Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes

This got to be the easiest dessert to bake! 10 minutes of preparing, 20 minutes of baking and some minor decorating, voila! good looking cupcakes and not to mention yummy and soft too.

I baked these for a street party for LHNC (Lucky Heights Neighbourhood Committee). It's a potluck party so instead of the usual fried beehoon, nuggets etc, I contributed cupcakes. Everyone commented how pretty and yummy it was. Feeling very flattered.

Then, boss' secretary sent out invite saying there is a surprise birthday party the next day in office, I baked another batch of cupcakes, this time round I used some chocolate powder to make it into Chocolate Hokkaido Chiffon. Not sure if it is the paper cup that I used, some of the cupcakes were hard at the bottom. Since Korean strawberries are in season now, time to bake some strawberry shortcake. Was thinking of baking something for Zach's school teachers and friends. It is after all his final year in preschool. He will be embarking to primary education come 02 January 2015. Time flies...okay. I digress.

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes (makes 9 cupcakes)

3 egg yolks
20g castor sugar
35g corn oil, or any other oil i.e. grapeseed oil, canola oil
60g milk
70g cake flour

3 egg whites
25g castor sugar

Custard cream
60g whipping cream (dairy)
10g castor sugar
1 tsp custard powder

How?
- Line your muffin pan with cupcake liners and preheat oven to 170C.
- Using a hand whisk, beat egg yolks with sugar until pale in color.
- Add in corn oil and milk, mix well.
- Lastly, add in cake flour. Stir to combine.
- In another clean bowl, beat egg whites until foamy.
- Add in 25g sugar gradually and beat until soft peak forms.
- Taking 1/3 of the meringue, mix well using the hand whisk to the egg yolk batter.
- Fold the remaining meringue in and fold gently using a spatula.
- Scoop batter into prepared liners.
- Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until inserted skewer comes out clean. Mine took 20 minutes to bake.
- To prepare custard filling, beat whipping cream and sugar until firm and stiff. I beat them over a bowl of ice to speed things up. Placing the beater in freezer helps too.
- Add in custard powder and mix well.
- Pipe custard cream into cooled cupcakes and place your favorite fruits on top.
- Dust with icing sugar.

This cupcake is best consumed when cold.

Before piping in custard cream

Soft and moist cupcakes

This post is linked to Best Recipes for Everyone #5 December 2014 Event Theme: My Little Cupcakes by Fion of XuanHom's Mom.

Yuzu Chiffon Cake

Many of my colleagues visited Seoul, Korea this year. Everytime one of them announced that she is going Korea, I will ask them to help look for Yuzu jam. You see, there was a Yuzu or Honey Citron craze for the past months. Alot of posts on Yuzu cakes on blogs etc. Well, they couldn't find it in Korea. So one day when I was at Tampines One, I bought myself a super huge jar of concentrated Yuzu jam. Heh..but but but I did not start my project immediately. I waited and procrastinated.
Finally..I got bored and decided to stop procrastinating. After all, chiffon cake is pretty fast and simple to bake. Recipe is adapted from Kevin Chai's book (you can choose any chiffon recipe and tweak them accordingly).

Yuzu / Honey Citron Tea Chiffon Cake

Egg Batter

- 5 egg yolks (65g each)

- 55g yuzu tea mixture

- 80ml corn oil

- 80ml yuzu juice (I use 2 tsp of yuzu mixture and top up water to 80ml)
- 130g cake flour

Meringue

- 5 egg whites

- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

- 75g caster sugar

How?

- Preheat oven at 160C

- Whisk egg yolk and yuzu tea mixture until well combined

- Add in corn oil and yuzu juice. Mix well.

- Sift in cake flour. Mix till all flour combined. Put aside.

- In a clean bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until frothy.

- Add in sugar gradually.

- Continue to beat until just before stiff peak.

- Take 1/3 of egg whites and mix well with yuzu batter (use whisk).

- Repeat the above step with remaining egg whites. Fold gently.

- Pour into a 20cm tube pan. Give it a few knock.

- Bake for 50 - 60 mins or until inserted skewer comes out clean.

 

Can you see how fine and soft the chiffon texture is? Awesome!!

Chiffon Cakes

I have been baking alot of chiffon cakes lately. It was disastrous for the first few times, either it did not rise beautifully or it was too dense. I agree with the saying Practise makes Perfect.. I saw from Culinary Kitchenette and those oh-so-beautiful chiffon and I must get it right!

