Watch: James May challenged me to face my banana fears – would cake help?

We know how I feel about bananas and custard. James May literally offered me £100 to eat an entire bowl, and I couldn’t do it.

Turns out, it’s not the custard I hate, it’s mostly the bananas.

James is really, really keen to get me to like bananas. He’s tried reason, he’s tried logic, he’s tried money, but never before has he tried… cake.

The Tefal Cake Factory

I’ve recently got my hands on a Tefal Cake Factory. It’s basically a smart little oven that helps you make perfectly cooked cakes, muffins, traybakes etc., every time. I love baking, but it’s always a bit sad when you spend a while getting everything together, pop it in the oven, and for whatever reason, it fails.

However, you won’t get that issue with the Tefal Cake Factory. As it’s clever, it constantly monitors and changes the temperature while your cakes are cooking, to ensure whatever you’ve got in there is perfectly cooked. No soggy bottoms or saggy middles around here, thank you very much.

Despite having a whole host of recipe ideas in the Tefal Cake Factory app, I wanted to go rogue, try something new, but I was lacking a bit of inspiration.

I was slightly regretting asking James, after he declared he wanted me to try making… banana and custard cupcakes.

So I set to it, came up with a recipe, and popped it all in my Tefal Cake Factory. I was a little nervous when they came out… they looked great, and smelled great, but would I hate that banana twang?

Turns out, the rumours are true, everything is better in cake form. I think I’ve been converted to the banana life.

If you want to have a go at making your own banana and custard cupcakes, here’s my recipe.

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Banana and custard cupcakes

The cakes that made me like bananas...

Prep time10min

Cook time27min

Total time37min

Serves6

CuisineCupcake

MealSnack

Ingredients

• 110g butter
• 140g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1tsp baking powder
• 130g mashed banana
• 120g self-raising flour
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 6tsp custard
• ...For the buttercream...
• 300g icing sugar
• 150g butter, softened
• 1tsp custard powder
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
• Banana chips, for decorating

Instructions

1. Cream together 110g butter and 140g caster sugar.
2. In another bowl, crack your 2 eggs and beat thoroughly.
3. Slowly add the beaten egg into the creamed butter and sugar (add a little of the flour at this point) and mix thoroughly.
4. Fold your 130g mashed banana, 120g self-raising flour, 1/2tsp baking powder into the mix.
5. Using the muffin moulds in the Tefal Cake Factory, roughly add 1/12th of the mixture into the six moulds, add a 1tsp custard into each one, and top with the rest of the mixture.
6. Set your Tefal Cake Factory to the melting middle setting for 27 minutes.

To make the buttercream

1. Whisk together 300g icing sugar with 150g icing sugar, 1tsp custard powder and 1/2tsp vanilla extract.
2. Once thoroughly mixed and thick in texture, add to a piping bag.

Icing

1. When your cakes are ready, carefully remove them from the Cake Factory, leave them to cool, and ice however you like to ice your cakes.
2. Finish off with a banana chip.

Recipe by

Rachael Hogg

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