A Matcha Made In Heaven

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End of February already?😲



The inspiration for this blog post comes from two places/people/shows/things... 1) Christmas Gifts 2) Cardcaptor Sakura (yes I will get into that later)

I have been talking about "experimenting" with matcha green tea powder for quite some time. My mom got me into green tea since 2010 and there was no turning back. From Starbucks' green tea frappuccino to green tea ice-cream at every ayce sushi restaurant to matcha red bean smoothie at Chatime bubble tea place to actually taking green tea plain -> it's safe to say that I usually find a way to get some amount of green tea into my system (let's not judge me for the other ingredients aka sugar that comes with the above items😁). Then couple of years ago, Buzzfeed had an article about different ways you can incorporate green tea into recipes. Skimming through the article, I knew I had to try out a recipe. Past Christmas, one of my dear dear dear darling awesome amazing friend gifted me a tin of matcha green tea powder from Teavana. Once I got my hands on them, I was waiting for the perfect moment to bake something.

Second inspiration -> CARDCAPTOR SAKURA!! Has anyone watched this show? Anyone? This used to be my daily dose of  after school television in grade 6. I won't get into the story, but let's just say I really wanted to be Sakura and have a cute side kick named Kero and a best friend who loves designing my outfits for every mission and the list goes on....I even used a tennis racket and pretended that it was Sakura's sword. I believe I chased my siblings with the tennis racket because obviously they are the "bad guys". Wow...I just read those sentences again and that's not embarrassing at all....right? Anyways back to my inspiration -> majority of the episodes also highlighted Kero's undying love for food, especially desserts. For some reason when I opened the gift, I remembered the jelly rolls that Kero enjoyed in one of the episodes.

So yes, the inspiration for this blog post comes from the unusual but wonderful connection between a cherished childhood memory and a memorable gift.

Laying out the ingredients...The recipe calls for 3/4 cake flour and all I had was all purpose four. The good news is that you can convert all purpose flour to cake flour by adding corn starch. With a little help from Google, anything is possible😇

Had to take a picture of the tin when I opened it...did not expect a giant can opener...

Can we take a moment and appreciate this COLOR💖💕

Sift 3/4 cake flour (or all purpose flour after the conversion), 2 tablespoons of matcha green tea powder, and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder three times

Separate 4 eggs...by the 4th egg I was pretty damn good at not breaking the egg yolk (maybe)😂

Using the electric mixer, beat the egg yolk with 1/4 cup of sugar (total sugar required = 3/4 cup) until stiff peak forms...it should have a meringue consistency

Beat the egg yolks with rest of 1/2 sugar until the yellow color is lightened. Then add the sifted ingredients to the mixture

Once mixed properly....STOP, STARE & ADMIRE this gorgeous color👌

Gently fold the 1/3 of egg white "meringue" mixture until it is incorporated into the green tea mixture

I mean come on...this color = gorgeous!!

Place parchment paper on the pan and pour the batter. Spread evenly. Finally, make sure you take the pan and tap it two or three times on the table to let the air bubbles out

I baked about 8 to10 minutes (350 F) until I used a fork couple of times and it came clean (as you can see from this picture)😝

Lay a parchment paper on top and flip the cake over to let it cool

While the cake or green tea goodness or what ever you want to call it is cooling, take 1 cup of whipping cream or heavy cream and add 2 tablespoons of icing sugar. Let the electric mixer to do it's job aka BEAT IT..BEAT IT (I might have poorly attempted to sing Michael Jackson song while typing😳)

Look at that home made whip cream...so easy to make and so fluffy!

Remove the parchment paper. I also cut the edges to have an even surface to work with (but also to eat it later - don't ever waste food children😈😎)

Place the whipped cream onto the cake. I don't have an offset spatula, but a spoon or butter knife will work just fine if you have enough patience 

Slowly and carefully spread the whipped cream on the cake. Then dread about the next step for a couple of minutes😓

Right after you find your zen mode, focus all your energy and skills into rolling the cake and pray that it won't fall apart....OK I might be exaggerating this step a bit, but it has happened before. Then set this aside for about 30 to 45 minutes. Remember the edges that I cut off from the cake - this is that moment to indulge in it with leftover fresh whipped cream😜

Remove the parchment paper. Take photos. Shed some tear because the cake is not falling apart

Now let's look at the other side. Shed some more happy tears

I didn't have a stencil. I just used parchment paper to cut out heart shapes. As you can see, I did not have the patience to cut out the shapes with exact measurements. But then again, everyone has different hearts...size...right?😤

Dust icing sugar...then some more....and then some more. Remove the parchment paper cut outs

The usual...more photos...

Taste tester for mom...She approves! So I went ahead and did a little happy dance🙈🙅

🙌🙌

There you have it!! It was much easier to make this than I thought. Originally, I wanted to add adzuki beans to the whipped cream. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough time to grab it from a local Asian store. There are also different variations of this you can try - add strawberry with whip cream, add matcha green tea jelly before spreading the whip cream to enhance the matcha flavor or you can even dust matcha green tea powder for added effect. Either way, this simple treat was definitely a matcha made in heaven🙋

Still deeply in awe with the color,

A. Ben