Cafe Mocha Cupcake Fail

I know just how popular cupcakes have become but I've never been a big fan, however I decided to try out a fun filled cupcake after having a suggestion to do so. I know cupcakes can be pretty easy and you can have a lot of free will when choosing what you want your cupcake to be all about. I sat down and thought about what I liked. I decided to make a cupcake based on one of my old favorite drinks; le cafe mocha.

The essence of my cupcake included; a basic chocolate cupcake, filled with an espresso flavored pastry cream, topped with homemade whipped cream and sprinkled with cocoa powder.  In my mind, this was the perfect idea; creating one my favorite sweet drinks into a pastry.  In reality, it did not come out like I imagined.  What can I say, I tend to be an optimist.

It all started with baking the cupcakes.  I had placed them in the oven and of coarse, I wanted to take advantage of time and start to cook the pastry cream as the cupcakes were baking in the oven. The pastry cream involved heating up milk and a sugar, egg mixture on the stove top.  It all went down hill when my stove top refused to light.  The timer went off for the cupcakes, when I checked them I decided to bake them a little longer.  In the meantime, I was distracted by my malfunctioning stove top.  


In the end, I over-baked the cupcakes, absentmindedly forgetting about them in the oven and managed to burn the pastry cream.  At the end of the day, I threw in the towel on my cupcakes and headed to Emmit's empty handed on that Saturday.  


Bake and Learn


However, it was a learning experience.  What I learned, you ask?  My stove is broken...

Billy Eats Banana Cake

With summer in full fling, I decided to make a treat full of summer flavors; for this I chose a banana coconut cake.  The cake was full of different flavors: vanilla, nutmeg, coconut, banana, and held potential to add any extra flavors like nuts, raisins, maybe even some Malibu rum for a kick of coconut flavoring.

With my cake I was most concerned about having a moist and soft cake (I have eaten too many dried out banana breads for my liking).  To ensure a moist cake I used sour cream as a substitute for buttermilk in the recipe.  I have found that in most cakes, sour creams adds a nice flavor and also makes a moist cake.  With the sour cream and mashing up some ripe bananas, my cake seemed like it was off to a good start.  I knew that I had to watch the cake carefully considering I've been over-baking a lot of things.  

Billy can't resist the cake.

Somehow I managed to conquer my oven and my cake was deliciously tender.  I choose to serve my cake plain without any frosting but easily could have whipped up some frosting.  The cake was quite the hit at Emmit's, especially with my sister who loves all tropical flavors.