Sumikko Gurashi Steamed Japanese Cupcakes

I first made Mushipan, or Steamed Japanese Cupcakes almost 4 years back, before I started blogging. They are really simple and quick to make for a snack! Recently I was inspired to make them again after seeing some cute strawberry ones made by my lovely neighbour! <3 I thought they would be great for children's day too! =) I love Sumikko Gurashi, so I decided to make the cupcakes based on my favorite characters from there =). The base recipe I used was from Ari kitchen, a pretty youtuber =). I used soufflé cupcake liners.

Sumikko Gurashi Mushipan (makes 5 cupcakes)
150g Morinaga Pancake mix
82g egg
30g butter
45g castor sugar
45g plain yoghurt
45g milk
cocoa paste, charcoal powder, pandan paste, strawberry paste, food coloring of your choice
1 tsp cake flour

1. Whisk egg and sugar in a mixing bowl.

2. Add in yoghurt and milk until well mixed.

3. Sift in pancake mix powder and fold till well blended.

4. Stir in melted butter.

5. Divide the batter into the following: 3 tbsp (add few drops pandan paste), 6 tbsp (add few drops strawberry paste, 3 tbsp (a drop of blue food coloring), 1 tbsp (cocoa paste with ¼ tsp charcoal powder + 1 tsp cake flour), leave the rest plain. Spoon all into piping bags.

6. Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners (2 pink, 1 green, 1 blue and 1 plain) to around 2/3 full and tap to remove all bubbles.

7. Pipe the respective designs, eg the white polka dots over the pink, and the round patch over the blue batter. Lastly pipe on the facial features using the dark brown batter.

8. Steam the cupcake over preheated steamer for 15 mins. *Important: either wrap the lid with a cloth or tilt it with a chopstick so that the water does not ruin the cupcakes.

9. Use the leftover batter to pipe the limbs and ears on a piece of baking paper. Steam for 3 mins. Peel them off and place them onto the cupcakes.


Here’s the crumb shot! Nice and fluffy!

Hope you like them! <3


With lots of love,
Susanne

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Banana Steamed Cupcakes

This is going to be my first demo class with hands-on for participants! I was told to keep things as simple as possible for my first try. The focus of my demo will be on showing the technique of beating egg and sugar with the electric mixer, and folding in the rest of the ingredients. The Singapore flag snowskin mooncake was purely demo so it was less involved. Here's my easy-peasy banana steamed cupcakes!

Banana Nutella flowers with MnMs ladybugs!

A peek at the texture and banana filled cupcakes...

I sliced off the top of the dome a little because it was smeared with Nutella.

I have a short downtime before the madness of icing/decorating over 200 macarons and filling about 250 macarons begin for the creative macaron book so I took the chance to make the steamed banana cakes for photography and taste test. I made steamed banana cupcake earlier on but with cat and bear designs. This design is simpler :). There is not much change in recipe except for the change in type of cupcake cases I used. As mentioned in my previous steamed cake post, I have chosen to use a method that involves beating whole eggs with sugar instead of just mixing wet and dry ingredients together with a hand whisk or spatula. The resulting texture is lighter and fluffier.

Ingredients (makes six 50x50mm cupcakes):
2 large eggs (at least 60g)
80g brown or white sugar (use more if you prefer sweeter cake. Mine is a lower sugar version.)
80g vegetable oil or melted butter (I used extra light olive oil but do use butter if you prefer the buttery fragrance)
140-150g mashed overripe banana (about 2 large bananas. Choose really really ripe ones for a more banana-y flavour)
1 tsp vanilla extract
140g cake flour*
2 tsp baking powder*
1/8 tsp salt*
1/4 tsp baking soda

Decoration:
Fresh small bananas
Lemon juice
Nutella
Red MnMs (optional)
Edible black marker (optional)

* You may replace with self-raising flour.

Clockwise from top left corner: 1) eggs, 2) mashed bananas with vanilla extract, 3) cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt sifted together, 4) brown sugar and 5) extra light olive oil. 

Steps:
1. Beat egg and sugar in a mixing bowl with electric mixer on high speed for at least 10-12 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl every 3-4 minutes with a spatula. Mixture should more than double in volume. When you drop the mixture from the beaters forming a letter "O", it should be able to hold the shape for several seconds before fading back into the bowl of mixture.

