Halloween
Baked goods: Banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
Standard
In addition to the Halloween standby recipes, I made these cupcakes since I had bananas on hand and realized I had never made anything banana-flavored to bring to work even though it is one of the most basic and easy to do.
The odd part with them this time was when a colleague asked me how I managed to get the banana flavor… from a mix? A powder? An extract? I simply replied, “Um… from bananas.” I don’t know what he was thinking — but overripe bananas provide a pretty strong flavor and scent. I thought everyone knew that.
SOUR CREAM BANANA BREAD
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 medium bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Grease and flour only the bottom of a 9×5 inch loaf pan (or line cupcake pans with paper liners, if you want to make cupcakes, as I did).
In one bowl, peel and mash bananas and set aside. In another bowl, mix together dry ingredients (flour, soda, salt).
Beat sugar and oil together. Add eggs, then mashed. bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Blend well. Add the bowl of dry ingredients until just moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan.
If baking loaves, bake for 50 to 60 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If making cupcakes, check on them after about 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool.
Baked Goods: Basic chocolate cupcakes for Halloween
StandardI have a standard go-to chocolate cake recipe; this time I have different ingredients on hand and wanted something very simple to make Halloween cupcakes. The decoration was a spiderweb design (basic chocolate frosting and gel icing for the web). I am not a big fan of chocolate but think that these cupcakes were fine. People ate them, after all.
Basic Chocolate Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup hot water
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
Cream sugar, shortening and eggs until fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa with hot water, set aside to let it cool slightly. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together. Once cooled, add milk to the cocoa mixture. Add flour mixture alternately with milk mixture to creamed sugar-shortening mixture. Add vanilla. Pour into well-greased cake pans dusted with flour or sugar. Bake in a preheated 350F/175C oven for 35-40 minutes. (Or put into well-greased cupcakes molds or cupcake papers and bake for about 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.)
Frost and decorate as desired. 
Baked Goods in B2B: What cannot be baked
StandardI had planned to bake this evening but in my current living situation, I cannot always have my way. I had specific baking plans. All thwarted. Oh well.
Thus, instead of baking, I am relegated to a contemplative evening.
1. I am sad. I understand nothing. I want to be apathetic and aloof like I used to be, but I can’t.
2. I have yet to find molasses in this country, so I cannot make gingerbread or ginger snaps or any other typically gingery-spicy cookies (incidentally, the only kind of cookies I really like – perhaps fortuitous then that I can’t get my hands on molasses).
3. I am already thinking about Halloween. ???
4. I am homesick for Iceland, missing some important people there.