Matcha Love!

I love MATCHA!!! I have probably mentioned on my blog before but I'll say it again!! Matcha is awesome!! It has become quite a food trend over the last year or so (good for me! ^^) and I found an awesome recipe that is quick, easy and DELICIOUS! It's similar to the recipe I have previously tried (link here) but this recipe adds ground almonds which definitely adds to the texture. The original recipe also used white chocolate chips but I didn't have any and forgot to get some at the shops so just used dark chocolate chips~ still tasted nice though.

The dough can be made hours, days or weeks (up to 8 weeks) in advance then taken out of the freezer to slice and bake whenever you have that cookie craving (everyday for me! ><)

Matcha Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from The MeatMen

Ingredients
180g unsalted butter (room temperature)
140g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
40g ground almonds/almond meal
240g plain flour
20g matcha powder
60g chocolate chips

1. Sift plain flour and matcha powder together and set aside.
2. In another bowl, cream together the butter and icing sugar using an electric beater until light and fluffy.
3. Add salt and egg yolks and mix until combined.
4. Mix in ground almonds until well combined.
5. Gradually add in the flour and matcha and mix well.
6. Stir in the chocolate chips. 
7. Divide the dough into 2 portions. Shape the dough into logs (4cm diameter), wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
8. Preheat oven to 165oC and line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Cut dough into 5mm thick slices and arrange on baking tray.
9. Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly golden. Rest on baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool. 

I'm loving my fish plate ^^

Try it out~ Happy baking!!!

Exciting news too! Just recently got a part time job at a little cafe/sandwich bar/catering company thank God!! First day of work is today!! One step closer to my baking dream :) 

Work catering #42: It's MAGIC! (magic custard cake that is..)

I had seen this cake on quite a few blogs and was quite intrigued! How could a cake form these 2 distinct layers from one cake mix! One of the reasons why I wanted to bake it because I wanted to see if it was true! and it WAS!!! Amazing! Just like magic :) You can flavour it with any flavour you like. I went for green tea but you can go for chocolate... orange etc.

Green Tea Magic Custard Cake
Recipe adapted from Little accidents in the kitchen
Ingredients
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter
4 egg yolks
1 cup (120g) icing sugar
105g plain flour
1 tbs green tea powder
2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp white vinegar
2 tbs (30g) caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160oC. Grease and line a 8 inch square baking pan. Melt butter and set aside to cool completely.
2. Whisk together the egg whites and vinegar till soft peaks form. Then whisk in the sugar till holds stiff peaks. Leave aside.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and icing sugar until pale yellow and fluffy.
4. Whisk in cooled butter. Sift in flour and green tea powder and whisk until batter is smooth.
5. Combine milk and vanilla in saucepan and bring to simmer. Remove from heat and whisk into the batter (the batter at this stage might look really wet but don't worry, just go with it!).
6. Fold in the egg whites gently into the batter in 3 additions.
7. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 45-55 minutes until the top is golden. The cake should still have a bit of jiggle. Allow to cool completely before cutting or refrigerate overnight and it should be easier to slice :)

Before serving, you should take it out of the fridge to get to room temperature because it tastes nicer =p Straight from the fridge kind of tastes like mochi!

Just looks like a normal cake but....

ta da~ magic 2 layers :D

Close up of the fluffy top layer and smooth custard bottom layer

Next up is something a little sweeter =p Back to my CHEESECAKES! This time with Toblerone =) This original recipe made an 8 inch square cheesecake but I thought the cheese layer might be a bit too thick so I spread it in a larger rectangle cake pan.
Toblerone Cheesecake Bars

Recipe adapted from Once upon a cutting board

Ingredients
Base
250g sweet biscuits (I used Arnott's Nice biscuits)
100g unsalted butter, melted
Filling
500g cream cheese, softened at room temp
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup Toblerone chocolate, chopped
Topping
60g Toblerone chocolate, chopped
100g Toblerone chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 160oC. Grease and line rectangle (20x30cm) baking pan with baking paper.
2. Process/crush biscuits until fine crumbs. Add melted butter and mix until combined. Press into base of baking pan and refrigerate while you make the filling.
3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar until well combined. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Beat in sour cream and vanilla essence until smooth.
4. Stir in the chopped Toblerone pieces and pour mix on top of base and spread evenly. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the edges are set but the middle jiggles when you shake the pan.
5. Allow to cool on rack until reaches room temperature then cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or best, overnight before serving.
6. For topping, drizzle the melted chocolate on top of cheesecake. Sprinkle chopped Toblerone pieces.