2. Drizzle oil onto the mixture and gently fold in a little at a time with a spatula. Be really gentle to avoid deflating the beaten egg mixture.

3. Add in mashed banana with vanilla extract a little at a time and gently fold in.

4. Add sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt gradually and gently fold in.

5. Fill cupcake cases until almost full with batter. You may choose to add 1/2-1 tsp of nutella when the cases are about 2/3 full and fill the cupcake cases with more batter until almost full. Tap the cases on the table a few times to release trapped air bubbles. Do not use cupcake cases that have overlapping folded sides or it will open up during steaming. If you are using cases with folded sides, place the cupcake cases in a heatproof container that are slightly bigger than the cases like the smaller cupcake example below.

6. Steam for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Freshly steamed!

You may decorate the cupcakes with some banana slices and nutella.

Dip the banana slices in freshly squeezed lemon juice for about a minute before patting dry on paper towels. This will prevent the slices from browning quickly.

 Slice off the dome of the cupcake if you have trouble balancing the banana slices on top of the cake. Add a bit of Nutella in the middle, place the banana slices on top and top up the middle with more nutella. You may use a piping bag like I did or simply use regular plastic food bags or ziplock bags.

 I added some ladybugs for photography. These little critters are actually red MnMs with patterns drawn using black edible marker.

Please place them on the nutella patch instead of the banana slices if you do use MnMs for decoration. The red colouring will bleed onto the banana slices within a few minutes!

I hope you can try this simple "bake" at home :). I managed to make this for my kids within a busy morning with other things to do. Both kids gave this a thumbs up as they had it for dessert after lunch :). My parents had some the next day and they were still good and even better after re-steaming!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

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Cat and Bear Banana Steamed Cake

After studying quite a few recipes for generic steamed cakes ( including the famous Junko and Nutella Blossom ones) and banana steamed cakes, and a couple of less-than-satiafactory trials, I have finally found a recipe that is fluffy, moist and flavourful, simple and with few ingredients. Why this requirement? I am looking at making a simple, healthy and delicious steamed cake for my next culinary arts demo class at church as and when I am free to conduct. Probably after all the mad busyness of writing and photo-taking for the two books I am working on now.

Presenting my humble cat and bear steamed banana cupcakes! These by the way, make very good Children's Day party items too but perhaps made in smaller cupcake cases than the ones shown in this post. This is also healthier than my pinata cookies :p.

Here's a close-up view of the texture...

Fluffy and loaded with bananas!

I have opted for a method that involves more than just combining wet and dry ingredients together with a hand whisk because I find that the texture of the resulting cake is less fluffy and more "kueh-like".  Even for the fluffy ones, they tend to be dry when cooled as they rely on low liquid and high flour content to be fluffy. Upon cooling and storage, the cake has to be re-steamed for it to taste good again and has to be eaten freshly steamed while hot.

The recipe here is mainly adapted from Miss B. I have tweaked the recipe a bit and added a fun twist to the humble steamed banana cake. Using the technique for creating patterns and pop-up ears from various sources, I have transformed the plain looking banana cake to something a little cuter ;). I have already reduced the amount of sugar from the original recipe so there is no need to reduce it further. The resulting cake is not too sweet.

Ingredients (makes about three 50x39mm cupcakes**):
1 large egg
40g caster sugar (or brown sugar)
40g vegetable oil or melted butter (or combination of both. I used extra light olive oil )
70-75g over ripe banana without skin, mashed (about 1 large banana)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
70g cake flour*
1 tsp baking powder*
1/8 tsp baking soda*
1/16 tsp salt*
3 heaping tsp Nutella (optional)
1 tsp cocoa powder (optional)

* You may replace all these with 70g of self-raising flour. I chose cake flour for a softer texture.

** You may use smaller cupcake cases as I used pretty large ones. Reduce steaming time of you are using smaller cases. Feel free to upsize the recipe too to make more cupcakes.

Steps:
1. Beat egg and sugar with an electric mixer at high speed for at least 10 minutes until mixture is pale and thick.

2. Be really, really gentle with the next few steps as you want to avoid deflating the air trapped in the beaten egg. It's the key to soft and fluffy cake. Gently fold in the oil using a spatula. Drizzle the oil in (don't pour all in at one shot) and fold in a bit at a time to avoid deflating the beaten egg.

3. Add mashed bananas and vanilla a teaspoonful at a time and gently fold into the mixture.

4. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the batter, folding in gently with each addition with a spatula.

