A batter is prepared that incorporates real banana fruit that hasn't gone black and fortified with banana liqueur.
Cups are prepared with ground almond to guarantee cupcake-release.
Commercial frosting is fortified with banana liqueur and piped for a topping.
The batter does not follow a recipe. Rather, my favorite things are included, cinnamon and a tiny dash of ground clove. Things that cupcakes traditionally require, egg, banana liqueur in place of vanilla extract, two whole bananas smashed in their peel and squeezed out as toothpaste.
One egg is beaten with one half cup refined white sugar. A dash of salt is added to the mixture. Three ounces of vegetable oil is beaten into the egg and sugar mixture. That is, approximately 3/4 of 1/2 measuring cup vegetable oil. See, four fourths of one half cup is four ounces. So three fourths of one half cup is three ounces.
MATHS !
The oil-judgement that I am using here is taken from the general instructions on boxed cake mixes. It appears one of the secrets to cakes is the use of vegetable oil rather than butter. Hey, you learn from whatever sources available.
Pecans on impulse.
Flour is sifted by the half cup, the viscosity assessed as it proceeds. I am attempting to assimilate the lessons learned from the last banana cupcake fail, which appeared to be a batter too thin and over-leavened. Therefore, this batter will be thick.
No cocoa this time.
A single chemical leaven is used, here baking powder because I am assuming without actually testing that this mixture is not acidic. The baking powder is not added all at once. Batter is scooped out into another bowl in the amount that I think will fill one cupcake tray. Baking powder is added to the new bowl of batter leaving the reserve batter unadjusted with baking powder. I do not want the reserve portion sitting there waiting its turn with baking powder in it. I would rather wait until it is time to fill the cups to add the baking powder at the last minute. I am not sure this precaution is necessary, I just don't want to take any chances with it becoming active before I am ready.
Whole almonds are ground in a coffee grinder. I don't much care for these things and it seems a good way to get rid of them. This is an experiment to see if powdered almond can replace flour in tray preparation for reliable cupcake-release. It worked beautifully. The trays were liberally buttered and very liberally powdered with almond.
Baked at 350℉ for ten minutes. Checked with a toothpick. Cooked an additional two minutes. So, twelve minutes total.
They tapped right out of the tray. Hurray!
Commercial icing because I'm sort of over it at this point and the kitchen is a mess. Plus I didn't want to break out half a pound of butter or a whole thing of Crisco. The commercial icing was thinned with the same banana liqueur that fortified the cupcakes. The icing was piped using a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Okay, that's kind of fun. It used the whole doggone container of icing which goes to show ya something about piping bag fun or something.
Lully, innit?
There was the perfect amount of batter for 12 cupcakes, and the perfect amount of icing. Actually, I could have used a little more icing for whole-hearted icing extravagance.
The batter is delicious raw. That is how I knew I was on the right track. If they would only form nice little cupcake domes, which they did, and that filled my heart with joy and wonder. It's fun to watch them through the oven window when they're not spilling all over the place burning on the bottom of the oven, stinking up the whole house, setting off alarms.
10 comments:
To the Rogue Chef:
Does the Banana Liqueur have that awful artificial taste? I can't imagine that you would use it if it did, but I have to ask. I love all things banana (except slipping on the peels) and want to make some of these pronto, but I don't want to buy a bottle of something that's only going to end up being poured down the drain or used to kill weeds in my lawn. I get the idea from what little I've read of your blog that you dig this stuff. So, what's the skinny???
I am surprised how good this is. Especially considering the source. I test-sipped it and it seemed fine to me. I just now test-sipped it again looking for a metallic zing. It smells of clear banana and it went down very smoothly. I recommend it. It's surprisingly gentle. I think I'm going to use this more than I had imagined.
I too hesitated for the same reasons you cite. I could visualize the bottle sitting there unused for years and that put me off the idea of bothering. Finally I relented. But instead of heading off to the area's reliable source where I would have a large selection and knowledgeable helpful staff, instead I dropped into the next door bottle shop, which is less well stocked.
I asked the giant goon with the extended belly behind the counter, "do you have banana liqueur?" He goes, "Yup, I think so. I'd be about ... here ya go." He handed me the single type they carry. The brand is Hiram Walker. This did not bode well. I expected the worse.
Incidentally, I bought a bottle of sake, a bottle of Madera, and a 12-pack of Newcastle in addition to this Hiram Walker banana liqueur. The bill was only $44.00 or something in the low 40s, so I go, "Wow, you let me off easy today." The giant lumbering Sasquatch goes, "How'zat?" I go, "I thought the bill would be at least $100.00." He goes, "Hahaha, you expected that?"