YUM!!! so much Toblerone~~

Ready for service!

Bite size Toblerone goodness!

Having a break from catering this week but don't worry! Lots more baking to come ^___^

Work catering #29: Cream cheese theme~

I love everything cream cheese! I mean, who doesn't? You can make frozen cheesecake.. cream cheese frosting... baked cheesecake.. slices.. cakes.. so much variety!!! =D =D OR you can just eat it by itself =p haha ok.. maybe that's going a little too far!

After recipe searching, I found this delicious recipe for Green Tea cream cheese brownies! YUM! everything I love~~ Green tea.... cream cheese... brownies!! =D

Green tea cream cheese brownies
Recipe adapted from dailydelicious

Ingredients
Green tea cream cheese batter
170g cream cheese
35g caster sugar
1 tbs plain flour
1 egg
30ml thickened cream
2 tsp green tea powder

Brownie batter
70g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
130g unsalted butter
200g dark chocolate
175g caster sugar
3 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 180oC and line 23cm square pan with baking paper.
2. To make green tea cream cheese batter, beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth.
3. Add cream and egg and beat until smooth. Sift green tea powder and stir until combined. Add flour and stir to combine. Set aside.
4. For brownie batter, place butter and chocolate into saucepan over medium heat and stir until melted.
5. Add sugar and salt and sugar until combined. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. (if the batter is too hot, it will scramble the eggs!)
6. Beat eggs together and add to bowl, stir to combine.
7. Sift over the flour and baking powder and stir until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan. Spoon the green tea cream cheese batter on top and swirl with a knife to create marbled effect.
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Don't overcook it (as I almost did!) as it can become dry.

Brownie squares =D

See the marbled top? ^^

I also made my oreo cheesecake balls! (sticking to the cream cheese theme =p). You can find the recipe here.

Hmmm..... looking for more inspiration for next bakes! Feel free to give me suggestions!! =D

Aspiring Bakers #34: Green Tea cookie topped Profiteroles

I haven't joined in Aspiring Baker's challenge in a while. Partly because I was busy/holidaying and partly because last month's theme was DURIAN >____<" But this month's theme is CHOUX PARTY!!! And I thought, I can do that ^^" So gave it a go! The recipe is based on Adriano Zumbo's choux pastry and I just gave it a bit of an asian twist with the green tea =) I burnt a few of the cookie tops >.<" but still tastes yummy ^^ 

There are 3 parts to this recipe: 
1) Green Tea pâte sablé a choux (the crunchy cookie topping); 
2) Choux Pastry (the profiteroles); 
3) Green Tea creme patissiere (the custard filling).

Green Tea Cookie Topped Profiteroles
Recipe adapted from Zumbo by Adriano Zumbo 

Green Tea pâte sablé a choux

Ingredients
60g dark brown sugar
60g unsalted butter
60g plain flour
10g green tea powder

1. Place all ingredients in small bowl. Beat together until paste formed.
2. Roll dough into a cylinder shape (2cm in diameter) using cling wrap and place in fridge for 1 hour or until firm.

Choux pastry 
(I divided the original recipe by 3)

Ingredients
100g butter
106g water
5g caster sugar
133g milk
5g salt
133g plain flour, sifted
204g, lightly beaten egg (around 4 eggs)

1. Preheat oven to 210oC and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
2. Place butter, water, sugar, milk and salt in saucepan and bring to boil. Remove from heat and quickly beat in flour. Return pan to heat and beat until mixture comes together and dough leaves the side of the pan. (Usually takes 1-2 minutes over low heat).
3. Transfer to stand mixer and gradually add in egg. Beat until thick and glossy.
4. Pipe pastry onto trays (around 2.5cm in diameter and 2cm high), allowing room for them to puff up.
5. Slice the green Tea pâte sablé a choux into small discs (2mm thickness) and place on top of pastry.
6. Bake or 25-30 minutes or until golden brown, puffy and firm. Allow to cool before poking small holes in each profiterole for custard filling.

