Green Tea Layer Cake
As an elementary school student, I often asked my mom to buy me green tea cake for my birthday. I'm proud that I'm able to make one on my own now, with a recipe that I adapted and combined with others. Dusting the cake with cocoa powder was also an idea I came up with because many matcha layer cake recipes had white chocolate frosting, but white chocolate is not common where I live...So I thought dark chocolate also goes well with green tea.
Baking can be so finicky. So much depends on temperature and humidity and texture....Melted chocolate will immediately seize when a a few drops of water touch it. If the day is humid your macarons are ruined. Well, not necessarily, but if the day is hot you need to place the whipped cream back into the fridge a bazilion times because it starts going Olaf on you. And it's worse when your cake is large because you wanted to impress people, and the icing just won't hold between the layers.
So, I tried to make this cake fail-proof by baking it in a 7-inch, which makes it so much sturdier to stack and trying out stabilized whipped cream for the first time. I now love stabilized whipped cream..it just stays as fluffy billowy cream while maintaining that smoothed out whipped cream look. And..maybe this is weird, but when I combine recipes I often make myself limit the amount of ingredients. For example, I won't risk 3 cups of icing sugar for one cake when I can keep things simple and make stabilized whipped cream. ;)
I made a how-to video for this recipe, which I posted on Youtube. But you can just click on the box below:
Green Tea Layer Cake (Makes one 7-inch, 3-layer cake)
Ingredients
CAKE
3 eggs
100g sugar
80g all-purpose flour
20g butter, melted
1 1/2 tbsp. matcha powder
CREAM
270ml heavy cream
25g sugar
1 tsp. gelatin powder
1 tbsp. water
You also need some cocoa powder.
Instructions
CAKE
1. Place the egg-filled bowl on top of another one filled with hot water.
2. Beat on high for 1 min 30 sec until foamy.
3. Add sugar in three additions, beat for one minute after each addition. Beat on low for 30 seconds to eliminate air bubbles.
Preheat oven at this point to 180 degrees C.
4. Sift in matcha and flour and fold until barely incorporated.
5. Add a spatuful of batter into melted butter and combine. Scrape back into batter and fold until just incorporated.
6. Pour batter into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Immediately unmold and peel off parchment when pan comes out of oven. Cool cake to room temperature.
CREAM
1. Add gelatin to water and let it sponge.
2. Heat the gelatin in a small saucepan at low heat, only until melted.
3. In a cold bowl, beat cold heavy cream with sugar to soft peaks. Meanwhile the gelatin liquid should become lukewarm.
4. Continue to beat on high adding gelatin in slow stream, until stiff peaks form.
Note: You do not need to refrigerate cake, because the whipped cream is stabilized and just won't melt.
ASSEMBLY
1. With a small knife make two lines across side of cake to show where to cut.
2. Slice the cake with a bread-knife into three layers.
3. Place whipped cream in between layers as you stack them, and ice exterior of cake. Note that all whipped cream layers are relatively thin.
4. Smooth exterior with offset spatula. Dust the top evenly with cocoa powder.
5. Optional Step: Mix a little matcha powder and leftover whipped cream with spoon and pipe stars around cake's perimeter.
Enjoy!
Sponge cake recipe adapted from a Korean cookbook named 진짜 기본 베이킹 책 by super recipes. http://www.super-recipe.co.kr/etc_06/etc_s4_01.php?inc=view&idx=130&tbname=notice