‘Baby Rooster’ Salted Egg Yolk Chiffon Cupcakes

I’ve been really busy since school reopened and looking forward to CNY already! Since the Year of the Rooster is coming, there has been lots of request for rooster bakes! Last week I posted a baby rooster chiffon cake, this week I made some 3D baby rooster cupcakes and 3D chiffon rooster for a friend. These are salted egg yolk in flavour, which is currently my favourite flavour, as I love things that are sweet and savoury! You ought to try salted egg yolk chiffon cake if you haven’t!

Today’s recipe is a easy salted egg yolk chiffon cake recipe that doesn’t involve boiling salted egg yolk with milk. I also found it much easier to sift the mashed egg yolk without flour so it should be done separately. I used ready-boiled salted eggs from the supermarket. These are readily available and really convenient, and I love that these boiled egg yolks are really easy and quick to mash and sieve, as they are not too dry and have just the right texture to work with. 

Boiled Salted Egg Yolks I used

Previously, I have shared how thankful I am to have a new capable assistant, the Kenwood Chef Sense, which whips up large volumes of fine quality meringue quickly and efficiently. It’s a great time-saver for me. In addition to the balloon whisk for meringue, the Kenwood Chef Sense also comes with a K-beater for mixing creamy cake batter and dough hook for bread. The K-beater has a unique “K” design said to be optimized for mixing, so I was keen to try it out, as it can be tiring and time-consuming using the hand whisk to cream eggs and also eliminate cake flour lumps completely. Verdict: It is indeed great for creaming eggs and eliminating lumps effortlessly and quickly. Looks like I’ll get addicted to hands-free!

K-beater of Kenwood Chef Sense

‘Baby Rooster’ Salted Egg Yolk Chiffon Cupcakes (makes 5+ cupcakes)
2 egg yolks
13g castor sugar
27 g vegetable/corn oil
35g water/milk
40g Prima cake flour
3 boiled salted eggs (I bought ready-boiled ones from supermarket)
Pinch of salt

3 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
30g castor sugar

*If you do not wish to use salted eggs, you also can make plain or orange chick cupcakes by a small adjustment of reducing the water/milk/juice by 1g.


1. Mash the egg yolks of the boiled salted eggs and pass through sieve to obtain fine salted egg yolk crumbs. One salted egg yields around 14g of mashed and sieved salted egg yolk crumbs for me.

  

2. Preheat oven to 160°C. Prepare glass bowls for baking the chiffon cake. I used 6-cm OD bowls, but you can also use 8.5-cm or 11-cm bowls to your convenience. You can even use eggshells. 

Line a 15-cm baking tray with baking paper (this is to cut out the wings later). If you prefer it simpler and don't need wings, you can omit the baking tray and make more cupcakes =).

3. Add castor sugar for egg yolk batter to egg yolks. Whisk at maximum speed till mixture is light and well-mixed. 

4. Add in oil and mix well. Add water/milk. Whisk till well-combined.

5. Add in sifted cake flour. Whisk till batter is smooth and there are no more lumps.
Then add in mashed, sifted salted egg yolk from (1) and whisk until no lumps.

Note: The above steps (3)-(6) can also done using hand whisk.

7. Prepare meringue:

Video tutorial for whisking meringue in 3 easy steps

a. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy.

b. Add in ½ castor sugar for meringue and whisk at high speed till soft peaks form.

c. Add in rest of the castor sugar for meringue and whisk till firm peaks form, or just the point of stiff peak.

8. Gently fold in meringue into egg yolk batter 1/3 at a time. *Fold in unidirectional, gentle strokes and do not overfold.

9. Spoon the salted egg yolk batter into bowls till 80% full. Gently tap to remove bubbles.

10. Bake at 160°C for 15 min, then 140°C for 15 min, or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

11. Pour the remaining batter onto the prepared baking tray and bake the sheet cake at 160°C for 15 min.

12. Allow cakes to cool completely on a wire rack before unmolding by hand. Gently pull the cake away from the sides and bottom of the bowl. You may find the picture tutorials of hand unmoulding from bowls and moulds in ‘Deco Chiffon Cakes’ helpful.

13. Assembly:

Crown: Use red ‘hearts’ sprinkles.
*Note: The red heart sprinkles may 'run' a little bit after one day, so it is better you put it on on the day of consumption.

Beak: Cut triangles from orange ‘hearts’ sprinkles by slicing off the 2 round tops.
*The orange wilton sprinkles doesn't seem to have the problem of 'running' =)

Eyes: Cut thin circular slices from black lace candy. You can also pipe on using melted chocolate.

Wings: Peel baking paper off sheet cake and cut ‘wings’ using small oval cutter.

‘Glue’ on facial features and wings using melted marshmallow, made by popping a few marshmallows with a sprinkle of water in the microwave.


Here's the top view before the wings were added! Very easy to make since sprinkles were used, and as cute without wings.

The mini tangerines on the right are in Deco Chiffon Cakes book (below), made from orange/mandarin orange chiffon cake, as part of the '吉' Mandarin orange chiffon cake.

Hope you will like these easy and yummy Salted egg yolk chiffon Baby Roosters!

With lots of love,
Susanne


FYI Deco Chiffon Cakes and other titles having a festive discount (up to 30% discount) at Popular bookstores!


*Updated 19/1/17:
My baby Rooster chiffon cupcakes featured on Discover KL and Says.com!