Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Long Weekend Bakeover #2: Banana Chocolate Cupcakes & Matcha Roll Cake

As I've mentioned before on previous post, I've started doing bakeover sessions in CL's apartment, usually on the weekends. After the success of the first session, we decided to do another session the next day, on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Aside from the banana chocolate cupcakes recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, CL insisted on making matcha rollcake. 


She took the recipe from the internet (I forgot where) and has tried her hands on it but wasn't too successful as the recipe, it turned out, was not sufficient enough for her pan. Thus she ended up with a thin and dry slab of cake and was generally not satisfied with it. So this time she suggested doubling the recipe to fit her pan.

Again, the cupcakes recipe required minimum effort -with maximum result. The only downside was the not so pretty shape of the cakes. We forgot to line the trays with papercups so even though we used silicone trays, some part of the cakes remained sticky on the tray. Blah.

But in terms of taste, they were light and fluffy with a hint of warm spices (from the use of cinnamon and ginger powder). The chocolate frosting was a tad too sweet for us though we've reduced the sugar, but CL's daughter enjoyed them so much (of course), especially with the colorful sprinkles on top.

Next, we moved on to make the Matcha Rollcake. I studied the recipe and saw that it uses sponge cake technique in which the egg yolks and the whites are separated and beaten in different bowls: the yolks creamed with sugar and the whites beaten until stiff and meringue-like. It made me kind of worried since I usually have problems with beating egg whites. If it's not stiff enough, the cake will fall; if it's too stiff, the cake will be dry. Folding the egg whites mixture into the other ingredients is also tricky.

Also, both CL and I are not experts in rolling the cake. Simple as it may seem, I always ended up with a cracked cake or horrible scalded cake. But we went on and I tried to beat the egg whites perfectly, and fold them in carefully. We then poured the batter into a lined tray -forgetting to thud the tray a few times so that the batter are distributed evenly on the bottom and to every corner *slap forehead*.

When the cake was done, we quickly rolled it with a parchment paper and leave it to cool before spreading it with the cream filling. I could sense that the cake was a bit too dry and it was difficult to roll it up to look rounded and pretty. Well, the shape was far from pretty and I wasn't satisfied with it, but it did tastes good. The matcha flavor really bursts and it wasn't too sweet. Even CL's husband, who's not a fan of matcha, said that it was good.

For the filling, we followed the recipe and used whipped cream with a bit of sugar and matcha powder. I didn't like it because it was too creamy but bland for my palate -I'm never a fan of whipped cream. I managed to cut off a strip of the cake and filled it with the chocolate buttercream leftover (from the banana chocolate cupcakes) and the combination was divine! I really do think that chocolate and matcha go well together.


I'll post the recipe later since I didn't copy it from CL. One thing for sure, you need to stock up on a lot of matcha powder. It would be great if you can get your hands on the high quality ones (when we made this, we used the one CL brought back from Japan) because it really defines the intensity of the matcha flavor.

PS: Again, pictures are taken with my Blackberry, so pardon the grains and unappealing looks. But I assure you, they taste better than they look.


Matcha Roll Cake

For cake:
3/4 cup flour
2 tbsp matcha powder
Pinch of salt (optional)
1 tbsp baking powder
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar

For filling:
3/4 cup cream
2 tbsp matcha powder
1 tbsp sugar

1. Shift flour, matcha powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
3. Beat yolks until pale and creamy. Add in sugar.
4. Mix dry ingredients into yolk mixture.
5. Fold in egg whites.
6. Pour into pan. Tap pan onto surface to even out the batter.
7. Bake for 8 minutes at 200 celcius.
8. To make filling, beat cream and sugar until stiff. Add in matcha powder, mix well.
9. Spread filling onto rolled cake generously.

2 comments:

  1. Kayaknya bentar lg ada yg mo buka Margie's Cakeshoppe ;P

    ReplyDelete
  2. hahahahah belom kepikiran kalo toko mah. masih hobi iseng2x berhadiah =)

    ReplyDelete

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