The balance batter which was baked in cup - don't you just love the cupcake liner?

I have since tried twice baking chiffon and the result was almost-perfect! The look, texture and taste..love it! From the same FB group page, the ladies unmould their chiffon using bare-hands, I googled on how to do it and gave it a try.. it was surprisingly easier and the cake has lesser crumbs.



I swear by the recipe from Kevin Chai but do note on the number of eggs use as well as the size of your tube pan. I will try out the recipe from the book I bought recently from Eslite Taipei *after I get them translated*.

The recipe below is for Orange Chiffon Cake but you can replace the orange with any liquid of your choice. I've tried it with Coffee and Pineapple as well. :)

Orange Chiffon Cake (Kevin Chai)

Egg Yolk batter
7 egg yolks (65g with shell)
50g sugar* (I reduced it to 30g as the oranges that I used are sweet enough)
60ml orange juice* (I increased this to 75ml to give it more taste)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp orange rind
4 tbsp cooking oil (I used corn oil, canola is fine too)
1 tsp orange flavor (optional, which I omitted)
110g self-raising flour
Drops of orange coloring (optional, which I omitted)

 Egg White mixture
7 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (I reduced to 1/4 tsp)
130g sugar* (I reduced it to 80g)

How?
- Preheat your oven to 170 degree.
- In a clean bowl, combine egg yolk, sugar, salt, orange juice, cooking oil and orange rind.
- Add in self-raising flour and mix until batter is formed. Set aside.
- In another clean bowl (I use some vinegar to remove oil and other residue from the bowl), beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peak form.
- Add sugar gradually (while beating) and beat until almost still peak. I took about 3 minutes from the above step to reach this stage.
- Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to the egg yolk batter. Follow by the next 1/3 of the egg white. Mix well at each addition until all egg whites are well combined.
- Pour mixture into a 20-inch tube pan. Give it a few knock against the countertop.
- Bake the chiffon cake for 45 minutes - 60 minutes or until the cake skewer comes out clean.

Passionfruit Chiffon - look at how short and dense the cake was (FAIL!)

This looks promising but see next picture below - it collapsed as well.

Coffee Chiffon

Marble Chiffon - the very first chiffon that I unmould by hand

The latest bake - Pineapple Chiffon Cake

Passionfruit Chiffon Cake

Few weeks ago (yes, you read it right..it was few weeks ago) the usual durian stall that I frequent happen to sell passionfruit. I love passionfruit for its juiciness with a tinge of sour in it. Uncle was nice to gave me 500g free of charge!!
I had some leftovers and decided to make chiffon cake out of them using Kevin Chai's recipe. Tweaked them a little bit according to my liking. I doubled the recipe as my tube pan is 20cm and this recipe call for 2 eggs only.

Passionfruit Chiffon Cake (adapted fr Kevin Chai)

Egg yolk batter

4 egg yolks

40ml cooking oil - you can use canola or corn oil.

100g passionfruit - this is approximately 2 passionfruit. Mash them up a bit

30g caster sugar - I reduced this amount because passionfruit is sweet

80g self-raising flour

Egg White mixture
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
40g caster sugar - I did not double the amount of sugar

How?
- In a clean bowl, combine egg yolk, oil, sugar, passionfruit pulp. Fold in sifted flour.
- Mix until it forms batter.
- In a separate clean bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until its frothy.
- Put in sugar gradually when soft peak forms. Beat egg white until a stage before stiff peak.
- Fold in 1/3 of egg white mixture into egg batter. Repeat for remaining egg whites mixture.
- Pour batter into tube pan.
- Bake at preheated oven of 170C for 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and invert cake to cool.

Egg yolk batter

Inverting the cake to cool it down

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs about making pandan chiffon cake. Almost all of them bake them using home-made pandan essence.
I googled and saw Wendy's blog on how to make pandan essence in step by step. I went to the provision shop immediately and bought 3 packet of pandan leaves. As I do not have a food processor at home, I depended on the Braun handheld blender to blend the pandan leaves. Haha.. wrong move! My wall tiles and floor tiles were covered with splatters of pandan juices..haha. I have a helluva time cleaning up after that.

I made the above pandan essence 2 days in advance so that the extract may settle down nicely. Look at how thick and nice the color of the pandan juice are.

