Following the somewhat successful attempt to convert a butter cake recipe into cupcakes and adding some orange flavor to it, I proceeded to test out some pound cake recipes, remaking it into cupcake sizes. As the picture below clearly indicated, I had not really learnt my lesson with regards to the amount of batter to fill my cupcake casing. My greed to fill each case as much as it can hold based on my miscalculation that it won't overflow basically resulted in the batter overflowing like the red hot lava of an angry and explosive volcano, only this lava is green and speckled with grains of chocolate rice.
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| Green molten lava expanding beyond the capacity of my cupcake casing. |
Apart from the unfortunate episode of green lava disgorging from an otherwise comfortable cupcake casing, putting this pound cake recipe together was delightful both aromatically and visually, though somewhat challenging to my limited knowledge in baking.
For a start, I was left with only slightly less than 100g of salted butter. The pound cake recipe called for 100g. Still, I wanted to just test out the recipe and decided to go ahead with it based on my best approximation for the rest of the ingredients. Next, I had run out of cake flour, but I still had some Hong Kong flour left from the snow skin mooncake making sessions in October. Since Hong Kong flour is superfine and low in protein, I suppose this would be a reasonable substitute for cake flour, which is supposed to be low in protein and well, very fine. With these two variables, or rather uncertainty in mind, I set to work on measuring out the ingredients.
Slightly less than a 100g of salted butter, to be precise, 85g, will need the equivalent amount of sugar. So 85g of caster sugar was measured out. The flour and matcha powder was a little tricky for me. The original recipe said 110g of cake flour and 10g of matcha powder. That makes 120g of flour in summary. Since my butter and sugar was reduced, I had to reduce the flour component. I wanted to keep the 10g of matcha powder, so I reduced the Hong Kong flour to 90g. The smell of matcha powder filled the kitchen as I measured that out and sprinkle it over the mountain of pure white Hong Kong flour. The mound of flour looked like an inverted snow-capped mountain: snow at the bottom, lush greens for the cap.
Next comes the eggs in which I swap 2 large eggs with 2 medium sized eggs. The rest of the ingredients pretty much stayed the same, 1 tsp of baking powder and my particularity, 1 tbsp of low fat yoghurt for that extra moist texture.
This was how the batter looked like when all the flour get mixed into the butter, sugar and egg mixture. The vivid green really looked appetizing and smelt heavenly of matcha even when it was still unbaked.
The only thing left to do was to fill up the cupcake casings, sprinkle in a little chocolate rice at the top and pop these little green tops into the oven to bake.
I was anxious about how the texture of my approximation for the batter would turn out, so upon adequately cooled, I took one out of its casing and tear it apart into half with my fingers. As I tear at the soft and moist cake, I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. The texture was of course soft, that means the Hong Kong flour worked well (probably like cake flour too). I used the whole egg method, without separating the egg yolks and whites like what I did for those orange cupcakes, so visually and comparatively the air pockets were slightly larger. However, it came with a slightly spongy feel that I could not achieve when I used the egg separation method.
I am happy with this attempt, which gave me about 8 cupcakes, but I think I could increase to 10 if not for my greed and miscalculation. Here's the recipe.
Matcha cupcakes
Makes 10 souffle cups measuring 2.5" diameter, 1.5" height
(Adapted from "Desserts Collection No.12: Pound cake", by Misato Tanaka, edited by Daiso Shuppan K.K., published by Daiso Japan)
85g salted butter (I used Gold Leaf)
85g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
90g Hong Kong flour
10g matcha powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp low fat yoghurt
chocolate rice for sprinkling (not really necessary, on second thought)
Method
1. Preheat oven to 170degC.
2. Shift Hong Kong flour, matcha powder and baking powder together and set aside.
3. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Lightly beat the eggs and add 1 tbsp to the butter/sugar mixture, beat this in thoroughly. Divide the beaten egg mixture into 3-4 portions, beating each portion in completely before adding the next portion.
5. Fold in the flour mixture gently, spoon by spoon, until all are used up and well mixed into a smooth batter. Finally fold in the low fat yoghurt completely (ensure that there are no white streaks of yoghurt visible).
6. Spoon about 1.5 tbsp of batter into each casing (I made the mistake of adding just a touch more here and there which resulted in overflowing).
7. Sprinkle some chocolate rice if desired and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
8. Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack.
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