Quay Po Cooks: hokkaido cup cakes

Showing posts with label hokkaido cup cakes. Show all posts

Thursday, June 21, 2012

What's the worst that could happen?

Hello my friends, I am back from a wonderful vacation in Sunny California. Did you all miss Aunty Lucy? LOL!

Once again, I would like to thank my good friends from the bottom of my heart for blog sitting for me while I had a wonderful time with my family in the USA. My splendid blog sitters were:

Alan of Travelling Foodies,
Lena of Frozen Wings,
Elisabeth of Food and Thrift Find and
Wendy of Table for Two or More
You guys RRAWK!

I am very eager to share with you all the stories of my trip but my brain is not working and photos are not edited and organised yet. I am still feeling like a zombie (jet lag + exhaustion) so I thought I would share with you a post in my file which I had no time to publish before I left for my trip. Here you go:

There are so many fellow bloggers who have tried their hands in replicating the famous Hokkaido cup cakes. I used to drool over all their yummy cake photos. I did not think of making them myself because there is a bakery near my home that sells them and they are very delicious. That was actually an excuse. The real reason was, I have a fear of making chiffon cakes. I did not want to venture into making them because previous attempts did not work out.

A week before I left for my USA trip, I went to the neighborhood bakery to buy the cakes and there was a long queue in the shop. I had other errands to run so I did not want to wait. As I was driving home, something struck me. It was advice from a very dear ex boss. He often said, "Veronica, don't worry too much. No venture, no gain. What's the worst that could happen?" When I arrived home, I went straight into the kitchen and baked the Hokkaido cup cakes. My ex boss was right. What's the worst that could happen? Here are my home baked Hokkaido cup cakes. I am very happy with the result. I think they taste better than those I bought. I am glad I ventured to try and I definitely gained. Prices at the bakery are high for a confection and now I don't think I need to buy them anymore. The ingredients are cheap and it is so simple to make them. You can do it as well if you (or your friends and family) have a taste for this soft, cream filled, confection that could please the most demanding sweet tooth.

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes (北海道戚風蛋糕)

Adapted from Jessie of Hearty Bakes

who got it from the book 不用模型做点心

(with slight modification)

Featured on Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook Page

on 22 June 2012

Whipped cream to fill the cup cake:

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:

Whip cream until almost stiff. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until cream holds peaks.

Cup Cakes Ingredients:

4 large egg yolks

70g castor sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup full cream milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

135g all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

6 large egg whites

50g castor sugar

2 tbs powedered sugar for dusting

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Place the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk them together with the 70g of sugar until yolks turn a pale yellow. Add the vanilla extract, followed by the milk and oil. Whisk well to combine. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and mix till all incorporated. In another bowl, beat the egg whites on high for about 30 seconds until foamy, then add 50g of castor sugar. Beat the egg whites until firm peaks not stiff peaks. Take a third of the egg whites and fold it into the egg yolk mixture to lighten it. Continue folding in the remaining egg whites gently till you get a pale yellow batter. Fill the cupcake liners until about 3/4 full. Bake the cupcakes for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the tops turn a golden brown and a cake skewer comes out clean. White the cupcakes are baking, prepare the whipped cream. Once cupcakes is baked, let them cool completely on the wire rack. Fill the piping bag with whipped cream and pipe into the cup cakes and put them in the fridge. Dust the cupcakes with powdered sugar before serving.

This cupcakes make a very nice gift, don't you think?

If you like the polka dot cup cake liners and the cake box. You can get them at:
BEST BAKING SOLUTIONS
57, Jalan USJ 8/2B, 47610 Petaling Jaya,

Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.

Telephone: (603)5637-6637

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.