day eighteen - gift box cake + mini banana cupcakes with cream cheese icing

On the eighteenth day of the breakfast project I ate chocolate cake.

Leftover fondant

Yesterday, I made and decorated a chocolate mud cake and mini banana cupcakes for my boy's birthday. 

I confess I actually had to bake this cake twice. As I've never used such a large pan before, I didn't realise how slowly the middle of the cake would take to bake... as I got impatient with it, I turned up the heat and the cake was overcooked on the edges. Rookie mistake. 

The second time I made it I made sure to turn down the heat 20 degrees or so, covered the top with baking paper and let it cook slowly - of course it took much longer but the cake cooked beautifully.

The mess I made 

Don't get me wrong, as lovely as the cake looks, it sure was a bitch to make... as this was my first time using fondant and gum paste, I had a lot of problems with both the fondant and gum paste sticking to the bench and also becoming too dry. For those of you who don't know fondant and gumpaste are icing-like substances that are used to scuplt - however gum paste dries hard and can be used for more intricate decorations such as bows, flowers etc. I'm still a complete amateur at this but have learnt so much and would love to continue icing cakes in this way. 

Would you like to know how I did the gum paste bow? I looked at countless tutorials about covering cakes with fondant and gum paste bows. There is great step-by-step tutorial here  

Mini banana cupcakes with cream cheese icing

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

 

It's a shame bananas are now so scarce in Autralia - they used to make a regular appearance in my morning cereal bowl - but now I only find them looking rather pathetic at the supermarket with a price tag of $13.98 per kilo.

But here's a recipe anyway.

Recipe for Mini Banana Muffins (Cupcakes) 

Source here

Makes 12 regular cupcakes (approx. 24 mini ones)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (125ml) mashed ripe banana
• 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable oil
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• 3/4 cup (185ml) milk  

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 12 x 1/3-cup capacity muffin pan. Combine flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Whisk mashed banana, oil, egg and milk together in a jug. Pour into the well and gently stir until just combined.  

2. Spoon mixture evenly among prepared muffin holes. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. (I'd never made mini cupcakes before so I turned the oven temperature down and made sure to keep an eye on them.) 

3. Cream cheese icing (frosting) recipe here. (Halve this recipe or bake twice as many cupcakes) Pipe the top of each muffin with the cream cheese mixture and top with crushed walnuts.

 

Make a wish