Matcha Green Tea and Raspberry Cake

Follow me on Twitter (@puddingpielane)! I have finally made the transition and I'm (shock!) quite addicted (shock!). Well, it's really just another excuse for me to post food photos everywhere. 

It's just a good thing my photos are so beautiful. Ha.

Speaking of, I recently discovered the Foodspotting app. Have you heard of it before? The concept is to upload photos of food you have tried at various restaurants, tagging the restaurant and dish that you had. Then, when someone else is around the area and looking for particular dishes, they can search through the 'database' to find recommended dishes around the area! Or... if you're just looking for photos of dishes in a particular restaurant you're going to, you can bet you'll find it on Foodspotting.

Oh, and don't get me started on Pinterest or Instagram...

Now whilst I do not claim that this is the prettiest photo I have on my blog (photos taken hastily on phone during dinner as I could not wait any longer to eat), I do promise you a damn good recipe. In fact, a damn good recipe from a friend! I hosted a dinner party last weekend with Chinese food (I cooked my singature dongpo pork) and two of my friends made this matcha and raspberry cake, and whilst matcha is Japanese I guess I can say we're doing a pan-Asian meal.

I've made a matcha cheesecake before, which you can see here. 

Oh my, I do love matcha. Yum Yum. Plus its healthy! Double bonus!

It was delicious. I was told that it was a combination of two recipes (matcha green tea cake and the raspberry filling of a roly poly) which I thought worked very well. Moist, but not wet and chewy. I havea feeling the cake was baked at a higher temperature than supposed to as the crust was quite, well, crusty, but I really liked that! It was like having a cake inside a biscuit wrapper. Anyway, the cake will go very well with some vanilla ice cream or cream. And maybe a Hello Kitty decoration :)

Have a great week and enjoy the nice weather! Finally!

Matcha Green Tea and Raspberry Cake Serves about 12 For the cake 175g/6oz/¾ cup caster sugar 3 free-range eggs 300ml/10½fl oz / 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil 150ml/5½fl oz/2/3 cup Greek-style yoghurt 450g/1lb/3 cups self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 5 tsp green tea powder For the raspberry filling 2 cups frozen raspberries 1/2 oz (2 envelopes) unflavoured gelatin 4oz/ 240g/ 2 cups whipping cream 100g / 3½oz / 1/2 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line two 23cm/9in cake tins. 2. Beat the sugar, eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla seeds together in a bowl until leight, fluffy and well combined. Stir in the yoghurt. 3. Sift the flour, baking powder and green tea powder together in a separate bowl. 4. Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture. 5. Pour the cake batter into the two cake tins, shake gently to level out the mixture, and bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven and set aside to cool. 6. For the filling, puree the raspberries in a food processor or blender until smooth. 7. Place 4 tablespoons of drained raspberry liquid into a small pan and heat until boiling (be careful as it can boil fast) 8. Pour raspberry juice into a medium metal mixing bowl. Add the gelatin and place the bowl over a larger bowl full of ice and water. Stir until the puree starts to thicken a little. 9. Mix the sugar, vanilla and whipping cream in a medium bowl. Beat until soft peaks starts to form. Gently fold in the cherry puree. 10. Once the cakes have cooled, cut each cake in half and spread with the raspberry filling. 11. Serve with cream or ice cream.