Red Bean Mochi Cupcakes

I first heard about mochi cake through A Food Lover's Journey.  I looked through the recipe and it is a lot like the baked nian gao that I did for Chinese New Year except probably half the recipe called for.  It is an interesting idea to bake it in cupcakes and I wanted to give it a try.  Since I love red bean flavor and have some red bean paste on hand, I made mine into a red bean mochi (glutinous rice) cupcakes.

It tasted like "kuih" (a Malaysian cake), soft, sticky and slightly chewy with red bean flavor.  You can certainly substitute the milk with coconut milk to make it richer. This recipe of mine stays soft even after three days in a container.  Best eaten within three days, might go bad after that. One thing to note though, the paper will be hard to unwrap on the first day it was baked, but easier on the second day onwards.

You can buy the red bean paste in a can at the Asian grocery stores in the U.S. for those who are interested.  Feedback to me when you try this red bean mochi cake.  I had made it twice and loved it!

~Yield about 12-18 cupcakes (about half of the normal paper cup size), depending on the cupcake paper size and how much batter you add.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cup milk

1 tsp. baking powder

200g red bean paste (sweeten) from a can

200g glutinous rice flour (about 2 cups)

Method:

1.  In a big mixing bowl, add in eggs and sugar.  Use a hand whisk or electric whisk and whisk until light and well mixed, sugar dissolved.  

2.  Add in oil and milk, hand whisk until combine.

3.  Stir in baking powder and red bean paste, whisk until smooth.

4.  Lastly, add in glutinous rice flour, whisk until well incorporated.  The batter will be watery so don't have to be alarm.  Use a soup ladle and fill the paper cup almost to the rim.  The cake will sink down a little after you take it out of the oven.

5.  Bake in preheated 350'F oven for 20-25 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes with Junior Mints

I had relatives coming over to my house and I wanted to bake something for breakfast.  I really liked my peanut butter banana cake so why not?  I made it into cupcakes because it was easier to consume and I had the idea of using the Junior Mints as decoration on top.  What do you think?  Cute or not?  Since we would be leaving to Yellowstone National Park the next day, cupcake was an excellent idea for traveling.  I just put the leftover in a ziplock bag and we could eat it in the car.  They liked it and my girls would choose to eat this instead of croissant.

The recipe can be found at my post Peanut Butter Banana Cake.  Just instead of using a square pan, you lined the cupcakes pan with cupcakes paper and fill it 2/3 full and decorate the middle with a Junior Mint.  Bake in the same temperature but for only 20 minutes.  Let it cool completely before storing.

Delicious Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

I had to put delicious up there in the title because it was delicious.  I used my marbled banana chocolate cake recipe and made it into chocolate banana cupcakes.  I invited few friends for a play date and decided to make something for coffee/tea in the afternoon.  I made this along with some chocolate chips cookies and I just realized all my snack have chocolate chips in it!

The cupcake was soft, moist, chocolaty and tasted like banana.  Truly delectable!  I added chocolate chips because my girls loved them.  I had to stop them from eating more because this was meant to be shared. ;)  At the play date, I noticed that all the kids would pick out the chocolate chips to eat first, my girls included. :)  If you like my recipes, put this on your to-try list, you won't be disappointed.

I saw this butterfly silicon cupcake cups at Target and had to buy it, it was 6 for $1 at the Dollar section, how cheap.  It was so cute too and I regretted I didn't pick up the flower silicon cups for the same price, as when I went back, it was all gone. :(  I guess you paid for quality too, this had some broken pieces and the silicon was pretty thin, but it's usable.

How it looked from the bottom. 

Ingredients:

(A)
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
1 large egg
1/4 cup milk (I used 1%)
2 bananas, smashed (I used frozen)

(B)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

(C)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted (microwave [900watt] for 1 min 40 seconds) 


Extra chocolate chips for decoration (optional)


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350'F. Line a baking pan with silicon cupcake cups or line some paper cups in muffin pan. Set aside.

2. In a big bowl, hand whisk together (A). Add in (B), whisk until well blended.

3. Add in (C) and whisk to combine.

4. Use a big spoon and scoop some of the batter into the silicon cups, slightly less than 3/4 full.  Place some chocolate chips on top for decoration (optional).

5. Bake for 20 minutes or until a bamboo stick inserted in center comes out clean.

6. Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.
 

Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes

What happen to you when you learned that you are going to have visitors at your home in few hours? And you have nothing to serve them with tea? Of course I have to think of something to make quick with whatever I have at my house at that moment. I found some strawberry yogurts that I bought for my girls in the fridge and my mind was set. I whipped this up in as little time as possible as this recipe only required a hand whisk and a big bowl. The end result was some soft and moist strawberry yogurt cupcakes. This recipe gave me 17 cupcakes.



Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar

(B)
3/4 cup strawberry flavored yogurt
3 large eggs, whisk
2 Tbsp. whole milk
1 tsp. imitation strawberry extract
A drop of red coloring
1/2 cup canola oil



Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Place paper cups in the muffin pan.

2. In a big bowl, add in (A). Whisk to combine.

3. Then, make a hole in the center and add in (B). Whisk and blend until incorporated.

4. Lastly, scoop the batter into each paper cups until 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Store in air-tight container in the refrigerator. It's nice and soft eaten cold too. Or just let it rest for 5 minutes at room-temperature before consuming.

Green Tea Yogurt Cupcakes/Muffins

Looks like I am addicted in baking yogurt cake right? Actually it is also I bought a big tub of plain yogurt so I have to finish it. This time I tried adding green tea powder into the yogurt cake. This cake has a slight fragrant of green tea and not too sweet.

Ingredients:

(A)
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. green tea powder
(B)
1 cup plain yogurt
3 large eggs, whisk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup canola oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Place paper cups in the muffin pan.

2. In a big bowl, add in (A). Whisk to combine.

3. Then, add in (B). Whisk and blend until incorporated.

4. Lastly, scoop the batter into each papercups until 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

*For the paper cups above, it yields 17 cupcakes for me*

Check out my other yogurt cake recipes:
-Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake
-Pandan Yogurt Cake

Pandan Yogurt Cakes

I was inspired by Peony to make yogurt cake. Using yogurt and oil instead of butter to make cake do sounds healthier. Also I can use the leftover yogurt to make baked donuts so it is a win win situation.


It actually turned out pretty good. The sweetness was just nice for me and the texture was soft and moist.


I slice it open to let you see the texture of this cake.

Recipe adapted from Epicurious. Yield 10 large papercups (a dozen for the normal one) as shown above. Of course you can play with different flavor of your choice.



Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp. Pandan extract
1/2 cup canola oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350'F. Place papercups in the muffin pan.

2. In a bowl, sift flour and baking powder. Add in salt & sugar. Stir to mix.

3. Add in beaten eggs, yogurt, Pandan extract and oil. Stir until incorporated.

4. Lastly, scoop the batter into each papercups until 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Check out my other yogurt cake recipes:
-Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake
-Green Tea Yogurt Cake

Steamed Green Tea Cupcakes

I love the steamed banana cupcakes so I decided to make other variety of steamed cakes. Since I really love green tea flavor so this was an easy choice. For sure I will try out different flavors in the future. I steamed this in my newly acquired diamond shape Wilton's silicon cups. Hmmm...looks like these steamed cakes want to play "pee ka boo" with me! LOL!


How it looked when I took it out from the silicon cups and turned it the other side so that it didn't look like these cuppies were saying "pee ka boo". These steamed cuppies are soft and light, I really loved it. I also made it healthier by using skim milk and oil.



Ingredients: (yield 11 diamond shape silicon cups)

(A)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

(B)
67g canola oil (or vegetable oil)
180g skim milk (or any milk you have)

(C)
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp. green tea powder

Method:

1. Beat (A) with an electric beater until double in size.

2. Add (B), whisk to combine.

3. In another bowl, add (C), whisk to combine. Add into the wet mixture. Mix until incorporated.

4. Pour into the silicon cups and steam in a steamer for 15 minutes.

5. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes and release from silicon cups and let cool completely before storing in air-tight container.

Steamed Banana Cupcakes

I have two bananas in the freezer waiting for me to use it and then I came across this recipe while browsing through tastespotting.com. Hers looked really good, so soft and fluffy that I just need to give this a try. What can I say, this steamed banana cupcake is truly delicious! It's just like what she said, sooooooo good!



I added 1/4 tsp. banana essence into mine as American banana is not as fragrant as the one sold in Malaysia. We finished the rest of the banana cupcakes the next day and they were still soft and fluffy. Really good and you all should try it.

My Adapted recipe below:

Ingredients:

(A)

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

(B)

1 1/8 cup self raising flour

1/8 tsp. baking soda

(C)

2 bananas, mashed

1/4 tsp. banana essence

(D)

1/4 cup + 1/8 cup canola oil ( or vegetable oil)

Method:

1. Sieve B in a bowl, set aside.

2. Beat A until thick, fluffy and foamy.

3. Add C into A mixture. Stir in B alternatively with D. Scoop into a paper lined silicon cupcakes until 3/4 full.

4. Steam in a steamer for 15 minutes.