combo and skip the glaze (very sweet) and truffles (good until about number five, then sickening... But then, I can't eat too much white chocolate at the best of times.)

Regardless, I would definitely make these again.

Definitely.

Spekulatius Cupcakes

At work, one of the ladies will usually bring in a packet of biscuits to share for morning tea. Last Friday, the biscuits were Aldi's Spekulatius Cookies, crumbling biscuits with a spicy, European flavour. I took one bite and thought - this would make a superb cupcake flavour!

To my inconvenience, the packet neglected to specify what flavourings were involved in these cookies (it said 'spices'. How useful). I managed to pick out the almond flavour, plus cinnamon and ginger, but was sure I was missing something. One of the ladies had the bright idea of looking on the internet... Which I did, and found copious recipes for Spekulatius and Spekulaas cookies, a German and Dutch Christmas specialty, for which the recipe is usually handed down in families and guarded jealously.

So, these are my attempt to convey those flavours into a cupcake.

The Recipe
60g butter
150g brown sugar
2 egg whites
225g Self Raising Flour
1/4t baking powder
1/4t cinnamon
1/4t nutmeg
1/4t almond essence
1/2t vanilla extract
2t ginger honey
Two shakes each of black pepper and cumin

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg whites slowly, then add the honey, then slowly the sifted dry ingredients.

Fill cupcake pans 1/2 full and bake for 12 minutes at 180C.


The Results

I am SO proud of these cupcakes. They taste almost exactly like the cookies, and have the most amazing melt-in-your-mouth texture. One taster described them as the cupcake version of Melting Moments, at least in terms of texture.

If you're not a fan of the almond flavour (think marzipan) you could easily leave the almond essence out. As it is they have a very distinctive, European, spicy flavour that's just perfect.

Interestingly, I made a complete goof-up on these cupcakes, but they still worked. I realised after I'd put them in the oven and sat down to examine the spices I'd used that the recipe had called for 150mL of milk to be added at the end. Something which I had completely forgotten about. It all turned out fine, but I would be interested to try them again with the milk - I suspect though that they would lose that melt-in-your-mouth quality and become more like a typical cake.

As far as icing, I've not had time for that yet, but I plan to try a cream cheese icing, and if I had some, flaked almonds would be the perfect finishing touch.

Chocolate Chunk Muffins

These are one of the cupcake varieties that I made on Friday night. Given the rate of devourment on Saturday, I'd say they were a success :D

The Recipe
3c plain flour
3T cocoa powder
1T baking powder
1 1/2c brown sugar
200g dark chocolate chips
1 1/2c milk
120g butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl. Add brown sugar and chocolate. Stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and add the milk, eggs and butter. Fold in until just combined - do not over beat.

Fill muffin pans 1/2 full and bake for 12-15 minutes in a 180C oven.

The Results

Uh, yum! Yes, these are good cupcakes indeed *licks lips*.

Last time I made these cupcakes it was over at my mother's house, for my sister, who wanted to hand out cupcakes as Christmas presents to all her friends. According to the original recipe, they're supposed to be baked for 20-25 minutes. We did this, but at least the mini ones we made turned out very dry and chewy - not particularly nice at all. So I would definitely recommend the shorter cooking time :)

Also, when I got up on Saturday I decided that 26 cupcakes would not be enough. But we'd run out of brown sugar. So, in the second batch I used white sugar instead of brown, and milk chocolate instead of dark.

The ones made with brown sugar and dark chocolate were a lot more chocolatey, and had a slightly fudgier texture. The white sugar and milk chocolate ones were more like a traditional chocolate cake, though because I used drops rather than chips you did get nice mouthfuls of actual chocolate.

This time I didn't ice the cakes, mostly because I ran out of time. However, the first time I experienced these cakes we served them like this:

Serve cakes hot from the oven, or if you're serving them a few days later, heat them before serving. Insert a pair of tongs (closed) gently into the top of the cupcake, and open them about 2cm. Into this hole, insert two squares of caramel-filled chocolate (we had it so one square was in the cake, and one stuck out the top). Cover with home-made chocolate sauce, and enjoy!

This was absolutely delicious, because the heat of the cupcakes melted the chocolate inside them, and when you cut into it you got mouthfuls of gooey chocolate-caramel goodness. Yu-um!

Corn Chowder

Yes, I know, another non-cupcake recipe :) Amazing, isn't it?!

Anyway, a friend of mine is particularly in love with this soup, and asked me to post the recipe here so she can access it. Hence, recipe.

The Recipe

Olive oil, for frying
2 large onions, finely chopped
1-3 cloves of garlic, to taste, crushed
2t cumin
4c (1L) stock - I use a mixture of chicken and vegetable, whichever is on hand
2 medium potatoes, cubed (about 1/2-1cm cubes)
1c canned creamed corn
2c corn kernels
1T dried parsley (alternatively, try 3T fresh chopped parsley)
1c grated Cheddar or Tasty cheese
Salt and black pepper to taste

In a large saucepan over a high heat, fry the onions, garlic and cumin until the onion is soft and translucent. Add stock and bring to the boil. Add potatoes and reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Add the creamed corn, corn kernels, and parsley. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir through the cheese and seasoning until the cheese is melted. Serve immediately.

