Ube cupcakes

What a long day it was yesterday!  We invited friends over for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.  Naturally, I had to wake up early to start cooking and preparing.  I used up all my grated ube on hand to make puto and totally forgot that a friend had asked me to make ube cupcakes for today (Monday).  So after all our guests had left (which was already late afternoon), I had to make a quick trip to the Asian shop to buy grated ube.

To be honest, I have not made ube cupcakes before.  I told my friend that if she really wanted ube cupcakes, I would have to experiment.  But really, I had no time to experiment at all! It was a risk. I had to make good in one go as I could not afford and had no more extra time for mistakes!

After dinner last night, even if I was already so tired and sleepy, I went ahead and made the cupcakes.  I have been asked many times if the vanilla cupcake recipe I posted here before can be altered to make them ube.  This is my first time to try.  Well, let's see how it went...

How does it look to you?

The cupcake was moist with a tight crumb.  Even if I added a bit more baking powder, I really did not expect it to be the super soft and fluffy type because of the added ube.  Even my ube chiffon cake is a bit more dense (though still soft) than plain chiffon cake.  The cupcake did taste very much like ube though which I guess is the most important thing.  One other thing I especially liked is that the cupcakes were purple all the way through, from the tops, to the sides, to the insides, to the bottoms. No browning whatsoever that is very typical with other ube cupcakes I've seen on the web.

I paired the cupcakes with the usual whipped cream frosting, the same I use for my ube cake.  This is the only kind of frosting I like with ube.  Buttercream with ube doesn't quite work for me personally.

I'm not going to claim that this is the best ube cupcake you can make.  I know it can still be improved somehow.  For now, however, it's worth a try if you are up for some experimenting.  Let me know if you do.

UBE (PURPLE YAM) CUPCAKES (makes about 20)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

3 tsps baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon ube flavouring

1/4 tsp violet powdered food colour or gel paste

100 grams grated ube

1 cup buttermilk

Procedure:

1.  Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.  Line muffin trays with baking cups.

2.  In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk to combine.  Set aside.

3.  Using an electric mixer,  starting from a low speed gradually increasing to high, cream butter and sugar together until very light in colour and fluffy.  

4.  With mixer turned down to medium-low speed, beat in eggs one at a time.  Add in ube flavouring, violet food colour then the grated ube .

5.  In three additions, alternately add in flour mixture and buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour mixture.  Scrape bowl as needed to ensure that everything is incorporated well.  After the last addition, beat at high speed for the last time for about 45-60 seconds.

6.  Fill each baking cup with the cupcake batter about 3/4 full.

7.  Bake for about 22-25 minutes.  Transfer each cupcake immediately to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make 3/4 recipe of the Whipped Cream frosting here.  Use to frost each cupcake.  If desired, crumble one cupcake and use the crumbs for garnishing.

PS. Hope all of you readers are doing well!  It's been a long time.

For other things UBE: chiffon cake, puto, cake roll.

Eggyolks (and how I sometimes not waste them)

Almost every weekend, after finishing all my buttercream covered cake orders, I am left with a container of eggyolks.  I am not always in the mood to cook something up so at times, these eggyolks go to waste unfortunately.  My excuse - it's collateral damage.  My husband doesn't approve of waste so he sometimes eats them (inspite of the cholesterol overload).  Lately, he has been asking if he can put them in his worm farm (but only if I wasn't going to use them for something else.)

When I have time and am not lazy, I use the eggyolks to make one of two things or on occasion, I make both, like yesterday.

You already know that I have the best ensaymada recipe, right? (If you don't, then better head on to the recipe here!) This used to be considered a treat in our household but now, it has become a regular thing because of the abundance of eggyolks.

Most people find it daunting to even think about making ensaymada.  I also felt that way before. These days, however, I have eliminated the stress by preparing them in stages.  I stop when I have to and simply put the dough in the fridge to rise overnight then continue the next day.

Last week, for instance, my dough was already coiled and in their individual tins.  As it was already quite late, I just left them in the fridge for the night, took them out early the next morning (I got up just to take them out then went back to sleep.) and let them sit at room temperature for about 1 1/2 hours before I baked them.  They were ready just in time for breakfast.

With my most recent batch (the ones pictured here), I kept the dough in the fridge overnight and coiled them the following day.  They took so long to rise in the tins, probably because the dough was really cold and the weather was quite cold too.  The ensaymadas weren't ready till afternoon!  

While waiting for my ensaymadas, I used some of the other eggyolks to make another treat.

Lemon curd!  My daughter and I absolutely love this stuff on toast.  Or sometimes, we just eat it straight from the jar, in a spoon.  I know it's also great as a cake filling but I haven't tried that yet.

See how creamy that is?  It is super easy to make and a great way to use those eggyolks.  (The fact that we have two lemon trees is another plus for us.)  If you want to make one, I highly recommend this recipe.  

I'm sure there are tons of other uses for eggyolks.  These two are just my favourite ones.  Any other great ideas, please feel free to share on the comments section below!  Not leche flan, please! :)

Have a good week!

Mocha cake roll

Last Sunday, my brother and his wife celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.  After renewing their wedding vows amongst retired priests and nuns, we proceeded to their home where their friends (lots of them!) were waiting to celebrate the occasion with them.  As you would expect, I volunteered to make a cake for them.  I didn't have much time to fuss about this cake as the night before, it was also my eldest son's 21st birthday party.  We were all so busy and tired and lacked sleep.  I had to get up at 6am the next morning to finish my brother's cake.

Their family friends love my mocha cake and so that is what I made for them.  Not until they started asking if the roses totalled 25 (because it was for a 25th anniversary) did I realize that I should have thought of doing that!  I simply divided the cake into equal, even sections and was one rose short :(! 

Before the cake was served, I was babysitting this adorable 9-month old baby girl.  She fell asleep in my arms and I didn't want to put her down as everyone was so noisy.  So for the next 2 hours (I think), I just sat there, happily staring at this cute bundle of joy.  They served the cake during this time and I didn't even get to taste it! It was actually a pretty funny sight, seeing all those people with their little plates all lined up waiting for their turn to get a slice. :)))  Just like that, the cake was all gone.

Well anyway, today I decided to make mocha cake just because I didn't get to eat some the other day.  Instead of making it into the usual cake, I rolled it up just like I did the ube cake in my last post.  

I prefer leaving the roll unfrosted because the filling and the rosettes on top (garnished with chocolate flakes) is more than enough buttercream for me.

I didn't take step by step pictures.  I won't put the recipe here as well.  The process is the same as the ube cake roll and the recipe is basically the same as the mocha chiffon cake, except that the cake flour is down to 1 cup (instead of 1 1/8).  The Swiss meringue buttercream is also the same, just flavoured with 1 tablespoon of instant coffee powder that has been dissolved in a little hot water.  If you want to frost the entire cake with buttercream, you will have to make more, perhaps one and a half recipe.  I had some leftover SMBC but that amount isn't enough to cover the whole cake.

If you are a mocha cake lover, you might want to try this sometime.  It's nothing fancy and you don't even need decorating skills to do it.  I'm sure you will like it.

Enjoy the rest of your week!