5. Scoop the batter into paper cupcake liners and fill until almost full. You may add a heaping teaspoon worth of Nutella into each cupcake after filling the cupcake liners till it's about 1/3-1/2 full. This helps to moisten the cakes even more and compliments the banana flavour well.

6. If you are steaming the cakes without fancy designs, you may steam at this point after tapping the cupcake cases on the table to release trapped air. Steam for about 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean/ with a few moist crumbs. If you are making the patterned cupcakes, scoop out about 1-2 tsp of the batter and colour it with cocoa powder until you have the desired shade of brown that you want. Transfer the coloured batter into piping bags and pipe the facial features on.

7. To create pop-up ears, pipe a bit of the batter onto the parchment paper (I used paper cupcake cases). Pipe triangle for the cat and circle for the bear ears. Steam this together with the cupcakes.

8. Carefully peel the ears off the parchment paper and stuff it into the cupcake cases where the ears are supposed to be.

Enjoy!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Steamed Soft Cake (软糕) -- clearing leftover cooked glutinous rice flour post Mid-Autumn

This very simple "bake" serves two purposes - to clear off my cooked glutinous rice flour stock after all that snowskin mooncake making and for my family who loves this traditional Chinese sweet. We usually buy soft cakes from a nearby supermarket or from a shop that sells Chinese pastries and confectionary (大中国). I didn't know they were so simple to make until I saw Ann Low's beautiful post for QQ steamed soft cakes.

Although this is my first attempt and I improvised a lot from Ann's recipe, what with me not being willing to invest in ingredients that I don't have and don't normally use, the cakes turned out really good! Hubby who had this since he was young said that the texture is very good, soft and chewy. Softer than those sold in supermarkets but not as sweet! My little one kept asking for more. I am personally not a fan of soft cakes but I must admit that the texture is really good. Presenting my amateurish looking but yummy rainbow soft cakes!

Traditionally, soft cakes only have red colored swirls. I decided to have fun with my collection of 6 mini loaf pans and colored each cake a different color :).

I think the reason why the ones I made are so soft is because I used cooked glutinous rice flour instead of the uncooked version. The cooked version absorbed a lot of water so I had to add much more water than the original recipe for uncooked glutinous rice flour.

Ingredients:
113g cooked glutinous rice flour or kou fen (糕粉)
30g wheat starch
11g tapioca or corn flour
95g sugar (I used 90g but some may think it is not sweet enough.)
210g water (boil a few pandan leaves in 300g of water and leave to cool. Or if you are lazy like me, just use 1 tsp pandan flavoring.)
1 tsp banana essence (I used 1/2-3/4 tsp of strawberry essence)
Liquid food coloring diluted in some water (about 1/8 tsp of coloring in 1 tbs of water)

Extra kou fen for coating the cakes

Steps:
1.  Sift flours into a big bowl and mix well with sugar.

2. Pour pandan water with essence into the dry ingredients and stir with wooden spoon to form a thick paste. Let it rest for 15 minutes before stirring until smooth and not lumpy (a couple of minutes of stirring will do).

3. Grease 6 mini loaf pans (2x4") or one 8" square pan with vegetable oil. Pour the thick paste into the pans. Smoothen out the tops of the batter by covering the surface with a cling wrap and pressing with your fingers (the paste is very sticky). Steam for 13-14 minutes.

4. Once removed from steamer, immediately brush on coloring.

Notice that red is missing? I wasn't sure that my experiment would work so I steamed one first. 

Let the cakes sit in the pans for 10 minutes before rolling into cylinder. Remove from pan.

5. Roll the cakes in extra kou fen. Coat evenly and shake off the excess flour.

6. Grease a knife with some vegetable oil and cut the cakes to thickness of your liking.

Store in airtight container. You may want to place baking paper between layers of soft cakes as they will stick to each other. To prevent the cakes from sticking, you may coat the cut surface with cooked glutinous rice flour but I didn't do that as I wanted the cakes to retain as much moisture as possible.

The cakes were still very soft the next day! Will update on whether it is still soft after a few days.

Update: According to Ann, you can spread a thin layer of tau sar instead of food coloring before rolling the cakes. In fact, you can experiment with any spreadable filling of your choice :). The cakes remain soft after 3 days but in Singapore's hot and humid climate,  it starts to get mouldy on the fourth day so do consume it within 2 days.

