I made these orange flavored mini cupcakes in the shape of a dragon for Chinese New Year (2024 is the year of the dragon!) The cupcakes are made of a light and fluffy orange flavored sponge cake, topped with a light orange-flavored whipped cream. (And lots of sprinkles!)
Sponge cake is great because it’s naturally lower-in-fat than other types of cake. This particular cupcake erecipe replaces much of the butter with Greek yogurt for added protein, too! Yeah, I did use heavy whipping cream, but the frosting is mostly made of air. I was inspired by those Chinatown bakery cream cakes with the creamy whipped cream-cheese frosting.
I’m sure these cupcakes would be great any way you choose to serve them, but since it was The Year of The Dragon, I chose to arrange mine like a little dragon. The dragon’s eyes are made of chocolate chips.
I used a piping bag and an extra large 1A round piping tip to pipe the frosting on.
To make larger standard-sized cupcakes, bake for 20 to 25 minutes instead of 15.
To make a full-sized cake with this recipe, bake for 35 to 40 minutes instead of 15.
Orange Cream Mini Cupcakes
Equipment
- 3 mini muffin tins
- 36 mini muffin wrappers
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 1¾ cups cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoon melted margarine
- 2 tablespoon canola oil (or other neutral oil)
- 2 teaspoon orange zest (about 1 orange worth)
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
For the whipped cream frosting:
- 2 ounces Neufchâtel cheese (at room temperature)
- ¼ cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- food coloring, if desired (optional)
Instructions
- It's really important to have room-temperature cream cheese, so I started on the frosting first. I beat together the Neufchâtel cheese, confectioner's sugar, orange zest and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer until well-blended. Then, I let the cream cheese mixture sit there while I worked on the next steps.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 °F . Line 3 mini cupcake tins with cupcake wrappers. ( I have 2 mini cupcake tins, so I baked in batches.)
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking soda and salt.
- In a second bowl, whisk together the nonfat Greek yogurt and sugar
- Beat 1 egg into the yogurt mixture.
- Whisk melted margarine, canola oil, orange zest, orange juice and vanilla extract into the yogurt mixture.
- Pour the yogurt mixture into the bowl with the flour mixture. Use a spatula to combine, until the flour is completely mixed in.
- Put 1 tablespoon of batter in each of the 36 cupcake wrappers. (I like to use a clean spoon to scrape the batter off of the measuring spoon and into the pan.)
- Put the muffin pans in the oven to bake at 350 °F for about 15 minutes. Cupcakes are done when the tops are golden brown. The tops should spring back when lightly pressed down with a fingertip.
- When cupcakes are done baking, remove them from the muffin pans and transfer to a cooling rack to cool.
Now it's time to make the whipped cream
- You should already have your sugar, cream cheese, orange zest and vanilla extract beaten together from step #1.
- Add 1 cup of heavy cream and beat on high speed until the cream whips up to form stiff peaks.
- Transfer the whipped cream to a piping bag. I like to stand my piping bag upright in a tall drinking glass and spoon the whipped cream into it. This makes it easy to pipe the whipped cream onto the cupcakes.
