Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Cupcakes

Hello Cupcake Lovers!!

This recipe is one of three adaptations of the Chocolate Buttercream M&M Cupcakes from New Years Eve, made on New Years Day for a dinner party with some of our close family friends, Jana, Andy, Alexander, and Larissa! 

If you have any fun cupcake-related experiences, please share them in the comments at the bottom of the page, or send me an email or google+ comment! 

The Recipe: Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Cupcakes (Total Recipe makes 12 cupcakes and 6 mini cupcakes, but only 6 became this flavor and the others had additions to their filling and frosting). 

The Cake: 

• 1 cup flour
• 7/8 cup sugar
• 3/8 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2.5 tbsp shortening (aka Crisco)
• 1.5 mashed bananas
• 1.5 eggs
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 dark chocolate chip (for shavings)

The Filling/Icing: 

• 3 stick butter, softened
• 1.5 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp hazelnut powdered creamer
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

The Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (176.6 degrees C). 
2. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 
3. Cut shortening into small pieces to make it easier to mix with dry ingredients. 
4. Mash banana into another, smaller bowl. (Don't tell the kids there's banana in their cupcakes!!)
5. Add one egg to the bowl with the banana. 
6. Break other egg into a small cup or bowl and whisk so that it becomes relatively homogeneous. Pour half of this into the bowl with the banana.
7. Mix oil, milk, and vanilla extract into bowl with banana. 
8. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and beat. 
9. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners (or butter and flour the sides of the pan). 
10. Fill cupcake liners about halfway with batter. 
11. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer (or toothpick) can poke the center and come out with some moist crumbs. You will be able to see the cupcakes rise and smell when they are done. Use the pictures as a guide as each oven is different. 
12. Allow to cool with paper towel covering. 
13. Blend ingredients for filling/icing.      
14. Use cupcake corer to remove the center of each cupcake. Fill each cupcake and replace its center.
15. Fill an icing press with remaining icing.          
16. Press into desired pattern. 
17. Shave dark chocolate on top. 
18. Enjoy! :) 

The Calories:

Flour:  455 calories

Sugar: 665 calories

Cocoa: 70 calories

Baking Powder: 0 calories

Baking Soda: 0 calories

Salt: 0 calories

Shortening: 260 calories

Banana: 150 calories

Egg: 115 calories

Oil: 482 calories

Milk: 30 calories

Vanilla: 12 calories

Hazelnut creamer: 35 calories

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TOTAL: 2274 calories 

Granted, this recipe was for about 12.5 cupcakes. So each cupcake really only had about 182 calories :) 

What went right: 

          They were very delicious and looked prettier than the first batch. 

What went wrong:

          This batch was less moist than the last batch. Not sure why, but might have been a minute or two over cooked, comparatively.

What I would do next time:

         Technically, this batch was basically the same as the M&M batch, and the changes were made in the other cupcakes you see below (coming soon! ;) ) 

Would I do this in college: 

          Totally! In fact, I'm working on reducing this recipe for single serving cupcakes without waste so that I can easily make a quick cupcake for a friend's birthday without having to make an entire batch. One of my least favorite things about baking is that the amounts can be so arbitrary because they depend on your specific baking equipment. One of my goals for this page is to be able to have a mix for every common number of cupcakes desired. Recipes can always be doubled, but the hard part is reducing and keeping the consistency of the original. Keep watching for single serving cupcakes :)

Overall, a wonderful party treat and a great time in the kitchen. It took much longer than I planned to make all three different types of cupcakes, but they turned out fantastic so I don't even care. Everyone enjoyed and I had a blast baking them and honing my icing skills. 

Having a cupcake for 182 calories is actually quite good! A plain bagel has 260-280 calories, and a scone or muffin can have 350-430 calories. However, it's not particularly healthy, so if you'd like to ensure you wake up with your toned body in tact, be sure you've done any of the below before you indulge...

1. Run 1.5 miles
2. Walk 2 miles
3. Dance for 40 minutes
4. Rearrange furniture for 30 minutes
5. Play darts for 70 minutes
6. Play badminton for 40 minutes

Any of the above will burn about 200 calories, making your cupcake guilt-free ;)

                                                            

Cookie Dough Brownie Cake

Yet another hall birthday cake day has come and gone, but not without enough sugar and chocolate to solve our global energy crisis.                  

Happy Birthday to Liljuan and Daniel K., hope you enjoyed our T3 celebration!! :) 

Thanks to Kevin for supplying some of the ingredients and helping me hold this program every month :)

Thanks to Nate for baking with me; you're a natural and I look forward to cooking together more often! I hope you had as much fun as I did :)

Thanks to Aunt Maggie, for the icing bag and tips that made our beautiful writing possible <3

...and to the Maintenance Staff for cleaning up after us the next morning. 

