Chinese paper sponge cakes

Ingredients

• 5 eggs, separated
• 85g caster sugar
• 85g cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch
• 60g butter

It's important to get everything ready because if you work too slow, then the egg whites that you whip will deflate and your cake won't rise.  These are one of the times when I actually take the effort to get ready -- usually I grab whatever I need out of my pantry as I require it (mostly to use less utensils and hence less cleaning)
Mise en place

Prep cases -- for some bizarre reason I couldn't find paper-cups at the supermarket.  Improvised a bit.

Preheat oven to 220oC (200oC for fan-forced)
I did a bit of research on whipping egg whites before I started, being my first time.  The tips I came across were 1) separate the eggs while they are still cold (stops the yolk from breaking and mixing with the egg white because egg yolks or grease in egg white is BAD!); 2) let the egg whites sit at room temperature for 30 minutes and 3) use the egg whites straight away.
I read that if one does it properly, the volume of the egg whites can expand to 6-8 times it's original.  Pretty amazing stuff.  I gave a yelp of excitement when I started to see it poof up and Mum who was standing beside me gave me a funny look.  Heh.  Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time when you get to stiff peaks.
Add whisked yolks and fold.

Add both flours and fold -- beating the heck out of it will mean that you deflate the egg whites, thus defeating the purpose of all that whipping.  Boohoo.

Fill cases to 80% full.  Messy job here, next time will use piping bag.

Place in preheated 220oC oven for 5 minutes (this is to make the tops golden).  Turn heat down to 180oC and bake for another 15-20 minutes.  Use skewer to test done-ness.
Fresh out of the oven.


And a close up ...

According to my taste-testers, they tasted very much like the ones you get in HK but wasn't as fluffly, which I suspect is because I didn't beat the egg whites long enough.  Will definitely try them again!