Chocolate Banana Cupcakes with Ganache Frosting

This recipe just caught my eyes one day when I was reading joyofbaking.com website.  I thought to myself I just had to make these interesting cupcakes now but I didn't have any riped bananas.  So few weekends went by and I went to grocery shopping where I finally got some riped bananas...and so the baking began. This was easy to make and all with two bowls!! No mixer needed! I just love it when that's all the equipment I need to bake! Because eventho baking is fun, at the end the cleaning and washing is a pain!

For these cupcakes, the outcome was pretty interesting.  One might think it is kinda weird to put mashed up bananas in their batter but it wasn't that bad.  It was like chocolate cupcakes with a hint of banana.....it was not overwhelming I thought it would be.  The texture was moist and not soggy or to the point where every bite you would get a chunk of banana. The frosting was very good, light, fluffy and soft....kinda like meringue. I"m not big on frosting but this was good!!!  Not sure if that is how Ganache frosting is because the previous times I attempted to make it, it was nothing like this!!!  Finally, topped off the Ganache frosting with some shredded bittersweet chocolate bits.....YUMMY!

Ladybugs & Pumpkins.......Vote Now!!

Sunflower #1

Sunflower #2

Sunflower #3

Alrightly...let the voting begin!!! 

Ok, so everyone need your help.  I made this as a special request for an upcoming birthday party and came up with three different design for the ladybug sunflower.  One of the sunflower is my own creation and the other two is from the book "Hello, Cupcakes!" but with a little tweeking.  Now I need you gals and guys to vote and see which one do you like best?

As for the pumpkin, there was only one design that I got from "Hello, Cupcakes!"....what do you think of pumpkin?

Cake pops.....

I was surfing the net on day and came upon this cake pop idea from "Bakerella".  Her site is so awesome and her cake pops are out of this world.  So...as you can see another new thing to learn.......adding more to my already existing list of things to expand on. 

Ok, so let's get started......since I had some carrot cake in the fridge that I was going to use that for my cake decorating class but didn't. I decided to use it for this experiment...but first I had to make some cream cheese frosting.  After that was done, I crumbled the carrot cake and added in some cream cheese frosting.  I thought I added enough cream cheese frosting so I started rolling them into balls...but as I later found out, I either lacked the cream cheese frosting or cake cuz the stick didn't adhere to the cake balls that well. I was only able to get a few good ones to make it a cake pop.  But that was not the bad part yet......the melting of the chocolate disaster came next.  I used Wilton candy melts thinking it will be easy breezy....boy, was I wrong.  I don't know what I did wrong....I followed the directions on the back of the bag melting it in the microwave...but the end result was terrible. The chocolate consistency was not thin....liquid-like texture where coating the pops will be easy.  Instead, it was thick...and I didn't know how to thin it.....so now that's something I still need to work on.  Maybe next time I will do the double boiler method and see if that would make a difference. 

Anyways, at the end I was able to savage a few good ones and I added some sprinkles on it to make it look more like a lollipop.  The combo of carrot cake wrapped in vanilla chocolate came out pretty good...especially when you bite into it.  At first, it is hard due to the texture of the chocolate and then a crunch and then something moist inside!!! YUMMY!!!  Will definitely make this again to master the chocolate part....hopefully it will turn out better than this!!! Enjoy for those of  you that are eating this!!!

My class final cake......

This was my last decorating class and the final was to decorate your own cake.  The last thing we learned was making flowers and ta-da.....now I know how to make flowers for decorating.  Not bad for learning something for less than an hour, right?  But I do have to say....at then end, my hand hurts after making seven of them.  The teacher told us that the next class, if we continue we will have to make 50 flowers!!! I'm like....see yah! hahahahah.  I was kinda sad that my class had ended cuz I really liked being able to learn new things from a teacher, eventho most of the things I had done so far was self taught.  The class was fun and got to meet different people and even this lady that will be venturing out her own cupcake truck business.  I wish her the best of luck with it!

The next class after this is "fondant and gum paste" decorating or "flowers and cake designing" (more advance).....still thinking if I should continue or not.  The class time is what's holding me back since it's too late by the time I come home.  My babies miss their mommy too much when she is not at home.....so I don't know yet.  Guess we'll just have to wait and see........

Shaggy mums....Pompoms...and a worm?

Doesn't it look store bought?

Shaggy mums....

Pompoms......

Blue worm hiding amongst the grass.....