Makes 5 decent sized servings.

The Results

Uh, YUM! Seriously though, after making this soup a few times now, I am absolutely in love with it. And my husband even likes it, which is saying something, as he's not a huge soup fan.

I highly recommend using chicken stock over vegetable stock.

Also, I am usually the kind of person who plays around with herbs and spices in all sort of random combinations. With this recipe - don't. I tried. Trust me. The recipe can't be improved upon.

With one exception - the time I made it where it turned out best, I added about 1/4c extra cheese, and a few shakes of my fancy rosemary, sage and lavendar salt. Gave it a bit of an extra kick that lifted it from really good, to the best soup I've ever eaten.

Pineapple Cupcakes

A few weeks ago I stayed over at my mother's house with my two younger sisters and a friend. Mum was working a morning on Saturday, leaving us with the house to ourselves. I hadn't made cupcakes in a while, and decided what better breakfast...

Pineapple sounded like a fun flavour at the time, so that's what we made. The only photos I got were excessively blurry though, so no pics this time, sorry.

The Recipe

1/3c sugar
1/2c butter
1 egg
1 1/2c plain flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 pinch salt
1c crushed pineapple (I used 1 can of rings less two, chopped roughly, with the juice they generated)

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Add alternatively the flour mix (plain flour, baking powder and salt) and the pineapple. Fill muffin pans 2/3 full, and bake for 15 minutes at 180C.
We iced these with icing made from just icing sugar and pineapple juice.


The Results

Well, they were yummy... But unless you happened to get a chunk of pineapple, not very pineappley. Some astute readers may recognise this recipe as the same one I used for the watermelon cupcakes, which also weren't very watermelony. Is it the recipe, I wonder?

I see, however, that I am not the only person for whom pineapple cupcakes didn't taste very pineappley. Stef, the author of Cupcake Project (one of my favourite blogs), had a similar experience. Click here to read all about it.

The icing, however, was very tasty. Quite strongly pineapple-flavoured, if made with a rather cop-out-ish recipe :)

Cream Potato Bake

Yeah, not a cupcake. But this recipe is so simple, and so utterly delicious, that I just had to share. I have no idea about quantities, but it's not difficult to figure out.

And a word of warning: this recipe is not for the diet-conscious :)


The Recipe

Potatoes
Cream (about 600mL?)
Cajun spice mix
Cheddar or Tasty cheese, grated.

Thinly slice enough potatoes to cover the bottom of a cooking dish overlapped. See the picture for a much better explanation :)
Cover the potatoes with cream - and I do mean cover. Sprinkle liberally with cajun spice mix. Don't be afraid to be liberal - the cream absorbs a lot of the heat from the spice. See the third picture for an indication of how much I use.
Top with grated cheese.
Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked.

The Results

YUM! Really. The potatoes absorb some of the cream and have a wonderful creamy (funny that) texture. The cream and spice go perfectly, and the cheese is just the perfect final touch.

The only thing I would suggest is potentially opting for a lower fat cheese. The first time I made this it was great. The second time, it was still great, but a lot of the oil/fat from the cream and cheese leaked out of them, so to speak, and hung around in the bottom of the pan. Which was okay for the first eating, but it made the leftovers a little odd.

Watermelon & Feta Cupcakes

So, we had watermelon that needed to be used up, and I wanted to make some more cupcakes. Months ago I had seen a recipe that Mum had for a watermelon and feta salad, involving - oddly - watermelon, feta and pepper.

Hence, watermelon and feta cupcakes. To get the recipe I knew I needed something that allowed for a sloppy main ingredient, so I searched the web and finding a complete lack of watermelon cupcake recipes (though lots of cupcakes decorated as watermelons), settled for an applesauce cupcake recipe. Watermelon for applesauce, and voila, watermelon cupcake recipe :)

The Recipe
1/4c sugar
1/2c margarine
1 egg
1c roughly processed watermelon, including juice
1 1/2c plain flour
1t baking soda
1/4t salt
1/4t pepper
1/2 block of feta, in 1/2cm cubes.

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Add alternately watermelon and flour/soda/seasoning mix, about 1/4 at a time. Mix well between additions. Mix in feta. Fill muffin tins half to three quarters full and bake for 10-15 minutes at 180C.
Allow to cool in pan for 3 minutes, then turn out onto rack.

Icing:
1/4 container of icing sugar
1 heaped t butter, melted
1/4t pepper

Mix ingredients with enough water to make a reasonably running consistency. Dollop onto middle of cakes and allow to drip down sides.

The Results:

These cupcakes had the most beautiful, light, fluffy texture which kept beautifully – unfridged, unsealed (naughty me) they lasted 3-4 days and were still good.

They had quite a savoury taste; I think most people would prefer to think of them as savoury muffins and eat them without the icing… It would be interesting to try with more sugar and try to make sweet rather than savoury.

To be honest, the feta was good for first day but after that it went solid and… strange. It detracted greatly from the cake. Would love to try them without the feta – I think this would make them more sweet.

