If you didn't know already (because I go on and on about it!) I just got back from China, so naturally, some Asian influences have crept in to my cooking. So here is an easy way to give a taste of the East, since green tea flavour is such a popular flavour in the East, flavouring everything from pancake and mochi fillings to frappucinos.
In the West, it is possible to buy both green tea powder and black sesame seeds from Asian supermarkets, and also you can order it on-line from all the usual sellers, such as eBay. But since I just got back from China, I wanted to buy my own from there, which was, of course, much cheaper as well.
The reason why I call these cupcakes, rather than muffin, is that I found out that the latter has an unfortunate resemblance to the pronunciation of a less than tasty thing 马粪 (mǎ fèn). I will not elaborate further in case it puts you off your next meal, but those that are curious are welcome to look it up using a translator! I found this out mainly on account of some Chinese guests, on whom I was trying this recipe out!
There are plenty of green tea cupcake recipes on-line, but I was looking for a way to incorporate another Asian flavour - black sesame seeds. I first had these in mochi and thought its dark taste was so delicious. I decided that the best way to go was to make some praline decorations. This recipe uses praline in the European sense - melted sugar mixed with ground nuts (or seeds in this case), as opposed to the American style pralines, which have milk or cream in them and are more like what we would call fudge in the UK. The French praline types start with just sugar alone, and heating it to a very high temperature (300 C/570 F) until the sugar spontaneously starts to melt. This can sound a bit scary, and the sugar looks a bit weird in the in-between stage, but keep going, it will all melt eventually, and you add the ground seeds just at the last minute.
Cupcakes - you can use any basic cupcake recipe that you like, but if you need one, this is the one I always use:
255 g/10 oz self-raising flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
115 g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
250 ml milk or buttermilk
6 tablespoons oil or 85 g/3 oz butter, melted, and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
50 - 100 g white chocolate chips, according to taste
25 g of green tea powder (depending on how strong you want the taste. You may have to experiment with different amounts, depending upon the strength of your powder.
Cupcake method:
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and grease a 12-cup cupcake tin or line with 12 paper cases
2) Sift the flour in a large bowl, and stir in the sugar, salt and green tea powder
3) Beat the eggs lightly in another bowl and mix with the milk, vanilla and cooled butter
4) Make a well in the dry ingredients, and then pour in the liquid ingredients. Gently fold to just mix the ingredients. When nearly mixed, add the white chocolate chips too, but do not overmix! Overmixing will cause the cupcakes to become stiff and stodgy as you will knock out all the air. Also, once mixed with the liquids, the raising agents in the flour will start to work, so don't wait too long before putting your muffins in the oven
5) Using two tablespoons, spoon the batter into twelve muffin cases.
Bake on a medium oven shelf for 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch
6) Leave the cupcakes to cool down in the tin for 5 - 10 minutes before taking them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. The cupcakes must be completely cool before decorating, otherwise the topping will melt and fall off!
Black sesame seed praline
80 g black sesame seeds ground up using a coffee grinder
160 g white caster sugar
(I made this in two batches because you have to work very quickly before the praline sets, so that's 2 x 40 g seeds with 80 g sugar. This is still a very generous amount to compensate for breakages, and unusable in between bits)
1) Put the sugar into a clean metal pan and turn the heat up to high. Gently stir the sugar to move it around the pan to spread out the heat. After a few minutes, you should see some of the sugar turning brown and becoming liquid. While the remaining sugar may go into clumps like below:
Don't give up! Keep stirring until all of the sugar is melted, and you have reached about 300 C/ 570 F. Keep a very close eye on the sugar because it can burn very quickly at this temperature. Hence there are fewer pictures from this point, because I needed both hands to complete the next steps very quickly!
Just before all the lumps are melted, stir in the ground sesame seeds until mixed evenly. Pour out onto a silicone mat, and place a second silicone mat on top. Working quickly, place several metal cookie cutters in the desired shape whilst the sugar is still molten.
Press down on the cutters (you can roll over the cutters with a rolling pin to help push them in evenly). Leave the cutters in the hot sesame caramel until set slightly and cool enough to touch. I find the best results happen when the praline is left to cool completely, and then cracked around the cutter. If you're feeling confident, you can pop the leftover praline pieces in the oven and heat up until just softened, and place the cutters in a new position, and allow to cool again. The amounts in this recipe give ample amount to account for any accidents, but you should hopefully have at least enough to have one shape per cupcake, and some left to snack on.
You can make these a day or so ahead, and as long as they are kept in a dry, air-tight container, they could keep quite well for several days, if they are not all eaten beforehand! Be careful to avoid moisture, as this will make the caramelised sugar dissolve, and the shapes will eventually disintegrate.
