Pink Banana Layer Cake

The design of this cake was certainly unexpected. I was supposed to pipe pink buttercream flowers to decorate the top of the cake, but I changed the plan when the flowers started to melt and my wrist started to ache when I tried piping again. The colour of the outside of the cake wasn't supposed to be pink too. It just happened to be that the pink buttercream flowers didn't work out, so I had to coat the cake with pink frosting. Then an idea suddenly popped in my mind when I was trying to figure out on how to decorate the top of the cake: Marshmallow flowers. Why not? I know the flowers don't look  right, but they do resemble them a little. It may also look a little childish and silly, but in the end I was happy with it, except when some of the marshmallow petals decided not to stick together anymore.

I didn't intend on making a banana cake too. I was setting out a plan on baking a red velvet cake this week, which is something I have never made before. But the overripe bananas in the fruit bowl had my mother asking me to make something with it before they turn into black, mouldy fruit. The banana cake with cream cheese frosting recipe from Taste.com.au was one of the first cakes I made a few years ago when I was a beginner in baking. I wanted to change the basic recipe a little and turn it into a layer cake by increasing the amount of ingredients by 1.5 times. This ensured that I had three nice, slightly tall layers instead of just one large layer. I rarely bake cakes that have one layer anymore.

The pictures in this post look a little different and 'unnatural' because when I made the cake, it was a dark, cloudy day. What I don't like about cloudy days is that they make me sad and lazy and they aren't so good when it comes to providing natural light for taking photos. So I had no choice but to use bright artifical light, which in the end turned out better than I thought. This cake also reminds me of the Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam from Raspberri Cupcakes. Although I didn't attempt at making an ombre icing, the pink colour and the flowers on top make it look similar to her cake (but it is so much better than mine).

The cake tasted pretty good with a great banana flavour. It is slightly dense and on the heavy side, but since it is a banana cake, it isn't fluffy and light like a vanilla cake would. And it was a bit too sweet for me since the frosting and marshmallows were already quite sweet themselves. Hence, I recommend reducing the amount of sugar in the cake to 1 cup instead of 1 and a half. I'll leave it up to you if you decide to make this banana cake. The flavour is great and the cake is moist but if you're looking for one with a lighter crumb, I'd say this cake isn't for you. Anyway, I'll be back soon with another post next week!

Banana Layer Cake adapted from Taste.com.au

Ingredients:

187.5 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup of sugar
3 large mashed bananas
3 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
150 ml of milk
337 grams (2 and 1/4 cups) of self-raising flour (or add about 2 teaspoons of baking powder to plain flour)
1 teaspoon of baking soda

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (356 degrees F). Grease and line three 8 inch cake tins with baking/parchment paper.
2. Beat butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined. Mix in the vanilla extract, mashed bananas and milk and stir to incorporate.
3. Sift the flour and baking soda into the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Be careful not to overmix the batter or the cake will come out tough and dry.

4. Divide the batter evenly into three cake pans and bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in tins for 10 minutes, before allowing them to cool completely on a wire rack.
5. Make the best-ever-frosting, which is the cooked flour frosting with the cream cheese added (or you can use any type of frosting you like, cream cheese frosting is another good one).
6. Assemble the cake by spreading 3/4 cups of frosting on each layer, working your way up to the final third layer. Crumb coat the cake with a thin layer of frosting and put it in the fridge to set for 30 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, make the marshmallow flowers by taking a few marshmallows and cutting them horizontally into two or three halves (it depends on the size of the marshmallows). Press the sticky side of the marshmallow halves in sprinkles and pinch five pieces together to make a flower. Repeat with the rest of the marshmallows.
8. Colour the rest of the frosting pink with a little pink food gel colouring. Frost the outside of the whole cake with the remaining frosting evenly and smooth it out. Top with the marshmallow flowers. Best served at room temperature.

