Green Tea Shortbread.

Its sunday and for once the sun is out and shinning today. No surprise I am baking yet again. I've decided to bake for my colleagues, and I figured, lets try with something that I could bring to work more easily and not as filling. Hence Shortbread! There aren't many variations in Green tea shortbread, so I decided to use the one I found from Here.

I love baking with jazz music. If I have a kitchen of my own, I'll definitely have a good music player and a huge oven of course! Nothing beats that! Ah, jazz (Stacy Kent is my favorite singer!) is something I totally indulge in. All the romantic ideals, forgetting about the fast pace city life, enjoying and soaking up the music. Helps make the world a beautiful place to live.

For easy reference, I shall post the recipe here as well.

Ingredients

1/2 C Confectioners sugar

5oz ( about 147g) Unsalted Butter

1 3/4 C Flour

3 Egg yolks

1.5 Tbs Matcha powder

1/2 C Granulated sugar (for coating)

1) Whisk confectioner's sugar and green tea together in a bowl

2) Add the butter and green tea/sugar mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth and light in colour ( I used my spatular to mix)

3) Add the flour and mix until well combined

4) Add the egg yolks and mix just until eggs are fully incorporated and a mass forms.

5) Form the dough into a disk and chill in the refrigerator until firm ( about 30 mins)

6) Prehear the oven to 177 degree C. Line a sheet pan with baking paper

7) Roll the dough out to 1/2" thickness

8) Cut the dough with cookie cutter

9) Toss each cut cookie in a bowl of granulated sugar to coat

10) Place the sugar-coated cookie on the baking paper lined pan. Bake for 12-15mins or until slightly golden around the edges.

Matcha Green tea Cupcakes.

Finally, I bought green tea powder today! Result of having green tea powder: Green tea mousse and green tea cupcake with green tea frosting. How can one get enough of green tea?

I have always wanted to try mousse. Alright maybe not the whole time, maybe for the past few days. Got a little tired of making muffins and cakes and wanted to do something with a different texture. Hence mousse. After making a survey within the Tan family. NO ONE likes mousse. Still I insist on making it and forcing everyone to try it. So far only mother tan tried it and her verdict is, she still does not like mousse. Not too sure what will the rest of the family say yet. But lets just say I will not make mousse any time soon.

Found this recipe for green tea mousse. Tried it. Conclusion. Things did not work out. Maybe its the recipe I used or the inaccurate proportion of ingredients ( I half the recipe because I only wanted to make a portion for one.) or maybe its just me and whipping cream. It did not take very nice.

After a short break. I went on to bake green tea cupcakes. 

With jazz music playing in the background and my lovely green tea powder sitting on the table, I was in a really good mood for baking. Ah...and my green tea cupcakes turned out pretty fine :) 

Mother Tan would not be too happy if she saw this. 

They actually look much greener than reflected in the picture! 

Adapted from Food Mayhem  and cooking matters

Serves 6
For cupcakes
3/4 C cake flour
1/2 C Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp Matcha powder
pinch salt
8 Tbs unsalted butter
2 egg whites
1/3 C milk
1 1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

For Frosting
1/3 C Icing sugar
1 Tsp matcha powder
50g cream cheese, softened
1 Tbs butter, softened
1/4 Tsp vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 175 degree. Line muffin pan with cupcake papers or grease muffin pan

2) In large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, matcha powder, baking powder and salt. Mix till throughly combine

3) Add stick of butter and half of the milk. Mix on medium-high speed for two minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula

4) Add egg whites and vanilla to the remaining milk and whisk to combine. With the mixer on low, slowly pour the milk into the batter. Raise speed to medium and mix until just combined.

5) Divide the cake batter among the six liners. Bake for 20-24 min or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

6) To make frosting, sift together icing sugar and matcha powder. Set aside. Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla on medium speed for 2 min. Reduce speed to low and add sugar/ matcha gradually. Once all the sugar/ matcha is mixed in, increase speed to medium and beat for 2 min more.