I absolutely adore this icing. I literally ate the leftovers by the spoonful. I really need to think of something else to try this icing with... Mmmmm.....

Double Layered Chocolate Mandarin Cupcakes

In the middle of October some time, my Dad went away for a week and asked me to water his plants. I must say, it was an enjoyable experience. Being over there in a quiet, cool house, taking care of the plants, pottering around with no rush, no schedule... Lovely.
And the strawberries were the most amazing strawberries I've ever tasted! Warmed perfectly by the sun, bursting with juice and sweetness... Mmm...
You'd think I'd have made strawberry cupcakes :)
However, whilst watering the beautiful Mexican Orange Blossom bush, I bent over to have a sniff - and boy did it smell good!
We happened to have mandarins in the house and the time, and I came away determined to make something citrusy.
Why with chocolate?
No idea. But it sounded fun, and they tasted pretty good :)

The Recipe

Chocolate part:
3c plain flour
3T cocoa
1T baking powder
1 1/2c brown sugar
200g dark chocolate, chopped
1 1/2c milk
120g butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl. Add sugar and chocolate. Stir to combine. Add milk, butter and eggs. Mix until just combined, but do not over beat.

Spoon into muffin tins, filling tins about 1/3. Do not overfill!

Mandarin part:
115g butter
225g caster sugar
2 eggs
3 largish mandarins, peeled, seeded and roughly pureed (keep juice)
180g self raising flour

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs. Stir through mandarin pulp and juice and sifted flour. Spoon into muffin tin on top of chocolate mixture. Do not overfill!

Bake cupcakes for about 20 minutes at 180C, or until a skewer comes out clean. Turn onto rack to cool after 3 minutes.

Ganache:
90g dark chocolate
160g milk chocolate
1/3c cream
2T mandarin juice and fine pulp

Ice cupcakes when cool :)

The Results

The mandarin part seemed to be a little too sloppy, as it pooled over the edges of the pan and was rather flat. However, the texture of the cooked cupcake was beautiful, even in the mandarin part - it became quite crispy on the outside with a sort of melt in your mouth cakey centre. The chocolate mix is quite dense, but not heavy, and rises rather a lot. So I'd say the best option here would be to reduce the amount of chocolate batter to mandarin batter (maybe double the mandarin and make twice as many cupcakes?). As you can see in the pics, they ended up being about 2/3 chocolate to 1/3 mandarin as it was.

And this brings me to taste. They were absolutely delicious, no doubt about it, but overall the chocolate flavour was very overpowering unless you happened to get a chunk of mandarin. The mandarin cake itself was ok, it was just the combination. Putting less chocolate batter to mandarin batter would help this. Also, I'd be interested to try using two icings - a border of plain mandarin icing and a ganache centre (the ganache is too yummy not to use at all; I had some of the cake plain and the ganache really does give it a punch). Candied peel might also be enough to combat the strong chocolate ganache.

Then again, all three (batter proportion, double icing, and peel) might be the best option! So, the recipe's not perfect, but I'd definitely be interesting in playing with these some more.

Banana Cupcakes

So, this was my first experiment, sort of by accident. I had some bananas that had been hanging around in the freezer for waaaay too long, and a friend over, so we decided to make cupcakes. I found a recipe, and asked my friend to get out the ingredients while I had a shower.

To my shock, I got out and discovered she'd thrown all the ingredients in a bowl.

Highly amusing learning experience. See, I'd never heard of cake recipes where you just threw everything in together. She was following the recipe perfectly, but seeing it all dumped in a bowl rather freaked me out :) So, we decided to use that as the first experiment - the creaming method, versus the chuck-it-all-in-and-mix-it method.

And, bad girls, we broke the cardinal rule of experimentation and changed more than one variable - we alternated sugars O:)

The Recipe:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar (for alternate two use brown sugar)
1 c. mashed bananas
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Alternate one: Mix all ingredients until combined. Fill muffin tins (with or without cupcake liners - I use without - cheaper) 1/2 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C.

Ice with 3/4 of a container of icing sugar (sorry, real measurement coming soon) mixed with 2-3T melted butter, 1-2T water and 3t of vanilla essence.

Alternate Two: Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg & vanilla. Fold through sifted dry ingredients and 100g of chocolate chips. Bake as per option one.

Drizzle melted chocolate over top to finish.

The Results:

Unsurprisingly, the second cupcakes done with the cake method were much lighter and fluffier in texture, though I doubt it would be noticeable to the casual taster.

Oddly, the batter made with the brown sugar was lighter in colour than the batter made with the white sugar, which I found strange.

I must say, what I loved the most about these cupcakes was the gorgeous vanilla icing. It was strongly vanilla, which complemented the banana perfectly, but not overpoweringly. Mm. The dusting of cinnamon on top just clinched it.

The chocolate drizzled over the choc chips ones was great too - the texture of the reset chocolate was great with the lighter texture of the cupcakes.

Overall, tasters were pretty much half and half on this one - some loved the chocolate, and some loved the vanilla :) I'd definitely make these again.