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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Chocolate Sponge Cupcakes

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Erm.. no.. these are not muffins. As the title suggests, they are sponge cakes baked in a cup. Well, a muffin cup to be exact. And, do not ask me how the dome happened, it just did. I came home rather late, about 9 p.m. Ah Girl requested chocolate cake for breakfast so I had to bake (good excuse, no?). I realised I have not been baking sponge cake for a long time. So, instead of the usual chiffon cake, I baked a sponge cake. This recipe is shared by my younger sis, S. She is an avid baker who has achieved much more than me, in my opinion. During my younger days, I went crazy over J-drama and Japanese food. I was more into cooking. She was very much into baking. I started to explore into bakes such as bread only recently and she could already bake sweet buns then, kneading by hand. She was probably 14 or 15?

I would say she’s an expert in sponge cake and had an excellent sponge cake recipe which she perfected and proudly called her own, the ‘S-sponge cake’. In recent years, we swapped; she went crazy over Japanese food, I’m into baking. Ahahah~~ My youngest sis, J, is baker too. Among the 3 of us, she has a flair in art. I am envious of her cake decorations skills, especially her piping skills. Like the 2 of us, she has no formal training but her cakes look store-bought. It was a dream of mine to set up a café. S, will be in charge of the baking, J will take charge of decorating and me, the beverage (I used to brew siphon coffee at a café). I admit I've been reading too many comics.

Back to the sponge cake, this is not ‘S-sponge cake’ but S likes recipes which are simple to follow without complicated steps, which also means, less utensils to wash. This cake is very ‘airy’ and light-weight as she would describe. Ah Girl loved it when S baked it. Thus, there is no reason why I would not want to bake it. Especially late at night, I do not want to bake a too complicated cake. Baking them into cupcakes make sense as I do not have to wait for 40 minutes for a whole cake. Also, this is the first time I am using this oven for sponge cake and I am simply too tired to make notes. Having said that, Ah Boy woke up for milk when I sent these into the oven. I was nowhere near the oven so I did not know how they progressed. When I emerged 15 minutes later, they were done and I was rather surprised with the dome top. Other than that, the texture is light and fluffy. Most importantly, Ah Girl took a bite this morning and identified it to be ‘Ah Yi’s’ (阿姨) cake and ate it without much fuss. This recipe is using whole egg method.

Chocolate Sponge Cupcakes (yields 10 cupcakes depending on size of cups)
Ingredients
(A)
4 eggs
120g Sugar

(B)
80g Cake Flour
10g Corn Flour
30g Cocoa Powder
2 Tsp Baking Powder

*Sift together 2 x

(C)
40g Melted Butter

Method
1) In a bowl, using a electric whisk, whisk (A) till thick and creamy (ribbon stage)

2) Add in (B) in batches and fold in carefully, do not deflate (A).

3) Stir in (C) till incorporated.

4) Pour into individual cups (80% full) and bake at 170 deg.C for 15 to 20 minutes or when the skewer comes out clean. Open the oven door, slightly ajar to cool the cake slightly before removing to the cooling grid.

*Note : Do not dump in the flour onto the egg batter as this will deflate it. I slowly sifted the flour (2nd time) in batches and fold.

**Note : I pour in the melted butter along the side of the bowl for step (3). Alternatively, you can take out some of the batter out and mix with the butter stirring into the rest of the mixture. This is to ‘lighten up’ the melted butter so that it will not deflate the batter.

***Note : It is normal that the batter will deflate a little when you add the melted butter. The cake will deflate slightly after removing from the oven.

Easy peasy? それじゃ~~

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