Easter Banoffee Cupcakes

Hope everyone had a wonderful Good Friday, St George’s Day, Easter Sunday, ANZAC Day combo over the past four days.

For me, it was a wonderful long weekend of sunshine and picnics, time with family and friends, and a slightly-earlier-than-expected new arrival.

I made these Banoffee Cupcakes for my husband for Easter. They were supposed to be a surprise, but he was sick for the two days leading into the Bank Holiday and I haven’t yet mastered the art of sneaky baking. Especially since it still takes me half a day to make a batch of cupcakes. Especially since my kitchen still looks like a disaster area afterwards.

The banana bases came together well, without any side splatters on the cases, thanks to Jess‘ tip of using a bowl with a pourer (I used my measuring jug). However, the custard topping was a multi-step mission of making custard, cooling, whipping cream and folding it all together – and I wasn’t that sold on the final result.

Being Easter, I thought I’d decorate the cupcakes with Mini Eggs, but the caramel custard topping made the dye run and eventually, the hard shells dissolved altogether. The custard also made the cupcakes seem more like a dessert than an anytime treat, and meant that they needed to be kept in the fridge rather than a cake tin.

I baked these from the Cake Days recipe book as part of a book vs. app review that I’m writing for iPhoneAppCafe.com (any excuse to buy both versions!). There’s no indication of difficulty level in the book, but  when I checked the iPhone app later on, there was a extra piece of information on the menu: Skill: Intermediate.

I wouldn’t call myself an intermediate baker just yet, so I was kind of proud of how these turned out – the lumps in the custard weren’t even noticeable once the custard was piped onto the cakes!

The film isn’t usually better than the book, but is the app? I’ll be baking my next batch of cupcakes using the Cake Days application on my iPhone and it’ll be interesting to see the results.