Ube cupcakes

What a long day it was yesterday!  We invited friends over for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.  Naturally, I had to wake up early to start cooking and preparing.  I used up all my grated ube on hand to make puto and totally forgot that a friend had asked me to make ube cupcakes for today (Monday).  So after all our guests had left (which was already late afternoon), I had to make a quick trip to the Asian shop to buy grated ube.

To be honest, I have not made ube cupcakes before.  I told my friend that if she really wanted ube cupcakes, I would have to experiment.  But really, I had no time to experiment at all! It was a risk. I had to make good in one go as I could not afford and had no more extra time for mistakes!

After dinner last night, even if I was already so tired and sleepy, I went ahead and made the cupcakes.  I have been asked many times if the vanilla cupcake recipe I posted here before can be altered to make them ube.  This is my first time to try.  Well, let's see how it went...

How does it look to you?

The cupcake was moist with a tight crumb.  Even if I added a bit more baking powder, I really did not expect it to be the super soft and fluffy type because of the added ube.  Even my ube chiffon cake is a bit more dense (though still soft) than plain chiffon cake.  The cupcake did taste very much like ube though which I guess is the most important thing.  One other thing I especially liked is that the cupcakes were purple all the way through, from the tops, to the sides, to the insides, to the bottoms. No browning whatsoever that is very typical with other ube cupcakes I've seen on the web.

I paired the cupcakes with the usual whipped cream frosting, the same I use for my ube cake.  This is the only kind of frosting I like with ube.  Buttercream with ube doesn't quite work for me personally.

I'm not going to claim that this is the best ube cupcake you can make.  I know it can still be improved somehow.  For now, however, it's worth a try if you are up for some experimenting.  Let me know if you do.

UBE (PURPLE YAM) CUPCAKES (makes about 20)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

3 tsps baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon ube flavouring

1/4 tsp violet powdered food colour or gel paste

100 grams grated ube

1 cup buttermilk

Procedure:

1.  Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.  Line muffin trays with baking cups.

2.  In a medium bowl, sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk to combine.  Set aside.

3.  Using an electric mixer,  starting from a low speed gradually increasing to high, cream butter and sugar together until very light in colour and fluffy.  

4.  With mixer turned down to medium-low speed, beat in eggs one at a time.  Add in ube flavouring, violet food colour then the grated ube .

5.  In three additions, alternately add in flour mixture and buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour mixture.  Scrape bowl as needed to ensure that everything is incorporated well.  After the last addition, beat at high speed for the last time for about 45-60 seconds.

6.  Fill each baking cup with the cupcake batter about 3/4 full.

7.  Bake for about 22-25 minutes.  Transfer each cupcake immediately to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make 3/4 recipe of the Whipped Cream frosting here.  Use to frost each cupcake.  If desired, crumble one cupcake and use the crumbs for garnishing.

PS. Hope all of you readers are doing well!  It's been a long time.

For other things UBE: chiffon cake, puto, cake roll.