TWD: Black & White Banana Cupcakes

For this week's TWD, I decided to double the fun...

Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen chose Dorie's Black and White Banana Loaf Cake. I have been on a bit of a cupcake tear lately (what else is new??) so I decided to make cupcakes instead of a loaf. I frosted the cupcakes with a swirl of Dorie's bittersweet chocolate ganache and topped them with banana-honey chips. But did I stop there? No, siree. It seems I needed even more chocolate and even more banana on the plate. So I got out the ice cream maker and made Roasted Banana Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's fantastic book, The Perfect Scoop. I added in his fudge swirl for a marbled ice cream to mirror the marbled cupcake.

Here's the dynamic duo, Black & White Banana Marble Cupcakes with Roasted Banana-Fudge Swirl Ice Cream - what a mouthful!

To marbelize the cupcakes, I alternated dollops of each batter horizontally & vertically, and then swirled with a knife. They look like black & white cookies in the cups, don't they?



Ta da! Marbled cupcakes! I think they look really cool inside:


I baked the cupcakes for 20 minutes at 350 (as opposed to 90 minutes+ at 325 for the loaf cake). I had made this cake about a year ago and it came out underbaked despite a long baking time. While the cupcakes were not undercooked this time, I still found the texture a bit rubbery. I think there must be some flaw in the recipe -- too much liquid maybe? I scaled back the amount of banana to help with that problem but I just think there's something messed up with the proportions - maybe too much milk? Who knows...I doubt I would use this particular recipe again but I have to say that marbled cupcakes are pretty cute, so I'll be doing that again for sure.

And the ice cream? Deeelisssshuuuus. The bananas are roasted with butter and brown sugar before pureeing with whole milk, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. I have thought banana ice cream to be a bit bland in the past, but with the fudge swirl added, that's not an issue at all. The texture was a bit grainy, despite my pulling it from the machine at 13 minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes, but the flavor is great.

I'm wondering if the fact it was a fruit & milk recipe only, instead of a custard with cream & eggs, caused it to be grainier or if 13 minutes was still too long for this particular ice cream. I'll have to try it again sometime to figure that out.

Next week's TWD bring us even more ice cream - yea! Check back for Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream next Tuesday.




P.S. A blogger's plea for help! I am having a lot of trouble with my digital photography. If anyone can give me some advice on getting good close-ups indoors, I'd love to hear from you. I use a Canon SD400 point & shoot. I find that when I use the digital macro setting, the shots are often blurry but I keep reading that I should be using macro for the best shots. And I have a terrible time with the flash. If I use the flash, it's too bright and if I turn it off, the shots are either blurry or dark. I don't know if this is something that can be easily resolved or not. I have better luck when I shoot outside, but I'm usually doing my baking shots at night. I have signed up for a class in September which might help but in the meantime I am desperate for any advice, help, suggestions, etc. Please get in touch if you think you can help me out!