Baking For Hospice

I made these cupcakes a couple of weeks ago for the monthly baking for hospice arranged by one of my readers, Nessie. The cupcakes are called Banana Fudge Cupcakes and the recipe is from the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake book. Unfortunately it is packed away, so I cant give you the exact recipe, but I can give you the idea.

The cupcakes are little banana cupcakes, studded with chopped macadamia nuts. I would suggest just using your favourite banana cake recipe. The icing is a chocolate buttercream – usual buttercream made with butter, icing sugar, cocoa and a little milk.. I topped the cupcakes with scorched almonds which I thought looked a little bit like Easter eggs. En masse the cupcakes looked quite effective. In the crabapple bakery book they topped their cupcakes with chocolate dipped macadamia nuts and drizzled them with white chocolate. I didn’t have any white chocolate at home when I made these, but I do like the idea of the drizzle.

Even though I haven’t done any baking in my new kitchen (all my baking ingredients are packed away – bench top arrives on Monday!!), I have cooked a few meals. So far we have had a mushroom risotto, chicken breasts topped with sliced almonds, cinnamon and smoked paprika and served with an orzo salad, and a fish dish cooked on top of the stove with tomatoes, olives and baby spinach leaves and served with rice and broccoli. Last night I made meatballs with minced beef, toasted pinenuts, ras al hanout (a Moroccan spice blend), smoked Maldon sea salt and crushed garlic. I served it with a bughar wheat salad that had seeded, chopped tomatoes, baby rocket and lemon juice tossed through, extra rocket with avocado and natural yoghurt. This is actually my favourite kind of after work meal – it is quick and easy to prepare and I love meatballs and I also love Moroccan flavours.