Chinese Cake Cupcakes

As mentioned in my previous post, I made cupcake versions of the Chinese birthday cake. Compared to the actual cake, I prefer the big cake since you'll end up having more fruit.  With these little suckers, you can't fit as much fruit. 

All the baking ingredients are the same - you need to make the custard, cake, simple syrup and whipping cream. Recipe in previous post.  Since there are a lot of steps, you can make these over the course of two days, which helped make the process feel less arduous. You can make the custard and cake the night before and then the assembly and whipping cream the next day.

For the cake batter, it made 22 cupcakes.  I lined each cupcake with those paper cupcake shells and poured the batter to approximately 3/4 of the way up.  Same temperature and I baked for 10 minutes - this will vary depending on your oven so just keep a watch.  Cake should be a light golden brown.

After they cool, I peeled away the paper wrapper and cut each cupcake in half horizontally.  I poured/brushed simple syrup on the insides of the two cupcake halves.  For the bottom half, I then added a good layer of the custard, slices of strawberries and then a small dollop of whipping cream.  I put them into new, fresh cupcake paper holders.  On the top half, I also added a layer of custard and then placed on top of the bottom half.  So going from bottom up - cake, custard, strawberry, whipping cream, custard, cake. 

On top of the cupcake, I added another dollop of whipping cream by putting the cream in a ziploc bag, cutting the edge and used as a pastry piper.  Yeah, didn't work out that great, and I ended up having to spread it evenly with a knife afterwards.  For added decoration, add a few slices of strawberries or any other fruit.  Finally, done! 

If you are taking these for a party, make sure to sample one, two or even three  just to make sure they're good enough.  And, yes, it's okay if it's for breakfast.  They're so light that you'll barely feel it and it has fruit so has to be good for you, right?  Enjoy!