Old Man Like Old Cuisines–Traditional Butterfly Cupcakes

INTRODUCTION

Today is Children’s day, my kids are not schooling and they are sleeping now. I have the time to issue this short post which I have dragged for quite a while. The first batch of this butterfly cupcakes were made about 2 month’s ago and for the second batch of the cupcakes, I have prepared it 2 day’s ago for my girl to bring to the school to celebrate children’s day.

This is not  a new and trendy recipe. This is a rather traditional recipe and some of my friends have said that they have prepared these cupcakes about 20 years ago when they studied home economics.. That shocked me! When I posted the images in a Google plus communities, some of the members are asking me for the recipe and the same when I posted up in Facebook Groups. Apparently, traditional baked products do attract attentions too.

As contrast to the trendy cupcake where it’s soft and fluffy decorated with beautiful fondant icings or whipped cream, this cupcake is dense and taste like butter cake. In my own Facebook timeline, I have written: It looked like the baked version of Chinese steamed sponge cake, it shaped like a muffin (see note below) and it tasted like a butter cake, fully of buttery aromatic flavour. The muffin shape of the “cupcake” was my mistake. As I did not have any cupcake cup with me, I have used the muffin cups and I hoped readers can follow the recipe to use the cupcake cups. This will double the number of cupcakes baked ….

As expected, the cupcakes were quite dense, unlike current trendy cupcakes, they were neither prepared by the egg separation method nor the creaming method, it is prepared by a simple mixing (followed by whisking) method of combining all ingredients together. This is one of the easiest recipe I have ever prepared but shall I say, the taste was awesome due to its rich aromatic buttery fragrance. Some traditional schools called for the cake to go with buttercream but this recipe called for the usage of whipped cream which is in line with the current  trends of the health conscious society.

While I always think that whipped cream is part of decoration and optional, for these cupcakes, due to its dense nature, the whipped cream really compliments the taste and bring the palate to another levels of enjoyment. As the amount of sugar in this recipe is relatively less, the incorporation of strawberry jam was just right for a sweet tooth like me. In my humble opinion, it was very well thought of the recipe provider to incorporate both the whipped cream and strawberry jam in the cupcakes.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from : Butterfly Cakes from “The Essential Baking Cookbook” published by Murdoch Books in year 2000 page 40

Serving: About 24 cup cakes or 12 muffin sizes cakes

• 250 grams unsalted butter (softened)

• 320 grams granulated sugar

• 380 grams self raising flour

• 250 grams of fresh milk

• 4 eggs lightly beaten

• 4 teaspoons of vanilla essences

For decoration

• 1 cup of cream whipped to soft peaks

• Some strawberry jam

• Icing sugar to dust

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.

• Line 24 cupcakes cup in a baking tray. Alternatively you can use shallow muffin tins with paper cups. (note that in this illustration, I have used the muffin cups instead of cupcakes cups. But this is not advisable as it is slightly big in its presentation.)

• In a big mixing bowl, put all ingredients marked together. Beat using electric beaters on low speed for 2 minutes and continue to beat at high speed for another 2 minutes until pale and light.

• Transfer the batter equally into cupcake cups and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the skewer inserted come out clean. Transfer to rack to let it cool completely before the next step.

• Use a sharp knife, cut shallow rounds from the top of the cupcakes. Cut the top into half. Pump some whipped creams into the whole and put back the two halves on top of the whipped creams.

• Dust with some icing sugar and put some strawberry jam on top of the whipped cream. Best serve with a cup of hot tea or coffee as a snack or party items.

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CONCLUSION

From the recipe, you will know it is a rather old schools of cupcake preparation. However, I have always treasure and respect these old schools of baking as it brings fond memories. While I have never tasted this before, but one of the members in a Facebook Group has kindly highlighted to me that there is a shop in Singapore that is selling this snack now. I am unsure where is the shop but it signifies that besides me, lots of people are fond of having traditional cuisines.

Be it muffins, cupcakes, cakes, quick breads, I am confused. What I can assure you is that it tasted nice and the simplicity in its method of preparation is really worth a try.

Have a nice day and cheers.

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Updated on 26-April-2014

Today, my friends from Kuala Lumpur insist to meet up with me In Singapore. They called at the last minute and I have only 2 hours to prepare some hand gifts for them.

Therefore, I have used this traditional recipe and prepared some blackberry cupcakes for them. I have made the decision because it is one of the easiest and fastest  cupcake recipe.

I have put a scope of tangy ready made blackberry jam in the cupcake, topped up with batter. After baking, I have put additional blackberry jam and sprinkle some chopped almonds.

Just sharing here that the recipe can be easy modified to meet our needs.

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