Cream cheese frosting:
100 g softened butter
300 g cream cheese
50 - 150 g icing sugar, according to taste
Cream cheese frosting:
1) Make sure the butter is very soft before starting to beat it in a bowl with an electric mixer. Then add the cream cheese and start to beat for a few minutes. If the butter turns into lumps it's not ready yet, so give it a very short blitz (10 - 30 seconds) in the microwave for a few seconds in order to soften it up (if you do this, it might be useful to keep the frosting in the fridge after it's finished for 30 min to 1 hour in order to let it firm up again)
2) Add sugar, honey or vanilla to the cream cheese according to taste and mix. You can use any other type of frosting in this recipe if you want, but I chose to use cream cheese because I knew that I would be serving these to Chinese friends, so I adapted the sweetness to correspond to their less of a sweet tooth! So this gave me the opportunity to use much less sugar in the recipe, but still retaining the firmness for piping. But technically, this is not authentically Asian, since they would never use cream cheese in traditional desserts!
3) I popped a star shaped nozzle into a piping bag to pipe the frosting onto the top of the cupcakes, but you can use any other type of design you fancy
I swirled from the outside in, and then popped a black sesame shape in the middle of each muffin.
I got lots of positive feedback from my Asian friends, who seemed to like both the appearance and the taste, so overall, I'd consider this a success!
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| Green tea and black sesame cupcakes |
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| Inside of the green tea cupcake |
There are plenty of green tea cupcake recipes on-line, but I was looking for a way to incorporate another Asian flavour - black sesame seeds. I first had these in mochi and thought its dark taste was so delicious. I decided that the best way to go was to make some praline decorations. This recipe uses praline in the European sense - melted sugar mixed with ground nuts (or seeds in this case), as opposed to the American style pralines, which have milk or cream in them and are more like what we would call fudge in the UK. The French praline types start with just sugar alone, and heating it to a very high temperature (300 C/570 F) until the sugar spontaneously starts to melt. This can sound a bit scary, and the sugar looks a bit weird in the in-between stage, but keep going, it will all melt eventually, and you add the ground seeds just at the last minute.
Cupcakes - you can use any basic cupcake recipe that you like, but if you need one, this is the one I always use:
255 g/10 oz self-raising flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
115 g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
250 ml milk or buttermilk
6 tablespoons oil or 85 g/3 oz butter, melted, and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
50 - 100 g white chocolate chips, according to taste
25 g of green tea powder (depending on how strong you want the taste. You may have to experiment with different amounts, depending upon the strength of your powder.
Cupcake method:
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius and grease a 12-cup cupcake tin or line with 12 paper cases
2) Sift the flour in a large bowl, and stir in the sugar, salt and green tea powder
 |
| Flour, sugar and green tea powder |
4) Make a well in the dry ingredients, and then pour in the liquid ingredients. Gently fold to just mix the ingredients. When nearly mixed, add the white chocolate chips too, but do not overmix! Overmixing will cause the cupcakes to become stiff and stodgy as you will knock out all the air. Also, once mixed with the liquids, the raising agents in the flour will start to work, so don't wait too long before putting your muffins in the oven
 |
| When the batter is mixed, it looks suspiciously like guacamole! |
Bake on a medium oven shelf for 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch
6) Leave the cupcakes to cool down in the tin for 5 - 10 minutes before taking them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. The cupcakes must be completely cool before decorating, otherwise the topping will melt and fall off!
Black sesame seed praline
80 g black sesame seeds ground up using a coffee grinder
160 g white caster sugar
(I made this in two batches because you have to work very quickly before the praline sets, so that's 2 x 40 g seeds with 80 g sugar. This is still a very generous amount to compensate for breakages, and unusable in between bits)
1) Put the sugar into a clean metal pan and turn the heat up to high. Gently stir the sugar to move it around the pan to spread out the heat. After a few minutes, you should see some of the sugar turning brown and becoming liquid. While the remaining sugar may go into clumps like below:
.JPG) |
| Melting sugar for making praline |
Just before all the lumps are melted, stir in the ground sesame seeds until mixed evenly. Pour out onto a silicone mat, and place a second silicone mat on top. Working quickly, place several metal cookie cutters in the desired shape whilst the sugar is still molten.
.JPG) |
| Leaving the cutters in the melted black sesame seed praline |
 |
| Black sesame seed praline stars and hearts |
Cream cheese frosting:
100 g softened butter
300 g cream cheese
50 - 150 g icing sugar, according to taste
Cream cheese frosting:
1) Make sure the butter is very soft before starting to beat it in a bowl with an electric mixer. Then add the cream cheese and start to beat for a few minutes. If the butter turns into lumps it's not ready yet, so give it a very short blitz (10 - 30 seconds) in the microwave for a few seconds in order to soften it up (if you do this, it might be useful to keep the frosting in the fridge after it's finished for 30 min to 1 hour in order to let it firm up again)
2) Add sugar, honey or vanilla to the cream cheese according to taste and mix. You can use any other type of frosting in this recipe if you want, but I chose to use cream cheese because I knew that I would be serving these to Chinese friends, so I adapted the sweetness to correspond to their less of a sweet tooth! So this gave me the opportunity to use much less sugar in the recipe, but still retaining the firmness for piping. But technically, this is not authentically Asian, since they would never use cream cheese in traditional desserts!
3) I popped a star shaped nozzle into a piping bag to pipe the frosting onto the top of the cupcakes, but you can use any other type of design you fancy
 |
| Decorating the cupcakes once cooled |
I got lots of positive feedback from my Asian friends, who seemed to like both the appearance and the taste, so overall, I'd consider this a success!
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