Chiffon cake

For a period of time I did not really like chiffon cake, because the first thing that comes to mind when talking about chiffon cake is pandan cake. Which I am not particularly excited about. But while I was looking through recipes for light cakes, Angel cake popped up pretty often. After finding out about it and reading many positive reviews about the angel cake recipe, I was about to bake it until I saw the number of egg white required for an Angel cake. While I am willing to experiment and discover different types of cake I am not willing to waste stuff. I don't like having 7 egg yolks stored in the fridge. Bake Angel cake plan abandoned. 

After searching for a little more, I found a recipe for lemon chiffon cake, which looks pretty interesting. I did not have any lemon and was determined to make something with my favorite ingredient. GREEN TEA! Hence I tried baking green tea chiffon cake. Still did not get the green tea powder though so I used green tea bags instead. 

I know the final product does not look fantastic but really the texture was good. I think this chiffon cake recipe is a good base to add your creativity! 

The trick to making good chiffon cake is preparing the eggs separately. Alright maybe its not a trick but I made this discovery today! Shiny egg yolk. Shiny egg whites.  

 

Before entering the oven. So light and fluffy.

Up close and personal.

Serves 7

Adapted from Here.

• 
  
• 3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons cake flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons green tea water ( Basically I steeped 2 tea bags in the water.) 
• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Add oil, egg yolks, water and lemon rind. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
3. In a small bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until peaks form. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar, and beat until very stiff and shiny peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Turn batter into ungreased 10 inch tube pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert cake and cool completely in pan. When cool, loosen edges and shake pan to remove cake.
5. To Make Filling: Beat cream to stiff peaks. Fold in lemon filling. Chill until stiff.

* Would recommend 1-2 tsp of green tea powder. 

Light Matcha strawberry Muffin

Slept at 3am yesterday because I was searching for something 'light' to bake for the family and I found a recipe with a combination of both Green tea and cupcake. I like! After much feedback from my family, I've come to realise that my family, including myself prefer cakes that are much lighter in texture. Something not too heavy and filling. I thought this would be light, because for some strange reason I kept thinking about japanese cake (even though this recipe was adapted from Martha Steward). The result however was nothing close to light, in fact, I found it pretty heavy still. But the taste and texture was good. So i'll definitely bake this again, perhaps with some adjustments.

According to the recipe, it says, matcha powder but I used green tea steeped in milk instead because the matcha powder was very expensive and was gonna expire much sooner than I could possibly finish using.

This is my first attempt at making pretty cupcakes because I would like to sell them and be called angietanPIE. ( Okay not funny..) The main reason I stayed up late was also because I was finding out how to make fondants. I know its not reflected in the cupcake below because I have yet to make/ find any fondants yet! So I decided to use the buttercream recipe as suggested, which I failed 3 times. For some reason my butter cream was stiff for only 1 min before it turns watery again. The picture below is the little amount of butter cream that I was able to extract before it became a mashy lump of watery cottage cheesy thing.

The inside is filled with strawberry jam :)

I bought all these tips thinking that I'll be able to experiment with the buttercream today. It did not happen. Look how sad and lonely they look.

I half this recipe to make 6 muffins instead ( here is the original recipe from the sweetest kitchen. )

Matcha Cupcakes
Adapted from Billy’s Bakery & Martha Stewart
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup + 2 Tbs cake flour, not self-rising

1/2 C + 2 Tbs all-purpose flour

1 C sugar

1 1/2 Tsps baking powder

1/2 Tsp salt

1 Tbs fresh matcha powder ( I used 2 green bags of green tea, but would suggest 3/4 tea bags for stronger flavor)

1/2 C unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 large eggs

1/2 C whole milk

1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

Strawberry Jam or preserves

Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and matcha powder; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until the cubes of butter are peanut-sized or a little smaller.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cupcakes have cooled completely, using the cone method, fill cupcakes with strawberry jam or preserves.