Pandan Coconut Cupcakes

TIME FOR AN ASIAN INVASION.

So you know how people always say that you only miss something when you don’t have it, well, it’s true. I was never one of those hardcore I’m-so-proud-to-be-asian #azn #aznpride #ilovetobeazn kind of person. (sorry for the hashtags, just trying them out and trying to understand the hype). I mean, being asian is in my roots and I have never once complained about that. But I guess I never learnt to embrace this part of me until I was planted in a completely foreign country where I became the minority, and people look at you knowing that you are… different. Everything changes, like how instead of rice, you end up having to face bread for most of your meals, how instead of telling the chatty coffeshop auntie “加面” (extra noodles), you see yourself telling the man behind the counter “less potatoes on the side please” etc.

During my time in Europe for the first part of the year, I savoured every moment of my little café visits – delicately laced tarts, intricate macarons, buttery crisp fruit tarts -, but what I really missed was asian confectioneries like kueh (I swear when my mum brought me some kueh lapis when she came up to visit, my stomach growled in excitement) and anything pandan related.

When I think of pandan, I think of chiffon cakes. That fluffy (artificial or not) green slice of heaven, so delicately light that you find yourself unconsciously grabbing morsels and morsels of it. I really wanted to make something asian after all the chocolate that I had been baking with, and what better way than to create a pandan infused cupcake with flaky coconut on top.

For the batter, I used the trusty sponge cake recipe from Rachel Allen, and added in 1/4 tsp of pandan extract. Bake them for 18-20 minutes and you’ve got yourself some pandan fever. As for the frosting, I was in the mood for experimenting so I pretty much just played around with proportions of cream cheese, icing sugar, coconut powder and dessicated coconut.

Hands down, proud to be Asian.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Ah cheesecake. There is no other way  to express my love for this all-time favourite, other than baking one. Nothing makes me happier than a good cheesecake, velvety and smooth, with just the right amount of crunch brought about by the biscuit layer at the bottom. I’ve tried my hand at making cheesecake a couple of times, and unfortunately, I haven’t quite mastered the skill of baking a perfect one. By perfect I mean a cheesecake with a golden brown top, with zero cracks on the surface and being perfectly set in the middle. Those that I’ve baked in the past usually end up with an uneven browning (i.e. around the edges but not in the middle, somewhat like a tanning session gone wrong…) and a huge crack down the middle. Therefore, in order to avoid the same situation, I decided to reconstruct my cheesecake into a cupcake! The usual crunchy bottom of digestives gets elevated to become a topping, while the cream cheese gets transformed into a frosting and having all these sitting on top of a light, fluffy vanilla cupcake.

Because I was going to meet a friend for afternoon tea the next day, I thought it’d be nice to beautify these babies. By beautify, I really mean just adding in dollops of strawberry jam to give the cream cheese that extra kick, and of course, paint the cupcakes with lovely hues of pink.

Mix the eggs and yogurt together

Melt your butter and take in all that buttery aroma

Combine your flour and sugar together in a mixing bowl

Mix your melted butter, egg/yogurt mixture into the flour/sugar

Give it all a good mix and whisk till you get a smooth batter, free of lumps.

To make the frosting:

Prepare your digestives crumb topping by placing the biscuits in a ziplock and use a rolling pin to bash them up. (good for relieving stress)

That amazing pink you get after combining the cheese, sugar and strawberry jam

PIPE ‘EM

Recipe: Makes 12
Adapted from BBC good food

Cupcakes:

225g self-raising flour
175g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
100g natural yogurt
175g butter , melted and cooled a little (Microwave on high for about 1 – 1:30 minutes)

• Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake or muffin cases.
• Mix the flour, and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
• Beat the eggs into the yogurt, then tip this into the dry ingredients with the melted butter.
• Mix together with a wooden spoon or whisk until lump-free, then divide between the cases.
• Bake for 20-22 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean – the cakes will be quite pale on top still. Cool for 5 mins in the tin, then carefully lift onto a wire rack to finish cooling

Frosting:

1/4 cup of icing sugar, sifted

175 grams cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoons strawberry jam

• Using a wooden spoon, beat the cream cheese and icing sugar together.
• Stir in the jam and mix well to combine all ingredients together.
• Spoon the frosting into a piping bag with a fitted nozzle and pipe away!

