Try an amazing soufflé sponge for cupcakes light as a cloud that float into your mouth along with a healthier delicious frosting of cream cheese, ricotta and maple syrup flavoured with crushed raspberries.  It’s a simple creamy frosting made by whisking everything together.  The intriguing sponge is based on the recipe in Keiko Ishida’s Okashi book – you start by cooking the butter and flour together then beating in egg yolks, just like when you make choux pastry!  Are you curious?  Have a look at the illustrated recipe below.  It’s simple and it works.  The texture of the sponge reminds me of some delightful little cakes we once ate in a very posh restaurant, where my friend exclaimed at intervals ‘they’re so light, just like little clouds!’  Both the vanilla and matcha green tea versions taste delicious.  Then as a finishing touch I imagined a colourful cheery start for this new year 2017 so added a variety of sprinkles like funfetti, rose petals, freeze-dried raspberries and little gold balls.  But feel free to be creative and design your own original (and very light!) sprinkle cloud cupcakes! 🙂

Where have I been?!  And those cake plans…

Just a quick apology for not posting a recipe for so long.  You know, the holidays and travelling around etc.  It’s been a lovely time climbing with friends in Alicante at Christmas then visiting Sicily and Catalunya (where I live) with mum around the new year.  We even visited a couple of cava (Catalan champagne) factories!  And tested then bought the stuff of course.  Tee hee.  I’m wondering if I should make a cake with some while there are still four bottles of bubbly in the kitchen!  Hmmm…

In fact I drew up a list of cakes to make this year in the previous post.  One was a soufflé sponge roll cake but I thought we’d enjoy it in the shape of fun, colourful and relatively easy cupcakes – just right for the new year.  They can look cheap and cheerful or even classy in gold or silver cupcake liners and the right lighting…!

Here’s how to make them.

THE RECIPE – for 14 to 16 cupcakes

The recipe is slightly adapted from Keiko Ishida’s soufflé sponge roll.  The quantities are modified and instead of cow’s milk there’s a blend of oatmilk, greek yoghurt or cream depending on what I had in the fridge.  Also when adding the matcha I decreased the quantity of flour and vanilla extract accordingly.  Both the matcha and vanilla versions are lovely.  The topping was invented and you can play around with it.  I initially used more Philadelphia cream cheese but found the frosting a bit too savoury.  Substituting half with ricotta mellows it out nicely.

Preparation

Raspberry cream cheese-ricotta and maple syrup frosting (try to make it half a day or so before assembly)

Previous day:  pass 100g/3.5oz ricotta through a sieve into a medium-sized bowl.  Cover with plastic film and store in the fridge.

Same day:  whisk together 100g/3.5oz Philadelphia cream cheese (at room temperature) and around 35-50g/1 to 2 tablespoons maple syrup (to taste).  Fold in the ricotta and whisk lightly in if necessary.  Light whisk or fold in 8 to 10 teaspoons of raspberry pulp (made by crushing raspberries with a fork – easier with defrosted frozen raspberries).

Soufflé sponge

• place cupcake liners (preferably gold or silver) in a muffin pan – they rise much better when placed in a muffin or cupcake pan.
• preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F (static, non-convection oven) or 160°C/320°F (fan-assisted, convection oven)
• make sure your eggs are at room temperature

• 3 egg whites (115-120g) from medium-large eggs
• 3 egg yolks (55-60g) from medium-large eggs
• 1 medium-large egg (55-58g)
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (1/2 if adding matcha powder)
• 35g/2 and 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter (good quality)
• 60g/scant 1/2 cup cake flour (or all-purpose plain flour) OR 5g/1/2 tbsp matcha green tea powder plus 55g/scant 1/2 cup less 1 tsp cake or plain flour
• 60g/ml milk (full-fat or semi-skimmed) OR 20ml/g cream + 40ml oatmilk OR 30ml oatmilk + 30ml greek yoghurt OR any combination you prefer
• 85g/1/3 cup + 2 tsp caster (superfine) sugar

OR if you’re making the matcha green tea version:

OR the matcha version:

You can fill them up a little more…

They’ll puff up nicely in the oven but when they come out they’ll start deflating just like real soufflés!  Don’t worry, they’ll still be delicious.  Let them cool completely then pipe some frosting on them and decorate.

Assembling

Pipe or dollop the frosting on the cooled cupcakes.  Sprinkle with lots of lovely colourful stuff, like mini chocolate beans, freeze-dried raspberry pieces, funfetti, rose petals or gold and silver balls.

Eating and storing

These keep a day or so in an airtight container at a cool room temperature or 4 to 5 days in the fridge, but take them out 30 minutes or so before eating so the sponge becomes light and fluffy again.

The soufflé sponge phenomenon

It’s a lovely sponge that’s really worth making.  Just like a cloud.  You can make lots of different kinds of cakes with it but cupcakes is a nice place to start…

It’s the start of a soufflé sponge love story.  Mum did enjoy these during her visit here in Barcelona and said she’d be making them.  Maybe you’d like some too? 🙂

Farewell for now sweet reader, wishing you a January with bright, light and cheerful moments.  And some happy baking and eating of course! 🙂  Lili x

 

 

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save