Recipe | Banana PB&J Cupcakes

When I posted about the Whole Wheat Carrot Cake Cupcakes, I mentioned that I wanted to bake Banana PB&J Cupcakes next time. This has been something I wanted to do because we all know bananas go well with peanut butter and peanut butter goes well with jelly. When my sister and I once visited a pastry shop, they were selling this kind of cupcakes, and we tried it to give us an idea of how it will taste like once we create it at home. It was delicious, but there were things about it that we didn't like so we decided to tweak it. For this recipe, I once again used Maya Oven Toaster Cake Mix, because even if wanted to do something from scratch, we fear our oven toaster might not bake it good.


Banana PB&J Cupcakes
{yield - 12 cupcakes}

Ingredients - Banana Cake

• 1 box (3.11 oz) Maya Oven Toaster Cake Mix - Banana Cake
• 1 medium egg
• 2 to 3 pieces of bananas, mashed
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 4 tablespoons water

Ingredients - Peanut Butter Frosting

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup), softened
• 1lb. powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (creamy)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• milk (optional, on stand by)

Other Ingredients

• Fruit Jelly
• Chocolate Bar Pieces

Let's bake!

Start with the cupcakes.

> Preheat your oven toaster.

> In a bowl, combine egg, water, and oil then whisk lightly. Add mashed bananas and mix.

> Sift the banana cake mix and combine with the wet ingredients. Mix or beat until well combined, without over mixing or beating it.

> Line your muffin pan with paper cups and pour batter until 2/3 full. Tap the pan once. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, without letting the foil touch the pan as the batter might stick to it while baking.

> Pop in the oven toaster and bake for 7 and a half minutes. Take the foil out and continue baking for 2 and a half minutes, or until the surface is brown and the toothpick comes clean when you poke it.

> Line cupcakes on cooling rack.

While the cakes are cooling, time to make the frosting.


> Cream softened butter and peanut butter until it turns light in color.

> Add powdered sugar slowly and beat for a while then add the vanilla extract. Continue beating until it becomes fluffy and light.

> If the frosting was too dense, add milk (1 tablespoon at a time). If it's too watery, add powdered sugar until you get the consistency you like.

> Place in a piping bag.

Once the cupcakes are cool enough, start piping the frosting. This frosting is a little on the rich side, so even if you love peanut butter, please don't over frost as the peanut butter flavor might over power the banana cake. There has to be a balance of all flavors.

Finally top it with fruit jelly.


I let my sister bake the cakes this time, but I did guide her with the aluminum foil and when to take it out (I made the frosting). Making 12 cupcakes, it meant us three girls have 4 cupcakes each, so the day we made this recipe, we only allowed ourselves to eat 2 cupcakes and I topped it with strawberry jam and pieces of Krackel chocolate.

Going back to the pastry shop visit we did, they presented their Banana PB&J Cupcakes by spreading peanut butter on the surface of the cake before piping the frosting, creating a well in the middle where they placed the fruit jelly. We found the strawberry jelly a little too tangy for our taste, so for these cupcakes, I decided to just drop a little strawberry jelly - just to provide flavor. It was tangy, but the peanut butter and Krackel chocolate balanced it all.


At home we have two jars of fruit jelly - strawberry preserves (the syrupy kind) and orange marmalade (from Good Shepherd). Whenever I make my own peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I always go for the orange marmalade because I loved to chew on the orange rinds. Seeing the bottle in the fridge made me go for it for our next set of cupcakes.

We all agreed that the one with orange marmalade tasted better.

With these cupcakes, as well as the whole wheat carrot ones, we are very sure that we won't be buying cakes this Christmas anymore, we will just bake it at the comforts of our own home.

