banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and fruit leather flower pom poms

By the time I got to the sign-up sheet for the Teacher Appreciation Week luncheon at my son's preschool, there was nothing left to sign up for.  Literally nothing - all the slots were full.  But I wanted to make something to bring anyway, and since we had an abundance of overripe bananas at home, I decided to make banana cupcakes.

At first I was just going to top the cupcakes with a simple cream cheese frosting, but then a few days before the luncheon I saw this post at Best Friends for Frosting, which linked to this tutorial at Wedding Chicks - edible DIY flower pom poms made out of fruit leather!  Genius!

Making the pom poms was fairly simple.  The hardest part was getting the petals to stay put.  But the tutorial said to use toothpicks to help hold the petals in place while they dried, and that seemed to help.  But even though I let them dry overnight, they were still a bit soft and floppy the next morning.

The night before the luncheon, I made my banana cupcakes using my mom's banana bread recipe (stay tuned for a post on her banana bread later).  One batch of batter that would normally fill one 9-inch loaf pan ended up making 16 cupcakes.

I thought perhaps the cupcakes might come out more like muffins, since the recipe was meant for banana bread, but I sampled one after they were baked, and it was actually the perfect texture!

Next I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting and used a 1M tip to pipe large roses on top of the cupcakes.  And then I topped them with my pom poms.

I had only made 6 of the fruit leather pom poms (they were more time-consuming to make than I had anticipated!), so I topped the remaining cupcakes with sugar pearls and non-pareils.

I hope all the teachers enjoyed the cupcakes!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

blogiversary and banana cream tuxedo cake

I totally missed my one year blogiversary.  My very first post was October 5th of last year, and I totally forgot about it until I suddenly realized one day in November that I had missed it!

To celebrate, I decided to recreate a cake that I had eaten at a birthday party a few months ago.  It was a banana cream cake - two layers of moist banana cake, filled with a thick layer of pastry cream, and covered with whipped cream.  And it was delicious!  To take it one step further, I wanted to decorate it like this tuxedo cake at Annie's Eats, with a gorgeous ganache glaze dripping down the sides.

For the cake I initially considered using my mom's banana bread recipe, which I love because it's so easy and very moist and delicious.  But I thought perhaps I should choose a recipe intended for cake, since i wanted a cake-like fluffy texture.  So I chose a recipe from David Lebovitz's book "Ready for Dessert".  It called for ingredients that I would never think to pair with bananas, including cinnamon and espresso!  I was curious to see how the combination would taste.

Once the cake was baked and cooled, I made a batch of pastry cream, using the recipe from my boston cream pie inspired cake.  After letting the pastry cream cool in the fridge, I piped a thick layer on top of a layer of banana cake, and returned it to the fridge to let it set.  When I though enough time had passed, I placed the second layer of banana cake on top, and placed it back in the fridge while I prepared the whipped cream frosting.

When I was ready to decorate the cake, I opened the fridge, and gasped when I saw that the pastry cream was oozing and dripping down the sides of the cake.  Not pretty.  I guess I didn't let it set enough.  But I tried not to freak out, and just used a spatula to scrape off the excess pastry cream and dump it in the sink.  What a waste.  At least there was still a thin layer of pastry cream in between the two cakes!

After covering my cake with whipped cream and piping a shell border on the bottom, I returned it to the fridge and then began to make my ganache glaze.  I used an Ina Garten recipe, and it was so simple to make - just semisweet chocolate, heavy cream!  I didn't want the glaze to melt the whipped cream on my cake, so I waited for it to come to room temperature first.  But perhaps I waited too long, because by the time I spread it over my cake, it wasn't drippy enough to ooze down the sides!

The next time I make this, I think I'd change a few things - a) I'd use my mom's banana bread recipe, as it is still my favorite; b) I'd lighten the pastry cream with whipped cream, which might help it from oozing out the sides; c) I'd spread the ganache when it's warm and still slightly runny.  But the cake still ended up tasting great, and I especially loved the flavor combination of all the components!  Bananas, chocolate, and cream - YUM!  Perfect for a blogiversary! :)