A Day Off: Chocolate Banana Cupcake with pecans cream cheese frosting

Today is the second day of the biggest snow storm ever..........



I have never ever seen so much snow before..... well i guess that is also partly because i grew up in a very warm place up until I was 18

Got a call today from my boss Mary...... "the library is close today.......too much snow..... I don't think anyone will come to the library today"

I usually work on Sunday at the library as a librarian from 1-8.......Yeah a day off..... but what am i going to do?

I can't really get to school (or i don't want to head out in the crazy snow) and work on my thesis......

maybe i will make that cupcake that I have been dreaming about ever since i found those mini muffin tins in the kitchen at my new place.........

I have to admit during busy times, i am a lazy baker and find myself using a lot of cake mixes to save some time..........but i always use organic cake mix...... cake mix without all the weird chemicals in conventional cake mix that i myself ,a self-proclaimed scientist or my chemist sister cannot even understand.............and if you are a label reader like me.... you will find that the ingredients in organic cake mixes are just about the same ingredients that you would use if you start from scratch

In this package of cake mix that i used...... the ingredients are

1. organic wheat flour
2. organic cane sugar
3. baking soda
4. cream of tartar
5. salt
6. organic natural vanilla flavour
7. organic carob bean gum

Not bad eh? everything pre-measured and ready to go............so i can just focus on adding other ingredients to make the standard vanilla cake mix more interesting!!!

This cake mix calls for

1. 3 large eggs (Organic if you want to maintain the organic theme)
2. 2/3 cup (150 ml) organic milk
3. 1/2 cup (125 ml) organic vegetable oil

To make my chocolate banana cupcakes, I changed the above ingredients just a tiny bit

Materials:

1. 2 large eggs
2. 1/2 cup organic soy milk
3. 2 over ripen organic banana (mushed by a fork and some "heavy duty arm strength")
4. 1/4 cup organic pear puree (which act as a substitute to the vegetable oil.....you see that people use applesauce for the same purpose a lot too.....but i like the idea of pears in cakes.......* A little trick of mine: you often find applesauce or other fruit puree come in big jars and if you only use it for baking once in a while, then is really not worthy to buy a big jar..... what i do is i get the baby food fruit puree.... they are inexpensive, alway come in little jars and free of additives)

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 325F
   
2. Mix all wet ingredients together
   
3. Combine wet ingredients with cake mix
4. Pour batter in mini muffin pans (a package of cake mix should yield ~48 mini cupcakes)
5. Bake for 15-20 mins
6. Cool in pans on rack for 10mins and then remove from pans for complete cooling
   
7. Ready for frosting

I used the cream cheese frosting recipes from the famous Sprinkles Cupcakes in L.A. to make my pecans cream cheese frosting. I found the recipe a long time ago and i can't really remember where it came from.

Materials:

1. 1 pkg of cream cheese (~8 oz)
2. 1/2 stick of butter (~1/4 cup)
3. Pecans as much as you like
4. 3 cups of confectioner's sugar
5. a dash of vanilla extract

Methods:

1. Blend cream cheese and butter until soft and fluffy
2. add sifted confectioner's sugar in the mixture until desire sweetness and consistency
3. Add a dash of vanilla extract for flavouring
4. Grind pecans in food processor or coffee grinder until fine (not the one you use to grind coffee though)
5. Add processed pecans into cream cheese frosting and mix with a spectula

Conclusion:

Frost the cupcakes and CONSUME!!!

* I coated some pecan with organic dark chocolate for deco of the cupcakes

* I know the piping is a bit weird..... I can't find my piping tips.... WHERE ARE YOU???
* You might see some pink bites in the frosting.... that was because i added too much sugar in the frosting cause i wanted a stiffer consistency and end up being to sweet, so i added a little bit of grapefruit juice to cut the sweetness