Marshmallow Chocolate Cupcakes

Pair soft and not-too-sweet marshmallow with a beautifully light and chocolatey cupcake and you have a wonderful yet playful treat! Actually, it is marshmallow fondant that tops these super cute cupcakes. After trying one and getting a lot of positive feedback from my friends, I declared them as one of the best creations I have ever made...not to mention amazingly delicious and simple to make. I made these to take with me to a park I was going with my friends and I desired to make something colourful and pretty like the homemade candy hearts and stars I made a while ago.

The inspiration of this idea came from flicking through the 'Cupcakes by Colour' book by the Australian Women's Weekly. This book is the first place where I look for decorating cupcake ideas. One particular cupcake that caught my eye looked similar to this but was just blue and white stars so I adapted this idea to make more colourful and attractive cupcakes with the addition of hearts. Then applying marshmallow fondant to the cupcake instead of traditional fondant as suggested just made sense and it fit into my plan perfectly.

It worked so well when matched with the perfect chocolate cupcake I found from Glorious Treats. I also had my eye on the marshmallow fondant Bakingdom used for her cakes until I finally got my hands on a packet of vanilla marshmallows. That's when I really started to get creative with the help of the marshmallow fondant recipe by Clockwork Lemon. I got my four gel colours out and added a little to each portion of fondant that I divided by weighing (I love my kitchen scales). Then I cut out hearts and stars (the same cutters I used for the candies) from each coloured dough, replacing the cut-out shapes into the cut out pieces of dough.

The instructions also stated that you should slather some buttercream icing or ganache on top of the cupcake to adhere the fondant but I didn't think that was necessary as the cupcakes were already sticky on the top which helped the fondant to stay in its place. These cupcakes were gone in a flash and everyone loved them. I am already being asked to make another batch of these cupcakes so I highly recommend that you to try out these treats soon!

Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes recipe by Glorious Treats

Makes about 24-27 cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 cups of sugar
1 and 3/4 cups of plain or all-purpose flour
3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 cup of boiling water

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) and line muffin trays with cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda. Add sugar and salt and stir until combined.

3. Stir in the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and beat for one minute or until incorporated.

4. Add the boiling water to the mixture and mix together thoroughly until it is a shiny thin batter.

5. Fill the cupcake liners with the batter until 2/3 full.

6. Bake in preheated oven for about 22-24 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre is clean.

7. Remove the cupcakes from the tray and allow them to cool completely on a wired rack before topping them with marshmallow fondant.

Marshmallow fondant by Clockwork Lemon

Makes just enough to decorate about 20 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

250 g packet of vanilla marshmallows (or any other flavour of your choice)
Icing or confectioner's sugar (the amount can vary so make sure you have an entire bag on hand)
Food gel or colouring

Method:

1. Put the marshmallows in a large microwavable bowl and sprinkle teaspoons of water to make them a little moist.

2. Microwave the marshmallows for ten seconds at a time, stirring with a greased wooden spoon until it has melted and puffed up enough to be sticky (for me it was about a minute in the microwave).

3. Start adding the icing sugar to the marshmallow mixture and stir, adding more each time until it becomes a soft and fluffy dough. Grease your hands if it becomes too sticky and transfer the mixture to a icing-floured bench. Keep adding icing sugar while kneading until it is stiff enough to roll out but be careful not to add too much icing sugar. If it is too stiff and breaks easily, add butter or stick it in the microwave for about 2 seconds.

4. Portion the finished fondant dough by weighing the whole piece and dividing that by 4 (it depends how many colours you desire). Roll out the dough briefly and add a little food colouring in the middle. Start kneading and wear plastic gloves if you don't want your hands coloured until the colour is distributed evenly, making sure that the other pieces of dough are wrapped tightly with plastic wrap.

5. Roll out each piece of coloured fondant to about 5 mm thick or a little less. Cut out shapes with your tiny cutters (about 3 cm in diameter) slightly close together. Put these shapes in a zip lock bag while you do the rest. Alternate the shapes and place them in the cut out holes of all of the coloured portions of fondant. Roll it again to ensure the shapes are in place.

6. Cut out rounds of fondant from each colour with a 7 cm round cookie cutter (or a similar size that fits the cupcakes) and carefully place each piece on top of the cupcakes, pressing them slightly in place.