Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes By Pig Pig's Corner

If you’re a fan of green tea, you can’t miss this post. If you're a fan of both green tea and mochi, this post is exactly written for you. If you aren’t into these two things, the beautiful pictures on this post might get you thinking that if not give these green tea mochi cupcakes a go, you might feel missing something in your food adventures.

Ann’s food photos are always very inspiring and attractive to me. Her recipes on her blog, Pig Pig’s Corner are simple and delicious, great for homecooks. Do hop over to her blog and browse her Green Tea Butter Cookies and Matcha Green Tea Ice-cream, you’ll know I have found the right person to do this guest post. Thank you so much, Ann, I feel honoured to have you do guest post for me.

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Christine's Recipes is one the blogs that I follow religiously as her blog seems to remind me of those Hong Kong cooking tv show that I used to watch. She also runs a Chinese version 簡易食譜 which means "easy recipes" in Chinese and that's what her blog is all about - simple,homey dishes. I was a little worried (and happy of course) when Christine asked me to appear as a guest writer on her blog. Have you seen her super long recipe index?! I was just about to ask what has she not cooked and blogged about. Luckily, she suggested a green tea dessert for her blog. So here I am today, featuring my current obsession - mochi cupcakes.

I was intrigued when I saw these fig mochi cupcakes at Bread et Butter. They look like normal cupcakes but the texture is totally different. They are moist, cakey and chewy
at the same time. Hmm...maybe more like the texture of a chewy fudgy brownie. If you are not familliar with mochi, it is a type of Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into a paste and then molded into the desired shapes. These delicious little babies are made with glutinous rice flour, hence the chewy mochi-like texture.

The mochi cupcake base is pretty straightforward and very versatile. I planned to only make matcha mochi cupcakes with red bean filling since matcha paired with aduki beans seemed like the default flavour for Japanese desserts. I had some leftover butternut squash puree in the fridge, so I made some with it too and glad I did! I personally prefer the ones with butternut squash as they turned out more moist than the ones with red bean filling. These are extremely easy to make, so, if you think cupcakes are so 2009, try these cupcakes with a twist! They are not overly sweet and extremely addictive, so be warned!

Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes Recipe

(Printable recipe)
By Christine’s Recipes
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 40 mins
Yield: Makes 12 mochi cupcakes, adapted from Bread et Butter

Ingredients:

• 220 g glutinous rice flour
• 2 1/2 tsp matcha powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100 g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 80 g unsalted butter - melted
• 187 g evaporated milk
• Red bean paste (I used Japanese canned prepared aduki beans)
• Butternut squash puree (I used leftovers, see notes)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 175°C.
• Line a 6 or 12 hole muffin pan with muffin cases, and set aside.
• Sift together glutinous rice flour, matcha powder and baking powder.
• Whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Fold in the melted butter into the egg/sugar mixture, followed by the evaporated milk.
• Fold in the sifted dry ingredients in two batches.
• Fill about 1/3 of the prepared muffin cases with mochi mixture. Spoon 1 tsp of red bean or butternut squash puree on the middle of the mochi mixture. Cover with more mochi mixture (make sure to only fill it to about 3/4 full, or it may overflow). Top with more red bean or butternut squash puree, this step is optional, it did this to differentiate the two different cupcakes.
• Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.
• Best eaten fresh out of the oven.

Notes (To prepare butternut squash puree):

• Preheat oven to 200˚C. Cut off stem of squash, then cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out and discard seeds from cavity of squash. Rub all surfaces with olive oil or butter. Lay the halves, cut side down on a baking sheet. Place in oven and roast squash for 45 minutes until tender. Allow squash to cool, then scoop flesh out from skin, and purée the flesh in a food processor.