Green tea Hokkaido sponge cupcakes recipe

While exploring the sponge cake world, I bet one would never miss the green tea sponge. I reckon it's one of the must have sponge in the sponge cakes baking journey. Besides that, green tea is full of nutritional benefits and is widely used in food, health products and even cosmetics! How can we not make a good healthy sponge cake out of it?

As usual, there are many green tea sponge cake recipes around. I have actually tested a few. Most of them are okay. Some recipes are almost gluten free as they use so little flour, thus making the cake super light and airy. Well, nice sponge indeed but too airy for me. After a few experiments, I think I still like the Hokkaido cupcake sponge that I used in making the blueberry Hokkaido cupcakes. Hence, I modified it further for green tea. Guess what?! It turned out to be my favourite green tea sponge so far. Of course, I made them into cupcakes to save baking time!

Recipe:

(12 cupcakes)

60g egg yolks

25g castor sugar

50g corn oil

80g milk

5g green tea powder mixed with 4 teaspoons of hot water (about 20g) just enough to dissolve the green tea powder into thick green tea mixture. Let it cool before using.

90g cake flour

180g egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

55g castor sugar

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and thick.

2. Add corn oil and whisk to combine.

3. Add milk and stir to combine.

4. Add green tea mixture and stir thoroughly.

5. Sift in cake flour and mix well. Leave the batter aside.

6. Beat the egg white in a mixing bowl.

7. Add cream of tartar as soon as the beaten egg white starts to foam.

8. Gradually add in the sugar when the egg white starts to thicken. Beat until stiff peak stage.

9. Add the egg white mixture onto the egg yolks mixture in 3 batches. Mix until they are almost combined on each addition. Lastly, scrape down and fold until every thing is evenly combined. Bang the batter on the table for a few times to release the big air bubbles.

10. Pour the batter into the cupcake cases, about 3/4 full each.

11. Bake in the preheated oven at 165c for about 25mins on the lower rack.

12. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool on the wired rack.