Baker Yee

A couple of years ago my best friends took me to a cupcake decorating class, where we all learnt how to pipe and decorate cupcakes. After that I started to make cupcakes more often because you can decorate the cupcakes in different ways and get creative!

Recently I made some banana cupcakes, with a caramel centre. I decorated these with vanilla butter cream and a miniature stroopwafel.

I used the banana cupcake recipe from Hummingbird Bakery – adapted it by filling the centre with caramel and decorating it with a stroopwafel.

Ingredients:

Cup cakes:

• 225g softened unsalted butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 225g self raising flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 225g mashed bananas

Buttercream:

• 500g sifted icing sugar
• 160g softened unsalted butter
• 50ml whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tin carnation caramel
• 6 mini stroopwafels

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 175 degrees/ gas mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases
2. Combine butter, sugarm flour and eggs in a large bowl, beat for 2-3 minutes until smooth
3. Stir in the mashed bananas until well combined
4. Spoon evenly into the muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and let them cool down
5. Beat the icing sugar and butter together on medium speed until mixture comes together.
6. Reduce the speed, and slowly pour in the milk. Add the vanilla essence. Once this has been incorporated turn this back up to high speed
7. Continue beating the buttercream for at least 5 minutes until it is light and fluffy
8. Hollow out the centre of the cupcakes and add a teaspoon of caramel, replace the cut out pice of cake on top
9. Spoon the buttercream into a icing bag and pipe this on top of the cupcakes.
10. Drizzle with the remaining caramel. Cut the stroopwafel in half and place this on the buttercream

Tips:

• Using super ripe bananas (with brown spots) will give the cupcakes a stronger banana taste and smell
• I brought these mini stroopwafels from Starbucks
• You can use other fillings of your choice to fill the cupcakes