Sunday, July 29, 2012

Honey, I shrunked the Hokkaido Rose Chiffon Cupcakes

Hiya Peeps!

 Its been ages since I last blogged!! This is quite embarassing. Nampak sangat tak consistent kan? heheh. My excuse is the same one - time did not permit as I was studying and managing my household and a now semi-defunct baking business. Why semi-defunct? Cos  after 2 yrs terperok pat rumah studying, I am working full-time and don't know if I could commit to orders in my hectic schedule. As such, i choose my orders carefully and exclusively.


Of late, I started to get my urge to bake again. So I baked for leisure and posted pics on my facebook. My colleagues, sister and friends said I should start a baking blog. Hahahah....little did they know that I DID start one...err...maybe two...but I can't manage my time well enough to update it often! So, in short, none of my friends know I even have this blog!

Pure Nonsense, I tell you!

Lately, I've been inspired by the many baking blogs on the internet. I felt challenged to do many of the recipes. I kept telling myself "why am I not baking?"  "Oh these looks good! How do they taste, I wonder" "these look so diffy to make! Should I try? Why am i not trying?" "alamak, bole ke buat kek ni? Ngeri Ummi lah"....

Anyway, one of my favourite bakers, Kak Rima inspired me to try out making chiffons. Her Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes were calling out to me. I have also bookmarked Evan's Rose Chiffon for the longest time - fell in love with the pictures she posted. So I decided to combine the two in this chiffon cupcake I made. I guess you can't really call this Hokkaido Chiffon as I did not fill mine with cream but the base recipe was a Hokkaido Chiffon recipe and I tweaked it abit to add rose essence and abit of pink colouring. (How to put in cream? Da senget benget, cream pon tak muat!)


 Initially, the cakes rose beautifully and it had a dome which rose slightly above the cupcake liner. I could not turn it over to stop it from shrinking. So you guessed it, all the cupcakes started to shrink and shrivel away from the cupcake liners. They pruned up horrendously and I just had to remove them from the liners! Kemek, bengot and so buruk! huhuhu... Is it really because I did not turn them over or is there some other tips I should know to prevent this from happening? Do share~!

Hokkaido Rose Chiffon cupcakes (base recipe from BisousAtoi)

Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour before sifting
1 cup sugar*(i reduced this to 3/4 cups)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla essence due to extract's alcohol content)
5 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar)

(i added 3tsps of rose essence)

Whipped Cream Filling: (i did not make this)
2 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract



Method
1. Make sure everything is at room temperature, especially eggs and milk. Preheat the oven to 450 F.
2. Sift the cake flour together with baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
3. In a medium bowl, blend milk, oil, vanilla essence and the 5 egg yolks.
4. Add the egg yolk mixture to the dry ingredients, and beat it for about two minutes.
5. Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar on high speed until foamy, then slowly add in sugar and continue to beat until stiff peak form.
 (Mindy (Rima's source) says: "Most recipes tell you to add most of the sugar to egg yolks, and only add a small amount to the egg whites, but some bloggers say that professional bakers do just the opposite.)
I tried this out but as I am an amateur in this chiffon business, I can't tell the difference. Wahaha! But I trust Rima's expert advise and she said it works very well- so there!"
6. Fold the meringue into the yolk mixture in 3 parts.
7. Spoon into 24 cupcake cups evenly, give them a couple of big taps on the table to break the large air bubbles in the batter for finer texture of the cakes, and bake at 175C for about 20 minutes. Tooth pick test for doneness. Remove from the oven, and cool on racks straight up.
8. Measure the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla into the mixing bowl, mix on high speed until medium peak form.
9. Fit the piping bag with a narrow tip, and fill it with whipped cream. Pipe the cream into center of the cupcakes after they are completely cooled or refrigerated. Dust with powdered sugar.

 
 Okay, thats all for now - I have a Durian Cotton Cake baking in the oven and there's tons of cleaning up to do. Groannnnn.....!

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