Ube Chiffon Mochi Cupcakes

Ingredients 

• 4 large eggs (with egg whites and yolks separated)
  • Make sure you keep the egg whites in the fridge to keep them cold, but the egg yolks should be at room temperature.
• 1/2 cup (100g) sugar
• 2/3 cup (84g) sweet glutinous rice flour
  • I used the Koda farms brand Mochiko rice flour. Any brand would work, but make sure you’re not just buying straight up rice flour.
• 4 teaspoons (10g) cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons lukewarm milk
  • I actually used 1 tablespoon heavy cream and 1 tablespoon water, but you should be able to substitute with any kind of milk here, like whole milk, oat milk, coconut milk, etc.
• 1/2 teaspoon ube extract
  • If the extract is the liquid kind, use 1/2 teaspoon. If it’s more the gel kind, you should use just 3-4 drops.

This makes approximately a dozen cupcakes.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.
2. First, let’s make the roll cake. In a large bowl, add egg yolks and whisk until evenly mixed. Add half of the sugar and whisk until the mixture has approximately doubled in volume. I hand-whisked for approximately 7 minutes. The mixture should be a lighter yellow color and be at a ribbon stage (when you lift the whisk up, the mixture should fall back into the bowl in ribbons that will hold its shape until disappearing back into the mixture).
3. In bowl of a stand mixer, add cold egg whites and beat on low speed until foamy (approximately 2 minutes).
4. Add the other half of the sugar over 2 separate times and beat on medium high speed until the egg whites reach stiff peaks (approximately 7 minutes). Make sure to keep checking the egg whites to not overbeat them.
5. Add 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Gently hand whisk until evenly combined.
6. Add the egg yolk and egg white mixture back into the egg whites. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold in the egg whites until evenly combined.
7. Add sweet glutinous rice flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. I sifted these dry ingredients together first, but you can omit this step if you’d like. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold in the dry ingredients until evenly combined.
8. Add lukewarm milk and ube extract. Using a silicon spatula, gently fold until evenly combined.
9. Pour the batter into the cupcake tin.
10. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes or until the cake springs back when touched.

Ube Chiffon Mochi Cupcakes are the perfect fluffy, spongy cake that is also gluten free. Lately, I feel like mochi is all over the place with people putting it into cookies, using it to wrap fruit and ice cream, adding mochi swirls to bread; it seems like the list is endless. It makes a lot of sense though, since adding a bit of chew is delicious. For this recipe, I was wondering what would happen when you add that bit of chew into a recipe that is inherently light and fluffy, the perfect description of a chiffon cake. The end result is this perfect slightly chewy, but also fluffy cupcakes. I added a bit of ube extract to bring a great flavor too, but this recipe is super versatile, so try it out with your favorite flavor extract and let me know how it goes!