Hokkaido Cupcakes 烫面北海道杯子蛋糕

Thank you Michelle Heong for sharing this fabulous recipe. Her hokkaido cupcakes are always so plump and beautiful.

The sponge cake of most hokkaido cupcakes recipes tends to shrink after cooling down. However, in this recipe flour is added to warm milk before mixing with the rest of the ingredients. This helps the cake to maintain moist even after a relatively longer baking time. The sponge cake is also able to maintain its size even after cooling down. 

Yield: 10~11 square box cupcakes

You need 10~11 pieces of 5x5x5cm cupcake boxes

Ingredients

90g fresh milk

30g coconut/vegetable oil

20g fine sugar

90g top flour

90g egg yolks, about 5 egg yolks

180g egg white, about 5 egg whites

40g fine sugar

1/8 tsp cream-of-tartar

Direction 

1. Loosen the flour by stirring it with a hand whisk.

2. Heat up fresh milk, coconut/vegetable oil and fine sugar, till the sugar melts, but not boiling. 

3. Stir in the top flour and remove the mixing bowl from the heat.

4. Add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and mix using a hand whisk. Set aside.

5. In a clean and grease-free mixing bowl, beat egg whites till frothy. Add in half of the 40g of sugar and cream of tartar, beat at medium high speed, till the meringue is fine and smooth. Add in the remaining sugar and beat till firm peaks formed.

6. Scoop about 1/4 of the meringue to mix with the yolk batter in (4). 

7. Pour the batter at (6) back to the remaining meringue and mix well.

8. Pour the batter into the cupcake boxes to about 4/5 full.

9. Bake in a preheated oven set at 130 degree Celsius for 20 minutes; increase to 150 degree for 15 minutes; and finally at 160 degree Celsius for 10 minutes.

10. Allow the cakes to cool down completely before pipping the cream.

Custard Cream

Ingredients

23g instant custard powder

75g fresh milk

50g whipping cream, cold

Directions

1. Chill a small mixing bowl, a pair of whisks and a damp tablecloth in a freezer for 20 minutes.

2. Mix instant custard powder and fresh milk together. Cover and set aside in a fridge to keep the content cold.

3. Pour whipping cream into the  cold mixing bowl. Whip at medium high speed till ripples start to trail behind the whisks. Lower the mixer speed and beat till the cream becomes firm.

Do not over whip the cream, or it will disintegrate into water and fat.

4. Pour the custard mixture into the whipping cream and blend well.

5. Scoop the whipped custard cream into  a pipping bag. 

Pipe some cream on top, decorate with some fruits and sprinkle a thin coat of confectioner's sugar over the top of the cupcake.

Serve cold and enjoy :)

Recipe adapted from Michelle Heong's 烫面北海道蛋糕

Chinese Sponge Cake In Paper

Sponge cakes baked in folded papers are popular in neighbouhood bakeries. However, soft, moist and full of buttery taste sponge cakes in papers are rare. The golden sponge cakes wrapped in soft papers are so tempting, but often the first bite will sink you to a total disappointment - dry and tasteless. 

I am lucky to come across this very nice recipe by Rasa Malaysia. Try it to love it :)

Yield: 8 cupcakes

Ingredients

4 egg whites, room temperature

72 g fine sugar

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

48g cake flour

12g corn flour

48g melted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract/orange zest/lemon zest

Directions

1. Cut one 50.8 x 38 cm large parchment paper into 6 pieces. Each piece measures about 17 x 19 cm.

Fold 2 times into a quarter. Trim the loose corners into curve.

Cut all the folded lines, leaving a length equivalent to the radius of your cupcake mould base. For example, the base of my cupcake mould is 5 cm, then I shall leave a length of 2.5 cm to the centre of the parchment paper uncut. 

The parchment paper will open into a clover leaf shape.

Place the parchment paper into the cupcake mould. Stack the cupcake moulds together with paper linings over each other to set the papers.

2. Melt the butter by keeping warm in a rice cooker for about 10 minutes. Remove from the rice cooker to cool down slightly before use.

3. Mix cake flour and corn flour in a bowl. Set aside.

4. Beat egg whites in a clean, grease-free mixing bowl till frothy. This process takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

5. Add in the sugar, in 3 batches, and mix using low speed. When the sugar has incoporated to the egg whites, increase the mixer speed to medium high. Stop beating when the egg whites pull up to a firm peak with slightly curl tip. This process takes about 3 to 4 minutes.

6. Add in the egg yolks, one at a time, to the egg white batter.

7. Sieve in the flour mixture and fold in in about 3 batches.

8. Scoop about 4 tbsp of the batter to mix with the melted butter and vanilla extract.

9. Return the butter egg batter to the egg flour batter and mix well.

10. Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius.

11. Pour the batter to the lined cupcake moulds to about the height of the mould.

12. After transferring the cake batter to the oven, lower the temperature to 175 degree Celsius and bake for about 20 minutes.

13. Allow the cupcakes to cool down before consuming. Enjoy :)

Recipe adapted from:

http://rasamalaysia.com/paper-wrapped-mini-sponge-cake-recipe/2/