Wilton Course 2 Finale- Banana Cupcakes

Ha Ha Had to post my cake! It actually came out not looking TOO bad.
I baked a banana cake and had to use class buttercream to ice it. I was burned out on chocolate and decided to make banana, but Mark hates bananas so I made just a little cake to decorate. But I chose to make a 3 layer 4 inch cake and make cupcakes to take to work. Yes there are 4 inch cake pans. HeHe So cute. The cake is pictured above.
Anyway, Mark told me no one would eat nasty banana cupcakes. He thinks no one likes banana. Of course he was wrong. I iced the cupcakes with buttercream I made using the recipe from the Opera cake, but flavored with bourbon vanilla. Fantastic! I took a dozen cuppies to work and brought home the empty container! Everyone had more than one! The cupcake and the buttercream combo was really a winner. Here are the recipes.
Banana Cupcakes

1 (18.25 oz.) box yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 oz.) box instant banana pudding
4 eggs
1 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mashed banana
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with papers.
2. In a large bowl combine cake mix and pudding mix. Stir together and create a well in the center.
3. Add eggs, banana, water and oil to the center. Use a mixer to combine. Scrape sides down, and mix for about four minutes on medium speed.
4. Pour batter into muffin tin, until about 2/3 filled with batter.
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until tests done.

French Buttercream

2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
½ cup (60 grams) water
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1¾ cups (7 ounces; 200 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
flavouring of your choice (a tablespoon of an extract, a few tablespoons of melted white chocolate, citrus zest, etc.) I used Madagasgar Bourbon Vanilla.
Combine the sugar, water and vanilla bean seeds or extract in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves.Continue to cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 225^◦F (124^◦C) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Once it reaches that temperature, remove the syrup from the heat.While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk them until they are pale and foamy.

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature and you remove it from the heat, reduce the mixer speed to low speed and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment.
Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).While the egg mixture is beating, place the softened butter in a bowl and mash it with a spatula until you have a soft creamy mass. With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in two-tablespoon chunks. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the buttercream is thick and shiny. At this point add in your flavouring and beat for an additional minute or so.Refrigerate the buttercream, stirring it often, until it’s set enough (firm enough) to spread when topped with a layer of cake (about 20 minutes). Note-This buttercream will not hold up well in warm weather.

Janet and Jim's B-Day Cake

Oh, This was my first time decorating with roses! My co-workers Janet and Jim who have birthdays this week made me feel great by each taking pictures of the cake to show their families! (I should have skipped making the stems!)
It was fun making the roses, even though my icing was a little thinner than I needed. Now thatI am done with Wilton course 1, our class decided to take course 2 together! More fun to come.

Butter Pecan Clown Cake

I am taking a Wilton cake decorating class and as all good students do in Lesson 3, I made a clown cake. You can't see the whole cake here, but this picture is the top before it was totally done. I'm still in new blog mode and forget to take pictures. I added more balloons and balloons to the side.

The cake itself is from the Taste of Home website, but I cut the recipe in half which still made one pretty tall 9" layer, especially when I cut it in half and filled it with buttercream. The flavor was pretty good, not a real sweet cake, more like a nut cake, which went well with the sweet buttercream.

I used a different buttercream than the Wilton one, since I don't like the way it tastes. My recipe is below. You can find the cake recipe here.

BUTTERCREAM ICING (makes a medium consistency icing)

1 cup shortening

1 cup butter (salted or unsalted)- softened

1/3 cup hot water

1 Tbl powdered coffee creamer

1 tsp popcorn salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp butter extract

8 cups powdered sugar

Using a stand-up mixer, cream together the butter and shortening until nice and fluffy. Measure out the water in a standard measuring cup and dissolve the creamer, the salt in this water. Add the extracts to the cup. Stir well with a spoon.Turn your mixer speed to the lowest possible setting and add in the powdered sugar slowly. Alternate back and forth with the water mixture. Keep the mixer on low until all liquid and powdered sugar are combined. Once combined, turn the mixer up a notch and mix well. Approximately 2-3 minutes.