Tuesday 15 November 2011

Why Comfort Eating is Overrated and Banana Cupcakes Recipe

POSTED BY HA



For reasons I'll explain in my next post, I am feeling DE-pressed right now. Majorly. So I'm on the dangerous slope that is Comfort Eating. I finished the box of chocolates I treated myself to less than two weeks ago and as the store that sells imported chocolates is a bit far from home, I've taken to baking. It all started off with an innocent enough Zuchinni/Courgette Cake and pretty much went downhill from there. Chocolate cupcakes, orange yoghurt cake, trifle, chocolate mousse... I've made them all in the last couple of weeks alone! *gulp*

My family, on the other hand, must be loving this little "phase" I'm going through. Like yesterday, when my husband was full from dinner and then I bought out a tray of banana cupcakes, he was so pleasantly surprised that for a split second I thought "hey, maybe this won't be just a phase. I should do this everyday!"

And then I ate three of the cupcakes and actually felt my clothes slowly yet surely get snugger around my waist and almost burst into tears.

Comfort eating is not supposed to have guilt attached to it at the end! Whats that about? So I go to all that effort to feel better (comforted!) only to end up feeling tired and guilty AS WELL AS still upset?! Well thats crap. I need a new comfort plan.

Comfort painting?
Comfort cleaning?!
Comfort movie fests??!

Anyway, whenever you feel guilty after eating something, it generally means it turned out good. Really good. So I'm going to spread the guilt a little and share the recipe!


Banana Cupcakes with Pastry Cream Topping
(Makes about 15)
Recipe inspired by and adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
3/4 cup ripe, mashed bananas
1/4 cup yoghurt 

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celsius (320 fahrenheit).

Meanwhile, put the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and using a hand whisk, stir them together. Or you can sift them together but this takes longer and you can achieve the same goal (ie. combining them all evenly) but just stirring together with a whisk too.

Then, put the oil, sugar, egg and vanilla in a seperate bowl and using an electornic whisk, mix it all up. Add your flour in two additions, alternating with the yoghurt. So you would add some of the flour, whisk, add some yoghurt, whisk, etc. Don't over whisk at this stage; a couple of seconds is enough. You just want the flour to be incorporated without ruining the texture of the batter by over mixing.

Finally, stir in your mashed bananas and thats your batter done! Pour into cupcake cases and bake for about 20 mins. Of course, this will vary from oven to oven so just keep an eye on it from 15 mins onwards.

For the topping,  Brown Eyed Baker suggested pastry cream goes well with this, instead of traditional icing. I've never made pastry cream before. In fact, I wasn't even sure what it was!! A bit of reading up told me I do know this actually: its used to fill eclairs and also known as crème patisserie. I was super excited about making this because I love, love, LOVE ecalirs, profiteroles, etc! To be honest, I was a teeny bit disappointed as it was more from the custard family than it was from the cream family. But I persevered and piped some onto my cupcakes anyway and am glad I did. It goes really well with these particular cupcakes. Alone, the banana taste in this might be too rich, but this gives it a really nice balance without the heaviness of icing.

I used Joy of Baking's pastry cream recipe, because there was a video with it too. Note. you need to make and refrigerate this for a couple of hours before using, all explained in the video.

I didn't take any photos myself because my camera was upstairs and I was being lazy! So you'll just have to trust that they looked exactly as the original creator's did:

Taken from Brown Eyed Baker's blog. Links above!



4 comments:

  1. you spoke my mind amigo! my husband and I work opposite shifts. Meaning, he works from 3:30 - midnight. So when I get home from work after picking up my daughter, around 6, I have supper alone ( well alone meaning not with him, my inlaws and daughter are still with me ). but when those two days in the week roll by, when we have sometimes all three meals together... i go all out. yesterday, I first baked raisin and hazelnut bread which i then made french toasts with and served with fruit. then for lunch we had Quesadillas with salsa and a mexican layered salad ( tres rich ). and I made a punch which in itself has enough calories. then for supper i made his fav karela gosht ( and some left over bhindhi ) and home made naans. dessert: strawberry shortcake.
    the last convo with husband : " we will have another baby after i loose some weight "
    sigh

    ReplyDelete
  2. Confession: occassionally I wish I was a man. Reading ur comment bought on one of those occasions! I wish I was ur husband because oufff that whole menu sounds AMAZING!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thx for stopping by my blog! Lately I have had no self control with chocolate :) Then after devouring some I regret it and think I really shouldn't have done that....

    Your muffins sounds great....love baked good with bananas! I'll be making these the next time I have some overripe bananas sitting on the counter..thx for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. you will not believe it! I came across this on stumbleupon!! lol ... i was just browsing through and came across this and was like " sounds familiar " lol

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...