With love,
Phay Shing

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Strawberry Yoghurt and Matcha "Watermelon" Steamed Cakes

If you don't have an electric mixer and an oven at home, you can still make pretty cakes like we do! Introducing my soft, fragrant and easy-to-make "watermelon" steamed cakes!

Aren't they cute?

Watermelon skins!

Sliced watermelon

Smaller slices :)

I adapted my recipe from Angel Wan, who adapted from the ever famous Junko. I reduced and replaced a bit of the pancake mix to include cornflour to make the cake softer, and added honey (reduced sugar) to increase the moisture content. You may replace all of the milk with yoghurt to increase the flavor and moisture content even more (but cake will be denser).

Ingredients (makes 4-8 cakes depending on size of bowls):
Strawberry layer
92g pancake mix
3g (about 1tsp) cornflour
20g caster sugar
1 medium egg
1 tbs honey
30g strawberry yoghurt (I used Meiji)
30g milk
15g melted butter/ vegetable oil
3-4 drops liquid red food coloring (omit if you want it all-natural or replace with raspberry/beetroot juice)
1.5 tsp black sesame seeds (You may add more or less. You may replace black sesame seeds with chocolate rice if that is your preference too.)

Matcha layer
90g pancake mix
3g cornflour
1-2 tsp (3-5g) matcha powder (depending on how strong you want the green tea flavor to be)
1 medium egg
20g sugar
1 tbs honey
30g strawberry yoghurt
30g milk
20g melted butter/ vegetable oil

Watermelon stripes
1 tsp matcha powder
Some cooled boiled water

Steps:
1. Lightly grease any small metal/glass/ceramic bowls you have at home that can be steamed.
2. Prepare strawberry layer*. Sift cornflour and pancake mix together and set aside.
3. Using a hand whisk, beat egg and sugar until it turns pale yellow and all sugar has dissolved.
4. Whisk in milk, honey and yoghurt until well combined. Add food coloring at this point if you wish. Keep in mind final color will be slightly lighter as flour has not been added.
5. Gradually whisk in sifted pancake mix with cornflour. Towards the end when batter becomes thicker, gently fold in the flour with your whisk instead of whisking vigorously.
6. Fold in melted butter/ vegetable oil. Do not overmix or cake will become tough.
7. Fold in black sesame seeds.

8. Fill bowls till about 1/3-1/2 full and steam at low heat for 10-15 minutes or until cooked. Make sure that water is boiling before steaming the cakes if you are using a wok. I steamed mine for 15 minutes.

9. Unmould by hand and cover with cling wrap to prevent cakes from drying out.

10. Proceed to prepare matcha batter in the same way. Sift matcha powder together with pancake mix and cornflour.
11. Fill the bowls till about 1/3 full with matcha batter and then place the strawberry cakes on top of the green tea batter. Gently press the strawberry cake into the green tea batter until it is almost fully submerged with a thin ring of green surrounding the red cake.

12. Steam for 10-15 minutes or until cooked. I steamed mine for 15 minutes. Unmould and let the cakes cool before painting the stripes.

13. Dissolve 1 tsp of matcha powder in some water. Add a quarter tsp at a time until a desired consistency is reached,  like watercolor paint. Use a small food brush to paint on the stripes. You may use toothpick/chopstick/ finger tip to paint if you don't have a brush. Let it air dry for 5 minutes before storing in air tight containter.
14. Resteam for 5-10 minutes in low heat just before consuming. Eat it while it is still hot! Skip this step and the cake will not be as soft and moist as it should be.

This is a picture of the cake that has been refrigerated for a day and resteamed.

Soft and bendy!

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Bake For Happy Kids, and My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House

 

With love,
Phay Shing


*I was experimenting with double steaming cakes (something like double-baked for hidden or patterned chiffon cakes) which you don't have to follow. Alternatively, you may make the watermelons this way (safer and less experimental than what I did :p. I needed to have my curiosity satisfied):
1. Prepare both matcha and strawberry batter at the same time.
2. Fill your bowls till about 1/3 full with matcha batter followed by spooning strawberry batter in the middle. Fill the bowls until about 1/2-2/3 full.
3. Gently knock the bowls to release any trapped air bubbles. Steam for 10-15 minutes depending on size of bowls or until skewer comes out clean.
4. Unmould by hand and paint the watermelon stripes.

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