As with most cupcake recipes, this one was pretty much an add/drop recipe, meaning that you can easily omit the ingredients that you aren’t a fan of. In this case, because my friend isn’t huge on citrus flavours, I omitted the lemon zest and poppy seeds, and simply replaced them with a teaspoon of vanilla extract. As for the frosting, I relied on a classic cream cheese frosting, and reduced the amount of icing sugar because there was going to be an additional sweet component which was the jam. It really depends on how much of a sweet tooth you have, so it’s best to taste as you go along so that you don’t add too much/little jam!

I was really happy with the way these cupcakes turned out and I have to say that the winner would be the frosting. In the words of my friend: “I could eat a bucketful of this frosting”.

Black Sesame Cupcakes

So, Sundays are usually Mummy Days – church in the morning, and then usually an affair of brunch/shopping, just pretty much spending time together. Yesterday, we were on a hunt for black sesame paste because Mum wanted to make a batch of her amazing black sesame ice-cream. Naturally, the initial hunt for one ingredient, slowly became a supermarket haul of all things Japanese since the Hokkaido Fair was on. But that aside, I was intrigued by the pure blackness of the sesame paste, and that was when my brain started churning ideas for a black sesame something. 

Black sesame pudding? Nah, it would be too difficult to give away.

Black sesame chiffon cake? Not exactly the biggest fan of chiffon.

Black sesame filled cream puffs? I wasn’t in the mood for meticulous piping.

Black sesame cupcakes? YES. YES. YES. Easy, quick to whip up, and what better way could there be to get that lovely hint of black sesame in every bite.

Black Sesame Paste. You can find this in any Japanese supermarket e.g. Isetan, Meidi-ya

I was looking for something with a real sesame kick to it, and since I was undecided about whether to pair it with a matcha cream cheese frosting, I needed the cake to be flavourful on its own. With respect to this ingredient, I wholeheartedly trust the Japanese with it and so, couldn’t be happier when I managed to find a recipe that had been translated from a japanese cooking website. Made some tiny adjustments to it and the end product got the thumbs up from Mum and even Aloysius (who is not a huge fan of cakes).

Recipe: Makes 6
Adapted from The Sweet Tart

40 grams butter – room temp
40 grams granulated sugar
20 grams black sesame powder
15 grams honey
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons of milk
100 grams cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

Note: because I used black sesame paste, I omitted the honey and simply substituted the black sesame powder/honey with 25 grams of black sesame paste. If you do not have black sesame paste, then by all means go ahead with black sesame powder and honey 🙂

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F/160 degrees C.
• Line your muffin tray with cupcake holders.
• Sift the flour with the baking powder and set aside.
• Beat the butter with the sugar till it’s fluffy and add in the sesame paste. Try not to over beat and stop when it’s all incorporated.
• Add in the egg slowly, to prevent it from curdling. In case it curdles, add in a tablespoon of flour.
• Fold the flour into the wet ingredients and be careful not to overmix.
• Bake for 15-17 minutes or till a toothpick comes out with crumbs or clean.

What it should look like after beating your sugar and butter, and adding in that glorious sesame paste

If you’re planning to jazz up this cupcake, pair it with a matcha cream cheese frosting, or even a good ol’ vanilla buttercream! For me, the cake was good on its own, with a light fluffy texture, but it could do with a little more sesame flavour. In future, I might increase the amount of black sesame paste, or even grind up some freshly toasted sesame seeds for an extra crunch.

A perfect sunday afternoon snack. As they say, once you go black, you never go back.