A sweet recipe to usher in 2009

I love making cupcakes using regular cake recipes. They're easy to eat and convenient to store and serve. We're being invited for New Year's Eve dinner and I decided to whip up a batch of chocolate chip cupcakes to bring along. I was feeling lazy so I used Betty Crocker's Yellow Cake Mix, added chocolate chips and made the frosting.

But if you have time, here's a banana cake recipe I use all the time that my family loves. I make it with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting for the kids but make a couple of plain ones for Kenneth, who likes his banana cake unadulterated. That's the great thing about making cupcakes instead of cake in a pan, you can make individual ones to suit different preferences.

Ingredients for Cake

125g butter
375g self-raising flour
180g brown sugar
1 large egg
250g very ripe bananas (about 3 large ones), mashed
60g sour cream
½ tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp banana essence
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Ingredients for Chocolate Frosting

125g butter
150g Hershey's cocoa powder
2 cups icing sugar
80ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Rainbow sprinkles (optional)

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Beat in egg until combined, then add mashed banana, sour cream, banana essence and beat well.
5. Reduce speed, add flour mixture.
6. Stir in chocolate chips (batter will be thick and lumpy).
7. Pour into greased pan or muffin tray.
8. Bake for 25-30 mins (cake pan) or 16-20 mins (12-muffin tray) or until skewer comes out clean. Do not overcook.
9. Cool completely before icing.

Frosting:

1. Melt butter.
2. Stir in cocoa to slightly cooled butter.
3. Add vanilla essence. Alternately add icing sugar and milk, beating well. (You may need to adjust amounts of icing sugar and milk to your preference).
4. After putting frosting on cake, add rainbow sprinkles.


Your cake should be very moist and light. I know the cupcakes don't look as well-dressed as Lilian's, but they do look cute and kids just love chocolate and sprinkles. Mine do anyway!

Happy New Year!