Choux pastry ready to be baked!

Green Tea creme patissiere
(Original recipe divided by 6)

Mmmm.. nice and green!

Ingredients 
210ml milk
1 vanilla beans, split (or just use 1 tsp vanilla essence)
3 egg yolks (now u know why we divided by 6 xP)
55g caster sugar
55g corn flour
55g butter
1 tbs green tea powder

1. Stir the milk and vanilla beans in saucepan over medium heat until almost boiling.
2. Whisk yolks, sugar, cornflour and green tea powder in bowl until thick and pale. 
3. Gradually whisk in hot milk into egg mixture. Return to saucepan and whisk over medium heat will custard boils and thickens.
4. Spread over tray to cool rapidly. Cover with cling wrap to prevent skin forming. When the mixture has cooled transfer to bowl and stir through butter.
5. Transfer mixture into piping bag and pipe into profiteroles.

A little burnt, but still delicious~

These are best eaten on the day you make them. I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #34: Choux Party (August 2013) hosted by Jasline of Foodie Baker.

Work catering #17: Green Tea Time! (my Aspiring Baker's entry)

Since this month's Aspiring Baker's theme is all about TEA!! I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone.. so to speak =p Any recipes that use tea (not coffee) are accepted so I played around with my favourite tea... GREEN TEA =D Also known as Matcha!

Perfect bite size green tea cheesecake bites :D

I use Green Tea powder bought from a local asian grocer and use it just like cocoa powder ^_^" So you just add it straight into your dough or cake mix. It has a subtle flavour, not too sweet with a slight bitterness. New exotic and interesting flavour for some of my work colleagues =p

First up is CHEESECAKE! These little bites are the perfect size and they are so smooth!!! Like eating Green Tea mousse :D
Green Tea Cheesecake Bites
Recipe adapted from The Hungry Excavator

Ingredients
250g Arnotts Nice biscuits
120g unsalted butter, melted
300ml thickened cream
250g cream cheese
1/2 cup caster sugar
150ml milk
3 tbsp green tea powder
3 tsp powdered gelatin
4 tbsp boiling water

1. Grease and line baking tray (20x30cm) with baking paper. 
2. Crush biscuits in food processor until fine crumbs. Stir in melted butter and mix until well combined. Press tightly into base of tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Beat thickened cream with electric beater until soft peaks form. Set aside.
4. Place cream cheese in separate bowl and beat until smooth. Add sugar and beat until well combined.
5. Place gelatin in small bowl and mix with water. Set aside.
6. Heat milk in small saucepan until just comes to the bowl. Remove from heat and whisk in green tea and gelatin until dissolved and no lumps are seen.
7. Add milk to cream cheese and beat until smooth. Fold mixture into thickened cream until even. 
8. Pour mixture over crumb layer and spread evenly. Chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

silky smooth ~~

Ready to serve!

Close up. You can see the green tea specks

And to compliment these cheesecake bites, I made some COOKIES! The great thing with this recipe is that you make the dough the night before, leave it in the fridge to rest and the next day, all you have to do is slice up into cookies and bake! ^___^

Stack of cookies

Green Tea and White chocolate Cookies

Recipe adapted from Nami from Just One Cookbook

Ingredients
240g plain flour
15g green tea/matcha powder
150g unsalted butter, softened at room temp
130g pure icing sugar
pinch of salt
2 egg yolks 
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1. Sift flour and matcha powder together and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add yolks and salt and beat well.
4. Gradually fold in flour and matcha. 
5. Shape the dough into 2 logs and wrap them tightly in cling wrap. Rest in fridge overnight.

~THE NEXT DAY~

6. Preheat oven to 150oC and line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Slice cookies into 7mm thickness and place on baking tray.
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until slightly golden. Allow to cool on rack.

Tray of cookies! yum yum!

These cookies are the melt in your mouth texture. The flavours of the green tea and white chocolate go so well together! I also love the GREENESS to it ^^" really delicious cookies!

Gone quite quickly ^_^"

Close up of GREEN-NESS!