Hmmm... what if I add oatmeal to this next time? :)

Cooking with Leftovers

Last Friday, good friends from Jollibee sent us two Chickenjoy Bucket Treats. Each bucket contained 8 pieces of fried chicken, and because it's just us three girls here at home, eating all the chicken pieces was a little overwhelming. We did send some to our next door neighbors (the essence of eating Chickenjoy is to provide joy, and I think the kids next door were happy for the treat), but we still had too much to eat. Thankfully, one of the buckets contained all breast parts, so after we ate our share of the chicken, I decided to take out all the breading and skin from the breast parts, flaked the meat, and store it in the freezer for future use.

What we did to the flaked chicken meat?

Baking My Very First Rocky Road Brownies

Baking is something we truly want to learn and enjoy. My sister and I have been eyeing this oven for so long now, but we still can't decide whether we'll buy it or not, because #1 we don't want to blow up our electric bill and #2 we are not sure if it is something we really want.

We have used quite a number of Maya baking mixes, but whenever we use it, we usually opt to steam the batter and even if it gives us a good way to enjoy good tasting food, we still want to try baking it. Some Maya cake mixes are made for oven toaster, so we wanted to try that route first.


One of the Maya baking mixes we had was the Celebrations by Sharon Fudge Brownie Mix. It was near its expiration date, so sister and I decided to bake it using the oven toaster last weekend.


What was needed to make the basic brownies were - 1 box of Maya Celebrations by Sharon Fudge Brownie Mix, 1 medium egg, 1/4 cup oil (we used corn oil), 1 tablespoon water, and chopped nuts. But then, we still have marshmallows and chocolate chips from previous "Kitchen Lab sessions" so I also added them in the recipe.

Mixing the brownie mix, egg, oil, and water resulted in a very heavy and thick batter and at first my sister was questioning if I read it right that it only needed 1 tablespoon water. Let me tell you that you just have to keep mixing it and soon it will all come together.


To make the brownies, we could use the oven toaster tray, but because we wanted to make Rocky Road Brownies, we used one of our loaf pans. Before popping it in the oven toaster, we wrapped it with aluminum foil first so that the heat from the oven toaster would not shock the surface of the brownies. We baked it for 15 minutes at 5 minute intervals, allowing it to rest for a few minutes before baking it more so that the residual heat would cook the inner part of the brownies. Last one minute of baking I tore off the aluminum foil.


One boo-boo about leaving it open for 1 minute was that the marshmallows got toasted... really toasted. I realized, using itty bitty marshmallows would burn toast very fast. It resulted in a slightly failed Rocky Road Brownies, but not totally wasted because even if the top was okay... burned, the brownies were chewy and very delish!


I didn't put all the batter in the pan, I also tried making some Rocky Road Brownie Cups, and it was much better because I didn't take off the aluminum foil cover, but it still toasted the marshmallows because they were much smaller.

I totally love the Maya Celebrations by Sharon Fudge Brownie Mix! It made baking brownies easier, and both my mom and sister expressed that it tasted the brownies we used to buy at this bakeshop (won't tell what). Now that we knew how it tasted, we will definitely just bake our own brownies.

Lessons to consider - mix the marshmallows and chocolate chips in the batter and just top it with cashews, use unsalted cashews, and don't peel off the aluminum foil covering.

We are now really going to buy that oven soon... but before that, we would attempt to bake Carrot Cupcakes using the oven toaster first.

The Day After Christmas Dinner

Happy new year!

My greeting was a little late, but I am sure you understand it's the thought that counts. :) Anyway, before I share to you what I cooked for Media Noche, allow me turn back time a few days.

During the holidays, we would prepare a little for Noche Buena and just cook a feast for Christmas Day Lunch. However, 2012 was slightly a sad Christmas - as far as cooking and feasting is concerned - because we had a lot of leftover from Noche Buena, which we decided to eat for Christmas Day Lunch, and I wasn't feeling good come dinner time to cook what I was supposed to cook. I was only able to cook it dinnertime of 26 December, and I was thankful that the whole family was home that time.


