Orange Sponge Cupcakes

Hark! Do you hear the sound of thundering hooves?

The Year of the Horse is coming!

Happy Chinese New Year! 祝大家大吉大利!

My last recipe in the Year of the Snake, that's slithering away real fast, is orange sponge cupcakes. To bake these little cakes, please follow the recipe. If you don't, the texture may be coarse and rubbery instead of soft and fluffy.

Orange cake, when it's made with whole rather than separated eggs, is a little tricky. The acid in orange zest and orange juice would destabilise the eggs if it has half a chance. So you must make sure it doesn't have any chance, not even half.

There're a few booby traps in the recipe that may trip you up if you're not careful. Here's what you have to do:

⋈ The flour must be mixed with the eggs first, before orange zest is added to the batter. It protects the eggs from the acid in the orange peel. If you add the zest before or with the flour, the batter will become thin and bubbly. The bubbles won't magically disappear in the oven, so your cakes will be full of big holes.

⋈ After adding orange zest and juice, along with oil, the batter must be folded with a spatula, quickly and gently. A whisk would result in overmixing, allowing the acid to attack the eggs. If the batter becomes bubbly and runny, you can wave goodbye to your cakes.

⋈ The oven must be at 190°C. If the temperature is too low, the cakes set too slowly, giving the orange zest and juice time to attack the eggs.

There're many roads to Rome. If you compare my recipe to Nasilemaklover's,  you'll find that hers has more flour. Her orange sponge cupcakes use  100 g cake flour for 3 eggs whereas mine would have only 60 g cake flour  for 3 eggs. The more flour there is, the safer the eggs.

For those who like to compare recipes, here you go:


Between the two recipes, I prefer mine because . . . it's mine. Just as, I'm sure, NLL likes hers because it's hers. Hey, I know! You would be more objective. Why don't you try both and tell us which one is better?

ORANGE SPONGE CUPCAKES (香橙海棉杯子蛋糕) (Recipe for 5 cupcakes) 100 g eggs 6 g glucose 40 g castor sugar 40 g cake flour pinch salt 4 g orange zest finely grated with a sharp zester 30 g corn oil 10 g fresh orange juice add to corn oil Preheat oven to 190°C. Prep and measure ingredients as detailed above. Lay out 5 cardboard cupcake moulds (4 big- and 1 regular-sized). Whisk glucose, eggs and sugar till ribbon stage. Sift half of cake flour into egg mixture. With a whisk, mix till almost even. Sift remaining half of cake flour. Add salt. Mix with a whisk again, this time till just even. Add orange zest. Stir orange juice and oil mixture and add to batter. With a spatula, quickly scrape down and fold till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 1-2 times, not too hard, to remove big air bubbles. Quickly fill cardboard moulds with batter to 90% full. Arrange moulds on baking tray, spaced apart. Place tray on oven's bottom shelf. Bake till batter doesn't move when gently jiggled, about 10 minutes. Move tray to upper middle shelf. Bake till cakes are golden brown, and springy when pressed lightly, another 5 minutes or so. Remove cakes to wire rack. Serve warm or leave to cool down completely. Cold cupcakes may be topped with buttercream, whipped cream or cream cheese frosting, and decorated with orange and mint leaves.