Tried to bake a matcha sponge cake earlier this month as a birthday cake for a friend. The cake didn't rise enough but I still went ahead to frost and decorate it with fresh strawberries. For the rest of the day, I was contemplating whether I should give the cake because obviously it was a failure, even though it was still edible. However, I got cold feet at the very last minute and didn't give the cake to her, just whatsapp her a photo of that cake.
For the rest of the day/month, she reminded me about the cake whenever she has the chance and I felt bad about it. So decided to make another matcha-flavoured cake for her since, at the same time, I needed some baking therapy as well after a crazy two weeks. Searched the Internet for a good recipe and an idea struck. Since I wasn't confident enough to attempt another sponge cake, I thought why not try a pound cake instead. Shouldn't be too far off from the butter cake that I'm quite good at baking now.
So searched and searched, read a few matcha pound cake recipes and decided to use the one by Japanese Cooking 101. Reduced the recipe amount to that of using one egg. Initially, I was still thinking if I could skip that extra yolk in the recipe but in the end, I still went ahead to follow the recipe. And because I didn't have cake flour, I had to DIY my own using a cake substitute guide I found on The Gracious Wife. And since this was a make or break attempt, I added a pinch of baking soda to make sure the cake would rise.
Put in a lot of effort by making sure that I got every step right, not cutting corners and so on. Underestimated the amount of batter that I would have before I started the process and went to prepare a 4" baking tin instead of the 5" one. So in the end, I used a 4" round cake tin and a small loaf pan for all the batter. The one in the loaf pan was baked through after 20 minutes, but the round cake tin one had to bake for 40 minutes.
The round cake managed to rise to an acceptable height so I went on to modified an old buttercream frosting that I had used before into a matcha-flavoured one while waiting for the cake to cool. It took me another 20-30 minutes to frost the cake and still it wasn't as smooth as those sold commercially. Sigh... Next was to decorate the cake and because I had a few ideas tucked away during the sponge cake attempt, I didn't have to spend a lot of time cracking my brain over it. As I had some frosting left, I half the other cake and sandwich it with the leftover frosting.
All in all, the cake looked nice and I probably give it a 51/100 mark. Taste-wise, I will have to wait for my friend to give me the feedback after she has eaten it. Packed the round cake into a proper box with a proper base and the other cake into a clear plastic box before putting everything into the fridge.
Match Pound Cake (adapted from Japanese Cooking 101)
Ingredients:
1 egg, room temperature
1 yolk, room temperature
75g butter, room temperature84g caster sugar |
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp matcha powder
67g cake flour*
pinch of salt
|
* 58g plain flour + 9g corn flour
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius.
2. Grease and line a 4.5" x 2.5" loaf pan and a 4" round cake tin.
3. Mix egg, yolk and water in a bowl.
4. Sift cake flour, Matcha powder and salt together in another bowl.
5. Beat butter for 2 minutes then slowly add sugar in 3 batches while beating, until the mixture become light and fluffy.
6. Slowly add in the egg mixture in 3 batches while mixing and until well combined.
7. Fold in the flour mixture in 3 batches until well combined.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tin, smoothen the surface and bake for 20 minutes and 40 minutes respectively.
9. Cool slightly and remove the cakes from the pan and tin.
10. Cool the cakes completely on a cooling rack.
Matcha Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients:
30g butter, room temperature
50g icing sugar
|
3/4 tsp water
2 tsp matcha powder
|
Method:
1. Whisk all ingredients till smooth and creamy.
--------------- Edited on 16 Oct 2017 ----------------
Gave the cake to my friend and she was very happy. She even took a photo of herself (her hand) cutting the cake. Asked her to take a photo of the inside of the cake because I was curious. Hrm... the cake looked crumbly, wonder if the texture was supposed to be like that or because I substituted the cake flour and added baking soda. Taste-wise, her feedback was that the matcha taste was just nice, not to the extend of being bitter and she liked the brownie-like texture of the cake.
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