Black Sesame Steamed Cupcake

It's one of those weekends you wake up to the sounds of the rain and traffic. You try hard to re-enter the world of dreams but alas, your mind is filled with messy and scrambled thoughts - like a fuzzy TV with bad reception.

So you start making plans for this precious day.

Will it be a day of chores *gasps*? Or a day in the cafe (specifically St. Ali in South Melbourne) with a favourite book? How about taking the new granny trolley out for a test drive at the food market? Or hop on those tourist bus and explore this new city?

No doubt the decision will set the pace for the whole day....

I wrapped myself up in a blanket and head out to the kitchen to put some water in the kettle. From the window, the wet concrete road seems to be to drying up. It was this moment I caught myself with a selfish thought - I wanted it to pour outside. I want a downpour to be precise. I would like to be stuck at home with a reason like that - and to cook hot chocolate over the stovetop and to make ginger snaps with molasses and watch black and white movies.

But I have no molasses nor ginger!

So I get out a bowl and started whisking together the flour, egg, milk...and ground black sesame powder. I miss this steamed cupcake recipe that I used to make.

I also found some left over sweet red-beans in the fridge and decided that perhaps, they'd make a good match with the black sesame. And they did!

Within 20 minutes, I had several steamed goodies in front of me. Right this moment, everything seems to be falling into place. The piping hot steamed cakes were soft like bread, full of strong black sesame flavours and just plain simple. And sometimes, isn't it usually the simple things in our daily lives that cause us to pause - and feel content and grateful for the moment?

All of a sudden -  I didn't want it to rain anymore. No hot chocolate, thank you.

Quickly pulled my favourite jumper over my head. Rain or shine, Melbourne - here I come!

Steamed Black Sesame Cupcakes
Makes 6 cupcakes

• 1 large egg
• 30g sugar (I used brown)
• 1/4 cup of milk (or yoghurt)
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil (can use other oil like canola or olive)
• 60g flour
• 50g cooked/sweetened red beans (optional)
• 20g black sesame powder (you can get it from most Asian grocery stores)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. In a bowl, beat the egg lightly then add the sugar and mix well.

2. Then add the milk into the mixture as well as the grapeseed oil. Beat well.

3. Sieve the flour, and baking powder then combine with the black sesame powder. Incorporate into the egg mixture and mix well.

4. Finally incorporate the red-bean into batter and mix gently (or you can keep the red bean separate from the batter and ladle it in between the batter as I did)

5. Ladle the batter into 6 separate cupcake/panna cotta containers which are lined with cupcake liners/muffin cups.

6. In a large pot (or cast iron casseroles), fill it with enough boiling hot water such that when you put the cupcakes in, the water comes about half way on the mould. Steam for around 13-15 minutes with the lid on. I prefer to wrap a cloth/towel on the lid to prevent water droplets dropping onto the cupcakes.

7. Carefully remove from pot as they cupcakes will be steaming hot!