Don't worry, there will be a workout at the end. Trust me, it's worth it. 

The Recipe: Layer 1- Brownies

• 4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate 
• 2 sticks butter
• 2 cups brown sugar 
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

The Process:  Layer 1- Brownies

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees Celsius
2. On low-medium heat, stirring frequently, melt the unsweetened baking chocolate and butter together in a small saucepan. 
3. Whisk the flour, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. (Try to not cover the kitchen in flour while mixing ;) )
4. Once the chocolate and butter are completely melted and mixed, add this mix to the bowl, being careful not to burn yourself on the pot. 
5. Mix with a spoon. 
6. Mix in chocolate chips. 
7. Bake for about 23 minutes (depends on your oven, be sure to watch it carefully!)
8. Allow to cool completely (we stuck the pan in the freezer, because it was going to be there later anyway and this accelerated the cooling process). 

The Recipe: Layer 2- Eggless Cookie Dough (safe to eat without baking!)

• 1.5 sticks of butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1.5 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups chocolate chips

The Process: Layer 2- Eggless Cookie Dough

1. Soften butter in the microwave. (We put the butter in ceramic containers to microwave for a few seconds. Be careful you don't over-nuke it to the point where it explodes in the microwave)
2. Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer. 
3. Spread over completely cooled brownies (This will take some teamwork and diligence...this recipe only JUST covers the whole pan we used). 

The Recipe: Layer 3- Chocolate Chips

• Chocolate Chips

The Process: Layer 3- Chocolate Chips

1. Spread chocolate chips over cookie dough as desired. I made the admittedly wonderful mistake of not specifying an amount, so SOMEONE decided to go ahead and dump the rest of the bag of chocolate chips on top. He got lucky that I'm from a family that believes you can never have too much chocolate ;) 

The Recipe: Layer 4- Cream Cheese Icing

• 4 oz Neufatchel Cream Cheese
• 1/8 cup butter 
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

The Process: Layer 4- Cream Cheese Icing

1. Mix the butter and cream cheese with a hand mixer. 
2. Mix in vanilla extract. 
3. Mix in powdered sugar. 
4. At first it will not look like icing. Give it a minute, increase the power of the mixer, and you'll see the transformation before your eyes. 
5. Put icing into the icing bag with desired tip. 
6. Write, draw, design, personalize!
7. Be sure to hold the icing tip slightly higher over the chocolate chips than usual, so that they will not come off the cake. 
8. Put cake in freezer until it's time to eat. 

Finally...share with amazing friends!!

The Calories: 

Baking Chocolate- 568 calories

Butter- 375 calories

Brown Sugar- 1724 calories

Eggs- 368 calories

Vanilla Extract- 45 calories

Flour- 1138 calories

Chocolate Chips- 3200 calories

Sugar- 580 calories

Milk- 103 calories

Cream Cheese- 388 calories

Powdered Sugar- 233 calories

___________________________

TOTAL:  8722 calories

Mind you, this is for an entire pan. Now it needs to be divided by about 60....which makes 145 calories per serving. Not bad at all when you share it :) To be honest, most of the icing was not used on the cake  either, so most of the cream cheese and powdered sugar should be removed from the total, but we can just know that we're even healthier than we thought, but work off enough calories to cover it anyway!

What went right: 

         Everything. This cake is flawlessly rich and filling. Everyone who tried it loved it, and the energy and happiness cloud on our hall afterward was quite encouraging! 

What went wrong: 

         Yeah, so, it's not a healthy cookie. Whatever. For 145 calories, this cake is about as rich as any chocolate fudge cake or cheesecake for 200 calories less. Like I said, worth it! 

What would I do next time: 

         The only thing I would do next time is be prettier with the icing. We didn't have time to make it as perfect as I wanted to, but it still looked great! Otherwise, there is nothing that should be changed with this recipe. 

          However, if I were making this for my little brother, I would make peanut butter cookies and melt the chocolate on top, so that it would be a Reese's cake. 

Overall, a fantastic cake, entirely worth the calories, and so much fun to make :) 

Now the workout...

So, we need to burn at least 145 calories. There are a few easy ways to do so: 

1. Run 1.5 miles at 10 minute pace. 
2. Walk for an hour at a moderate pace. 
3. Crunches for 15 minutes (45 calories), Squats for 15 minutes (70 calories), Kneeling Pushups for 15 minutes (60 calories). This should be done in intervals, but these are the totals necessary. 
4. 15 minutes yard work (75 calories) and 15 minutes of walking up and down stairs (100 calories). You'd be surprised how easy it is to spend 15 minutes doing stairs in college! 

But in all reality, as long as this is your only dessert for the day, there's really no need to worry!