I sense their regular customers generally buy things one bottle at a time, if you know what I mean. The immediate area is heavily panhandled.
So, even if you do not care for it, which I doubt will happen with this brand, it is still surprisingly inexpensive. Probably less even than weed killer.
I recently bought weed killer and you're right, I think Hiram or any of his other buddies will do double duty better than my Orkin self-service lawn liquor.
Can I ask you a question? I'm not trying to be nosey or anything...but who the heck eats all this food that you make? Are these recipes that you've made previously and are just now posting? or is this actually what you are making in real time? If the answer is hidden in the blog somewhere, I have to admit that I haven't read the whole thing yet. I feel surprisingly better now that I've admitted that. Whew! seriously though...what's the deal?
I'm so making these cupcakes tomorrow and I'll keep you posted. I doubt I'll include pictures, as my food tends to taste way, way better than it looks.
You're an Air Force brat, right? I spent time in the Air Force, mostly in Asia and so love the detail you give regarding food items that I've always used, but never understood how they "work" on food. That whole explanation about marinating the chops with sake was incredible.
Alright, I feel myself getting giddy and carrying on. You are helping me though to take my passion and hobby of cooking and baking to a whole new level. I appreciate your hard work.
Sultry, I eat most of it but not all of it. For example, I just now had two pork chops for lunch and I'll munch on those off and on until they're gone which won't be very long. But something like these cupcakes and the cookies made earlier are too much sugar to have around. I kept four of the cupcakes and gave the rest away. I put them on a tray to deliver to the birds in a nearby office but encountered two gents steaming the carpet so I offered and they accepted, I met another grounds worker and offered to him and he accepted too. So the tray I delivered had three less cupcakes almost immediately.
As to the cookies, I packaged up half of them and took them with me to the doctor's office. I gave the bag to the receptionist and told her to make sure the doctor had some. By the time I left the nurses and the billing staff had already divided them out. I kept the other half in a tin and I hit that tin a couple of times every day. That reminds me, I feel a need for a cookie coming on.
I also like to dump things at parties I go to.
I experiment on friends here at the house. I think I mentioned earlier somewhere my extended family was here for a dinner. They're a bit annoying because they say "No thank you" to too many things, imho. My nephew said to me, "What? I had grits last night? No way, because I don't eat no grits." I said, "Yes, you ate shrimp & grits, the grits were yellow, not white, so you didn't recognize them and they were called polenta and not grits, but they're still grits. You dumb ass, you don't even know what you're saying 'no' to."
When I'm in a sourdough bread phase, I usually give most of that away because the batches are too big to keep, but lately I've been making regular little baguettes and devouring them myself over the course of a few days.
The tempered chocolate is all given away.
It might seem like a lot of food, and it probably is, but I make almost all my own meals, and when I don't then I tend to be critical. I expect it to be better than I could do myself since I'm a regular bloke and not a professional cook. I seldom if ever stop at the fast food places.
I should have shown myself to be the prophetess I pretend to be because I had a feeling that you were going to tell me something similar as to what you do with the food. I wasn't worried that it was going to waste. I am into cooking and freezing and I rarely eat out and so I figured you might have some good tips for freezing the food, etc.
Happy Thursday Rogue....
I'm getting ready to prepare these cupcakes, as I finally have all the supplies, but my question is: How much baking powder did you use? How much did you add to the original amount of batter and then to the reserve? Thanks.
Tracy
My little pan held six cupcakes. I added 3/4 teaspoon baking powder to that amount.
I overestimated how much batter the six little cups would take so there was extra batter with baking powder in it that got mixed back into the reserve batter. I added a little over 1/2 teaspoon to the reserve.
Both batches worked equally well.
For 12 cupcakes, I'd go 1 + 1/2 teaspoon fresh baking powder.
Also, my batter was fairly stiff. More stiff than cake batter from a box. I am baking at altitude where slightly stiffer batters are recommended. You're at sea-level, I presume. Your mileage may vary.
I'm at sea level alright...Myrtle Beach style. I will adjust the batter accordingly.
Thanks for the speedy response!!! You're a gem.
It might be helpful to find a banana nut bread recipe online.
Switch out banana liqueur for the vanilla extract in the recipe. If you decide to use more liqueur than the recipe calls for vanilla extract then make it up with extra flour.
Incidentally, did you taste-test the banana liqueur. Do you pick up a metallic taste?
Also, you already know this, using paper cups inserts will eliminate the need to prepare the cupcake tray with butter and flour for cupcake release.
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