So I am submitting this post to Aspiring Baker's #30: It's Tea Time! Hosted by Food Playground. 
HAPPY BAKING =D!!!! Why not try out using Green Tea? =)

Cooking JAPANESE sweets: Dorayaki

I LOVE DORAYAKI!!! For those who aren't familiar with these delicious Japanese sweets, dorayaki is a red bean pancake consisting of two small pancake-like patties sandwiched together with sweet red bean paste. I would eat them more often but they are quite expensive to buy... however I have a hand written recipe from a friend that has been stuck on the fridge since last year! Had a craving for something sweet so I decided to give them a go!

Dorayaki
Recipe adapted from Xena (thanks ^^)

Ingredients
3 eggs
140g caster sugar
2 tsp honey
5 tsp milk
180g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
400g red bean paste

1. Beat eggs and sugar in a bowl till thick and creamy.
2. Add sifted flour and baking powder and fold till combined.
3. Add honey and milk and mix well. Leave batter to sit for 10-30 minutes.
4. Heat a non stick fry pan (medium not high) and place a dollop of batter in. Cook until bubbles formed then flip to other side. Cook for a few seconds and remove from pan.
5. Sandwich two doriyaki together with red bean paste and enjoy!

I also made some green tea dorayaki by adding 1-2 tbs of green tea powder to the batter. It's a great combination! I love how these pancakes and crispy on the outside because of the caramelised sugar :) yet lovely, soft and fluffy inside! If only I had the special moulds they would look like the professional ones.

Crispy outside, fluffy inside pancakes with sweet red bean paste filling :)

Marbled Green tea bread with Red bean filling

It's bread making time! I find Sundays are the best day for making bread as it needs a lot of time and usually takes a good half day. I don't own a bread maker so this loaf was made with 100% my hands! haha! Green tea and red bean are a match made in heaven! I don't normally like red bean but I think red bean paste is sweeter and has a nicer texture~ 

Marbled Green Tea bread with Red bean filling

Recipe adapted from My kitchen of love

Ingredients

300ml warm milk

60g caster sugar

1 packet of dry yeast (7g sachet)

500g plain flour + 50g for dusting

1 egg, lightly beaten

A pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter, at room temp

1 tbs green tea powder

1. Stir in sugar with warm milk then add yeast. Allow to rest for 10 minutes for the yeast to be activated.

2. Pour about 400g of flour into bowl and mix thoroughly. Add in egg and then salt and mix.

3. Dust working surface with flour then knead dough by hand for about 10 minutes until it starts to firm up. Add butter and continue kneading. The dough is quite sticky so you may need to continue to add more flour, just be patient with it. 
4. When the dough becomes smooth, less sticky and holds its shape, divide it by half. Add green tea powder to one half and knead until powder fully incorporated. Knead the other half for a few more minutes. Apparently if the dough is well kneaded, you can stretch it paper-thin without breaking....

the two balls of dough resting...

5. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap. Leave in a warm place to rise for about one hour until doubled in size.
6. After one hour, take dough out and give several good punches to release the air. Knead for a few times and leave to rest for about 5 minutes.
7. Roll out dough into rectangular shapes of equal size. The thinner it is, the more swirl you can make.
8. Spread an even layer of red bean paste to the rolled out white dough, then place green tea dough on top and roll it up. Seal the end and carefully place into bread tin for a second proof. Leave in warm place for about 40 minutes until it doubles in size.

Red bean paste spread on white dough

Sandwich together!

9. Preheat the oven to 190oC and bake bread for about half and hour. For a shiny, golden crust, brush a thin layer of egg on top. Leave on rack to cool and slice.

Shiny loaf of bread!

I found that the top of the bread cooked very fast but when i sliced into it, the middle was not fully cooked. So don't be scared that the top is browning because you need to leave the bread in for the full half hour OR you could place a piece of foil on top to prevent it from browning so quickly. Also another tip is be patient with the bread! You actually have to knead it quite a bit... and although you may get sore hands/arms, it'll be worth it! Trust me!

the different layers~

You can see that the texture of my bread wasn't as light and fluffy but a bit dense and that is because I didn't take time to knead =p haha! But a lot of love was put into this bread! :)

Green tea layered cake

So this month's Aspiring Baker's theme is "layered cakes", hosted by Sam of Sweet Sensations, something I don't often bake so thought that this would be a good challenge! I think the last layered cake I made was a Victorian sponge cake.. and before that an Opera Gateau. So, to try something different I started looking up recipes for Green tea layered cake. The recipe I chose looked quite simple (haha! yes I go for easy and simple recipes =p) and in the end tasted pretty good. It didn't turn out as "green" as I would like and an aunty even commented "Is it green tea flavour? Why is it brown?" >_< but I think maybe I didn't add enough green tea or maybe other's put green tea colouring.