These cute cupcakes were made for my decorating class.  The flowers are pompoms and shaggy mums. I just loved the way the shaggy mums turned out!!! They look so pretty.  As for the little blue worm, that's my own creation....pretty cool, huh? The teacher said we can do whatever we wanted too so I was in the mood for insects (due to the previous ladybug gig) and that's how the worm design came up.  I didn't feel like taking it out of the box and so sorry if the pictures are not so clear.

Pineapple Cupcake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

I got this pineapple cupcake recipe from TLC "top 5 healthy treats".  It is considered healthy because you are using crushed pineapples so you don't have to use too much sugar.  When I started making this though, I added some shredded coconut to the batter to make it more tropical.  The outcome was a very moist cake....kinda like the "pineapple upside down" cake texture where the top was shiny glaze-y golden brown color.  Supposedly, there was no frosting recommended just dust the cupcake off with powder sugar.  However, I wanted to see how it would taste like with some frosting.  So I made some coconut cream cheese frosting to top it off.  I didn't try any myself with the frosting on top but my friends did and they said it was a unique taste.  Another commented that there were too many shredded coconut.  Good to know....next time will definitely either lessen the amount of shredded coconut going into the batter or omit the whole thing...=).

Ladybugs and lizard on my cupcake?? ewwwwww!

Do you see what I see??? ladybugs and lizards....is that right? Yes! I made this because it was a request for a 10 yrs old upcoming b-day party.  It's still in the stage of testing out the design of the lizard but the lady bugs are awesome!!!  They look so cute. Of course, the actual order will have the correct colors of the bugs.  I got this idea from Martha Stewart's "Cupcake" book that my friend got for me when I told her I was going to venture into baking.  It was a pretty cool experiment and fun too.  The little crawlers were not so bad to make and I just loved the way the grass turned out.  The cupcake is a yellow buttermilk cupcake with green buttercream frosting.  The creepy crawlers were made out of the MM fondant........all edible! Can't wait to do this for the b-day girl....hope she will like it! 

Coconut Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

                                                             Someone couldn't wait to get their hands on it.....

I made this cake for my cake decorating class that I just started last week.  I figure since I'm going to try doing cakes now, why not learn some more techniques of decorating that would help me out more.  Ironicly, the design on top of the cake was a cupcake, which I thought was pretty funny since that's how I started this whole venture! ....hahahahah.  I wanted to take a picture of the whole cake but as one as can see, someone beat me to the cake before I got a chance to take the picture...(hint: hubby).  So the cake was a coconut cake that was made with coconut milk and then filled with coconut cream cheese frosting that I tinted with yellow food coloring to make it look tropical.  The cake was delicious and moist with a hint of coconut....kinda have a texture of a pound cake too.  As for the frosting outside the cake, I cheated since I freakin' forgot my buttercream frosting that I had all nicely made and packaged for class but left it at home!!! So, I had to use store bought icing and did the decorations and frosting.  The class was pretty fun and informative eventho some of the stuff I already knew prior to taking the class.  But regardless, I really enjoyed making this cake and I brought some to work to share.  So far....good reviews on the cake...so another "pat on the back" for me.......=).

Let there be cake.........

As Buzz would say "To Infinity and Beyond"

Like the title goes....."let there be cake"....is exactly what I did. After baking and testing out so many cupcakes, I figure why not venture into cake designing and decorating.  So the first cake I did was my son's birthday cake. As one can see, it was "Toy Story 3" theme and Buzz was my son's favorite character!  I initially didn't know what to think of making this cake since I never custom make any cakes before beside buying the box cake mix and just bake it and frost it as it.  Then on Saturday night while surfing the net, I googled "Toy Story 3" cake design and lo and behold.....I saw this lady making a "moon-like" cake and having the Toy Story characters on it. So I thought about it and figure that would be a great idea but didn't know where to start. 

That's when my journey lead me to marshmallow fondant (MMF).  This is just like your regular fondant but a little sweeter.  I think it kinda taste better than store bought fondant since it's freshly made..=).  So, with MMF in my hand, I started to think about the design of the cake.  That's when I figure Buzz should be the talk of the town since my son just loves him so much.  Then the design came to my head while incorporating the website ladie's idea too....a moon-like cake on top of a rounded cake, making it look out it's out of space.  As you can see, the idea and the cake came out pretty good and YES, I am pretty proud of myself...(a pat on my back).  The bottom cake was chocolate with raspberry buttercream and the top cake was just chocolate.  My son and daugther both liked it a lot and now my daughter has requested that for her b-day she would like a monkey cake!! 

So, my new adventure into custom cake design and decorating has begun!  It was a very fun and interesting learning curve for me when it came to making this cake.  But at the end, it was well worth it since it put a smile on my kids face and seeing their expressions was priceless!