Ladybug Steam Cupcake

Well is the time of year , where everyone is rushing to get pressie, prepare food , arrange for holidays .  To want to end the year more foodfull , and have the celebration mood to journey forward to New Year.

Staying in western country, Christmas is a big event for everyone. In US the celebration kick start from thanksgiving in November till the new year. I used to fantasy on how Christmas will be celebrated in western country. The movie seem to project such romantic event with the love one and snowing whole days, nights and months.  Well, sorry Australia is summer during Christmas . How people celebrate Christmas in this country is not romantic at all. Is very family , we tend to have BBQ at the back yard and beers and hot hot weather.  So maybe should a white Christmas will make some different ? Not sure has yet to experience it.

I try not to get too involve on getting present and eating ourselves silly as years goes by. Honestly that is lot of time the present we give or get might not be the one people like. All the people I knew of, are very blessed and have house full of things . This should be a season to bless those who really in need. So I want my Christmas to be one that is give to the needy not to top up others store room .

Every year my church will have an event for the children to know the true meaning of Christmas->Christmas for Kids ( C4K). This event has run for 10 years and we really want to bring the love of GOD to community that has struggle or needs in life.

So I participate in baking Cupcake for the little one. I found this recipe from the website , which I knew the children surely will love the print on this cake . I hope by enjoying the cupcake it will bring some joys to this special day for them .

The recipe I used and modify  is from ->My Little Favourite DIY

Ingredients :

3 Cold Eggs
275g Plain Flour
3 tsp baking powder
150ml Fresh milk
1 tsp ovallette ( I cant find this in Aus, I replace with 1/2 baking soda)
220g Castor Sugar ( can be reduced)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1-2 piece of dark chocolate ( melted by double boiling )

Method :

1) Place the egg and sugar in a mixing bowl , beat till fluffy and creamy , reach ribbon stage
2) Mix in 1/3 of the flour in the egg mixture till combine, pour in 1/2 the milk portion. Follow by another 1/3 of flour then 1/2 milk portion and finally pour in the reminding 1/3 flour in the mixture and combine well.
3)Take 1 Tbsp plain mixture and put into a piping bag
4)Take 3 Tbsp plain mixture , mix with dark melted chocolate and put into pipping bag .
5) Colour the rest of the mixing with bright red and put into a piping bag
6) Pump the red color mixture into the cup about 80% full .
7) Draw a cross with the chocolate mixture and do dots on both sides. Color the upper half of the cross with chocolate mixture.
8) Make 2 plain dots as eye and filled 2 small dots in the plain mixture as eye balls.
9)Steam with medium high heat for 10-12 min. Remember to cover the steamer lids with tea towel. You do not want the water condense to drop onto the cake.

As I do not know how should the texture and the taste of the cake with ovallette inside. Is hard for me to know what I did is successful or the cake should be more moist then this.

I do a pre run batch before the actual baking events. And put some strawberry jam in the cake as fillings. However the jam melted and leak out from the bottom of the cake and make it wet . Where I omit the jam but instead filled with some chocolate chip instead..

The cake is moist and is not as chewy as I thought it will be . The texture of the cake is sort of like chinese fa kueh. Thank GOD the texture is not like the chinese style steam cake.

What is the let down when I did that for the big batch. The cup cake liner I used seem to be bigger which I do not notice it. Until I start steaming the cake it takes longer than my pre run. The cake folor fade and some of the print fade as well.



Lesson learnt - Do not fill it too full , as the longer the heat to steam it will cause the color fade and the cake will surely crack! Is a hard lesson , but I will be more careful next time when it come to cake steaming.