For this dinner, we (that's brother and I) cooked three dishes. I intended to cook a pasta dish, but since there were a lot already, I thought it would be better to just cook it for Media Noche. Brother helped me in cooking, because it was already nearly 5pm when we got home from the market and I was already scrambling to prepare the dishes in time for dinner.


Pumpkin Soup
We are already okay with the powder type soup mix, but my willingness to go on a "soup for dinner" diet prompted me to browse through our magazines to copy some soup recipes. The addition of apples into this soup gave it a hint of sweetness, which the family loved. Recipe for this will be shared tomorrow.


Steamed Cream Dory in "Light" Soy Sauce
The idea of serving this dish came when I tasted the dish at Max's Restaurant. I found it easy to make and since it was steamed, it's a better alternative to the breaded Cream Dory we used to cook at home. We didn't have any light soy sauce, so to season the fillets, I marinated them in regular soy sauce diluted with a little water mixed with calamansi juice and a few drops of sesame oil. To make it healthier, I steamed it with broccoli. It turned out okay, though I admit, wrapping the broccoli in the aluminum foil with the fish wasn't a good idea as it made the fish look dirty and the broccoli lost its rich green color.


Garlicky Crabs
Usually, we would cook Chili Garlic Crabs, but I wasn't in the mood for something spicy, so brother just cooked this the way he always do, without the chili. These crabs were given by Aunt Mary (mom's sister) last Christmas eve, and we since we wanted to eat the crabs while it was still a little fresh, it was the best time to cook it. Mom's cholesterol level is slightly higher than normal, so brother opened the crabs after steaming it and scraped all the fat before pouring the garlic sauce.

I may not able to serve this for Christmas Lunch, but it was still a sumptuous dinner.

Weekend Eating | Christmas Feast

The past few years, our family would always celebrate Christmas with any of our relatives from mom's side, but this year, it was just us - both for Noche Buena and Christmas Day.

For Noche Buena, we had Pansit Bihon (which brother cooked) and some dishes given to us by our neighbors. We were quite excited for the annual family photo shoot, so I didn't take pictures of the Noche Buena dishes anymore.

For the Christmas Edition of Weekend Eating, let me just share what the family ate on Christmas Day:


Sinarabasab - Grilled pork with KBL (Kamatis, Bagoong, Lasona), something brother prepared. I didn't taste this, though.


Grilled Bangus. Mom's sister gave her some seafood from Pangasinan, and we opted to grill one of the bangus. However, the family wasn't able to eat this for lunch, but mom and brother ate this for dinner.


Vegetable Kare-Kare. I wasn't able to plate this well, but it did taste good. For this, I used the Mama Sita's Kare-Kare sauce (the paste kind), and instead of adding meat, I used fried tokwa. At first I thought I had to scratch this off the list because I couldn't find some puso ng saging, but I was glad brother went to Tungko with me, and I got to see this one stall that sells the puso ng saging. Sister cooked the bagoong alamang, and she cooked that one real good.


Buffalo Wings. I was supposed to cook Fish Lumpia, but time wasn't enough to cook, flake, and wrap the fish, so I just fried the chicken wings and turn it into Buffalo Wings. Mom and sister preferred their chicken just fried, so it was just brother and I who had the wings with the spicy-honey glaze.


Cake. Sister bought this one for the family, I don't know the name of the cake, but it's one of Goldilock's premium cakes. It tasted a lot like Black Forest cake, but a little too sweet for my taste.


Aglio Olio Pasta. This was something given to us by our next door neighbors for afternoon snacks. We were still full from lunch, so we just ate this for dinner - I only had 1/2 cup of this sans the bacon - because I felt I was already eating too much already.

Christmas with the family was so awesome! We didn't exchange gifts, but we have each other... we are in good health... that's all the matters.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

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So... what did you have last weekend? If you're new to the Weekend Eating meme, you can read the rules and get the badge codes HERE. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who joined last week.