Well the icing was green =p and the cake was nice and moist as well :) It was lots of fun! Here's the recipe so you can try it out as well! I don't think this is limited to green tea flavour, you can add cocoa powder for chocolate, or vanilla essence or even do different colours! Have a go!

Green tea layered cake

Recipe adapted from www.greenteatoday.com/recipes/green-tea-cake-recipe

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

1 cup self-raising flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarb soda

5 tsp green tea powder (add more for a more pronounced flavour!!)

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup yoghurt (I didn't have any so substituted this with 3/4 cup milk)

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

Green tea icing (double or even triple this for thicker layers of frosting)

1 1/4 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons margarine, soft
2 teaspoons green tea powder

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line round cake tin.
2. Sift flours, bicarb soda, salt and green tea powder into large bowl.
3. In another bowl, beat sugar, oil and eggs until smooth. Stir in vanilla essence.
4. Gradually beat in the flour mixture, alternating with the milk.
5. Mix well and pour batter into prepared cake tin. Bake ~50-60 minutes or until skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Cool cake on cake rack for ~30 minutes before slicing.

Looks nice just as it actually =p

7. Meanwhile, make green tea icing by beating icing sugar, margarine and green tea powder together until smooth. Keep in fridge till use.
8. Slice cake into 3 even layers.

3 even layers~ I even used a ruler!! ^^

 9. Spread icing on bottom layer and top with second layer. Ice second layer and sift over green tea powder. Add final layer, spread over icing. Sift over green tea powder and white chocolate ganache (i had some leftover so might as well put it to use =p).

First layer iced~

Second layer iced and sprinked with green tea powder~ just for some extra flavour~

Complete! Drizzle with white chocolate ganache for extra drippy effect :P

Slice for you!!!!

Green tea Chiffon cake

After my failed green tea chiffon cake and my semi-sucessful orange chiffon cake, I really wanted to try again!! After the first two tries I had learnt some valuable lessons (from my mistakes). 1) The more eggs in the recipe, the more volume it will give the cake. 2) Remember to quickly invert the pan when taken out of the oven so the cake won't sink.
I'm not sure about you guys... but when I fail a recipe.. i get annoyed =___=" and then I need to bake something else that does work XD hahha.. but yeh!! Another thing is that it just makes me want to succeed the next time!! AND THIS TIME I DID! MUahhaha >:D so happy =) So I hope if you guys had failed before... try this recipe!!! quite fail proof i reckon =p

I got this recipe from Kirbie's Cravings!!

Ingredients
(A)
1 3/4 cup cake flour - I used plain flour and it worked out fine
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbsp matcha powder (green tea powder) - i think next time I will add more because I couldn't really taste that much..

(B)
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
6 egg yolks
3/4 cup milk

(C)
6 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 175oC.
2. Combine (A) ingredients in a bowl and stir well to blend.
3. Add (B) and beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until moist peaks
formed. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar, beating until stiff and shiny peaks are formed.
5. Fold 1/2 of the egg whites into the egg yolks mixture using a spatula. Stir and fold until no egg white streaks remain. Fold in remainder of egg whites.
6. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan.
4. Bake for about 50- 55 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert cake pan and let cake cool completely in pan upside down. (I inverted my cake onto a bottle so the neck of the bottle was in the pan hole ^^) When cool, loosen the edges of pan cake to remove cake.

FAIL Green tea chiffon cake!! it sunk =(

Semi-successful orange chiffon cake.. just think it wasn't "chiffony" enough and too cakey xD recipe here

THIRD TIME SUCCESS (coz there is no such thing as luck =p)

On a side note... I got this for an early birthday present from my dad!!!

Our old one broke.. well had it for prob over 10 years.. SO YAY!! Guess I will be doing more baking =) =)