Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes 北海道牛奶蛋糕

I have never been to Japan or Hokkaido before. We did booked our air tickets to Japan three years ago but had to change our holidays destination due to the tragic tsunami happened in March 2011. Sad!

Whether I have been to Japan or not, I have never tasted Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes and never know how real and authentic Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes should be. As usual, I Google "Hokkaido Cupcakes" for answers. All I was told are these:

1) According to Wikipedia, Hokkaido cake is a chiffon cupcake that is filled with cream.

2) According to Kitchen Tigress, Hokkaido cupcakes are made with Hokkaido milk and that's why they are named as Hokkaido cupcakes.

3) According to Small Small Baker, one of the earliest Hokkaido cupcakes recipe was posted by a Chinese baker, 周老师 (Chef Zhou) naming these cakes the softest cake in history. Why is this recipe originate from a Chinese, not a Japanese?

4) According to Google, the two most popular Hokkaido cupcakes recipes are from Kitchen Tigress and Nasi Lemak Lover.

Knowing the above, I asked myself...

Do Hokkaido cupcakes originate from Hokkaido or Japan? I don't know.

All Hokkaido cupcakes recipes that I have seen seems to claim that their Hokkaido cupcakes are soft or even the softest. Hmmm... All are good but which recipe is the best? All I know is that all Hokkaido cupcakes are typically made with least amount of flour and high egg content and both Kitchen Tigress or Nasi Lemak Lover recipes have the similar characteristics too. So, which one to choose??? After my triple-serious consideration, I have decided to bake the one from Nasi Lemak Lover.

Why? What are the difference between Kitchen Tigress and Nasi Lemak Lover recipes? The cupcakes made with Kitchen Tigress contain higher proportion of egg white than egg yolk. Containing more meringue, I can imagine the cupcakes should be fluffier and whiter but anticipate that the cakes might be a little over-powering with egg white according to my liking. In contrast, the cupcakes made Nasi Lemak Lover contain equal number of egg white and yolks. Plus, the textures of Sonia's cakes look equally fluffy, amazingly stable and fail proof to bake. After weighing out the differences, I have decided to give Sonia's recipe a go.

These are my Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes and I'm also baking these for our chiffon cake bake-along with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings...

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes baked with Nasi Lemak Lover recipe

Like typical chiffon cakes, start by whisking egg yolk mixture separately.

Mix in sifted flour - There is no baking powder used in this recipe!

Beat egg white into near stiff peaks...

Mix both egg yolk and white mixture together, divide into baking cups and bake! Easy!!!

Instead of using just whipped cream as my cupcake filling, I have made a light and tasty vanilla custard that I have used to bake a classic fruit tart previously.

Cooking the custard base

The must-adds for this beautiful custard: vanilla beans and light whipped cream

Like most Hokkaido cupcakes, mine are filled with custard cream and topped with fresh fruits (blueberries).

I can't wait to try these...

Wait a minute... I need a finishing touch! Icing sugar, please!

I'm impressed with its cottony soft texture :)

Totally speechless!

Thanks, Sonia! This is a fantastic recipe!

Despite that the cakes contain a high proportion of eggs, the cakes lose any detectable egg smell and taste after they are completely cooled and stay amazingly soft, fluffy and delicious both in room temperature or chilled.

After baking these cupcakes, I feel strongly that I have to clarify my views here... regarding my opinion on preferences and judgement.

To me, every individual preference and expectation for texture and taste can be subjective. Cakes that are soft to us might not be soft enough to others. What is tasty for me might not be tasty enough for you... I don't think we can really tell how much we like certain food unless we eat the food and judge it by ourselves.

Personally, I feel that the softness of these cupcakes are beyond what I have expected. I'm very impressed with this recipe and happy to use it again if I have to bake any Hokkaido chiffon cupcakes in the future. Having said that, I'm not saying which recipe is better or which is not... You can say that I'm diplomatic. In regardless, I like to be very honest in my opinions without upsetting others.

Seeing how Kitchen Tigress wrote about Nasi Lemak Lover makes me feel that her comments are not very fair to Sonia. I think that Sonia's recipe is really good and Kitchen Tigress should try baking Sonia's recipe before passing a judgment saying her Hokkaido cupcakes are better than Sonia's.

For this reason, I like to emphasize here that I'm not saying Sonia's recipe is the best but it is ideal enough for me.

Here is the recipe that I used to bake my Hokkaido Cupcakes (mostly adapted from Nasi Lemak Lover)

Makes 9 cupcakes
3 eggs, separated ( from 60g eggs)
20g plus 25g caster sugar
35g oil, preferably light in flavouring (I used rice bran oil)
60g milk
70g cake flour (preferably 7-8% protein)

To make vanilla custard cream (enough to fill 7 cupcakes):
1/3 cup (80ml) milk
1 egg yolk
10g sugar
4g cornflour
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla paste or seeds scraped from 1/4 vanilla pods
2 tbsp light whipped cream
(You might wish to make double amount of this recipe if I like to have more cream for your cakes)

To finish:
fresh fruits (I used blueberries)
icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 170°C (or 150°C fan forced). If you are using paper baking cups like the ones that I'm using, arrange them on baking tray. Otherwise, you can line baking cups in a muffin tin.

Using a hand whisk, beat egg yolk and 20g sugar until pale in colour. Whisk in oil and milk. Add sifted cake flour and whisk until the egg yolk mixture is smooth and well combined.

Using an electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg white in low speed for 2-3 mins until foamy. Increase beating speed to medium high. While beating, add 25g sugar gradually and continue beat till near stiff peaks form.

Fold egg white mixture into egg yolk mixture in 2-3 batches and do it very gently. When the mixture is well combined, fill batter into baking cups to about 3/4 full.

Bake them at 170°C (or 150°C fan forced) for 25 mins at the middle rack. Allow cupcakes to cool in the tin or a tray for 10 mins. Remove and let cool completely on wire racks.

To make the vanilla custard cream:

Simmer milk in a saucepan with medium low heat. While heating the milk, whisk egg yolk, sugar, cornflour and salt in a mixing bowl using a hand whisk until thick and pale. Keep whisking and slowly pour in the scalded milk into the yolk mixture. Pour the custard mixture back into a saucepan and cook over low heat, with constant whisking until thickened. Transfer custard into a bowl and cover the surfaces well with cling wrap - This will avoid a layer of skin forming. Chill custard for 1-2 hrs.

Mix in vanilla paste or seeds and light whipped cream into the chilled custard. Pipe custard cream into cupcakes using a long narrow piping tip (like Wilton 230). Top the cupcakes with fruits and dust with icing sugar. Serve at room temperature or chilled. Both are as good.

Happy Baking
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Please note that the linky tool for bake-along is no longer available.