These cupcakes are kind of like hard-boiled eggs. They are easy to eat, have to be peeled, and have a yellow center. However, the similarities stop there. The chiffon base makes a very light and airy cake. This is accomplished by making a French meringue and folding it into the batter. Don’t let that scare you off though, this is a very easy to make batter, it’s well worth the effort. The feedback on these was very positive, one of my co-workers who does not like lemon curd, ate three of them in less than five hours. He would have eaten more, but they were all gone at that point.

The recipe and detailed instructions are at the end of this post. For this recipe, we need vegetable oil, egg yolks, water, vanilla extract, cake flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, and egg whites. Looks like we have it all. Ready, set, bake…

Whip the vegetable oil and the egg yolks together until just combined. Stir in the water and the vanilla extract.

Sift together the cake flour, one-third of the sugar, the baking powder, and the salt. Stir this into the egg yolk mixture, then whip in a mixer at high speed for 1 minute. Set aside for later. If you don’t have two mixing bowls, place the batter in a large bowl and clean the mixing bowl for the next step.

Whip the egg whites to a white foam (you should not be able to see the bottom of the bowl). Gradually add the remaining sugar, one scoop at a time, and continue whipping until stiff peaks form. Be sure not to overbeat the eggs or they will start to separate. This is a French Meringue at this point.

Carefully fold the meringue into the reserved batter, turning the bowl a fourth a turn with each fold.

Fill cupcake liners two thirds full. It does not really matter if they are all perfectly filled, however you want them all to have about the same amount of batter in the liners to ensure even cooking. Bake for about 20 minutes at 375°F (190°C). Cool for five minutes in the cupcake tins and transfer to a rack to cool completely before filling and decorating.

All ready to be filled and decorated. See the Lemon Curd and Buttercream recipe.

Using a filling tip, such as the bismarck tip 230, pipe about a teaspoon of Lemon curd into the middle of each cupcake. You won’t be able to see how much you have filled in the cake, so it may take a few tries to get the hang of it. If you’re unsure, cut one of the cupcakes open at this point to see how much of the filling is being used.

Using white buttercream frosting lightly coat the top of each cake. Using a Wilton Decorating Tip (233/Ateco 133) and green buttercream frosting cover the top of each cupcake and put chocolate eggs to top.