Pandan Extract
30 leaves of pandan / screwpine leaves
1/2 cup of water

How?
- Wash and cut the pandan leaves into small pieces
- Add 1/2 cup of water.
- Using a food processor, blend the pandan leaves till fine.
- Using a food strainer or muslin cloth, squeeze out the pandan juice till dry.
- I place them in a clear glass and covered with clingwrap and place them in the fridge to settle.
- The dark green section at the bottom of the glass is the essence. To get that, pour away the top part (I kept the middle section of the juice for my pandan cake).
- The above will yield 2 tbsp of pandan essence.

Pandan Chiffon Cake
(recipe adapted from Kevin Chai basic chiffon recipe)

Cake batter

4 egg yolk (egg without shell should weigh approximately 60g each)
45g castor sugar (I reduce to 40g)
70ml coconut milk
70ml oil
45ml pandan juice (including 2 tbsp pandan essence)
150g cake flour/plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt

Meringue

4 egg white
80g castor sugar (I reduce to 70g)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

How?
- Preheat oven to 175 degree.
- Prepare a 20-cm tube pan
- Whisk egg yolk and sugar until it dissolves.
- Add in coconut milk, oil, pandan juice and pandan essence.
- Mix well
- Sift in flour and baking powder. Add salt
- Whisk the cake batter until well mixed.
- In a clean bowl, beat egg white until it is frothy (about 30s)
- Add cream of tartar and 1/3 of castor sugar. Continue to beat until soft peak.
- Add in remaining sugar gradually and beat until just before stiff peak.
- Taking 1/3 of the meringue, add into the cake batter and mix well.
- Pour the cake batter into the remaining egg white and fold gently (I fold for about 20 times until no more streak of egg whites can be seen).
- Pour the mixture into the tube pan. Knock the pan several times on your kitchen counter.
- Bake for 40 - 45 minutes.

Look at the natural hue of green on my finished cake. Taste awesome..as I am typing this I am contemplating should I bake one next week. :)

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes

I have been wanting to try this cupcakes long time ago but did not get about doing it - procrastinating as usual!
It was when alot of Hokkaido Chiffon cupcakes were baked by members of Munch Ministry that I got my arse moving.. bought the square cupcake liners from Phoon Huat and there is no return.
I am surprised by how simple this recipe is and it only took me less than 30 minutes to get everything done and place them in the oven to bake. Without the cream, this cupcake taste too egg-y to my liking but after piping in the cream it was kinda refreshing.

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes
(source: Nasi Lemak Lover)

3 eggs, separate yolk with white

20g sugar
30g corn oil
60g milk
70g cake flour

25g sugar

Filling
60g whipping cream
10g sugar
1tsp custard powder (I omit this but replace with 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence)

How?
- Pre-heat oven to 170 degree
- Prepare 9 - 10 cupcake liners on baking sheets
- Hand whisk egg yolk with sugar till pale in color
- Add in corn oil and milk. Mix well.
- Sift in cake flour. Stir till combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk egg white till foamy. This will take about 1 minute
- Add in 25g of sugar gradually. Beat till soft peak forms. I estimated that this will take 2 minutes after pouring in all the sugar.
- Using a spatula, take 1/3 of the egg white mixture and mix into the egg yolk batter. Combine well.
- FOLD in the remaining egg white gently, becareful not to deflate them.
- Scoop batter into cupcake liners till 3/4 full.
- Bake in oven for 20 - 25 minutes. I checked my cupcakes at the 23rd minute mark.

For filling
- Beat whipping cream with sugar till firm and stiff (I place my beater in the freezer prior to beating the cream)
- Add in vanilla essence and mix well.

Pipe cream into cupcakes (after they have cooled). Dust with icing sugar and I place heart-shaped sprinkler :)

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

My family loves chiffon cake so I made it a point to do some blog-reading to some of my most frequented food bloggers site to search for a reliable chiffon cake recipe.

This time round I decided to follow Aunty Yochana's recipe.

Chocolate mixture - I use Valrhona chocolate which is quite expensive but doesn't matter since it is for my family's enjoyment. Looking good..teehee

Egg white mixture - I substituted cream of tartar with lemon juice. Happy that I manage to whisk it to the right consistency compared to my failed cheesecake whipped cream earlier.

Baking in progress...

The outcome..

Traces of egg white because I did not mix them thoroughly afraid that the outcome will be too dense
Strong chocolatey taste and soft cottony texture!!