Banoffee success!!!

Banoffee Cupcakes

(adapted from Elinor Kinvans, Cupcakes!)

1 stick room temp unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar (I used lite brown, packed)

3 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 - 3 tsp vanilla

1- 8 oz container sour cream

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup mashed bananas (2 medium)

16 caramels chopped (I nuked them for 15 sec first)

Cream together butter with sugars until lite and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition (and of course, always scraping bowl when needed). beat well for 2 - 3 minutes. mix in oil and vanilla until well blended then fold in sour cream.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Mix into butter mixture until incorporated. Fold in bananas, followed by caramels (you can roll your caramels in the flour mixture first if you want to, supposedly keeping the caramels from falling to the bottom of the cuppie).

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-21 minutes. I got 28 cuppies out of this batch.

Sandi Oh's Cream Cheese Frosting

1 stick salted butter, room temp

1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temp

8 oz cream cheese, softened

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

3 - 4 cups sifted powdered sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese until well blended and creamy, add salt and vanilla and cream again until well blended. Add 3 cups sugar and blend well. evaluate now if you want more consistency to frosting and add more sugar accordingly. Sometimes if I want to stretch out my frosting a little more, I will add up to 5 cups sugar and then put in a splash of cream or whole milk. This gave me enough to frost all of the cuppies above.

Caramel Sauce

1/2 brown sugar (lite and packed)

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup heavy cream

Bring ingredients to boil in small heavy bottomed sauce pan, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. remove from heat and add 1 tsp vanilla. Let cool before drizzling on cuppies. If you let it sit too long and it doesnt drizzle well, put it in a bowl and nuke it for 10 seconds.

Pecan Toffee

2 Tbsp water

1/2 cup unsalted butter cut into chunks

pinch of salt

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp soda

1 cup chopped toasted pecans.

Put foil onto cookie sheet and lightly grease with butter. Spread nuts into a 8 x 11 area on foil.

Have soda and vanilla ready , then in a medium heavy bottomed sauce pan fitted with a candy thermometer, bring the water, butter, salt and sugars to a boil (I used med to med high heat) until candy therm reaches 300 degrees. Take off heat and immediately add soda and vanilla. Immediately spread over top of nuts and let cool.