Return of the baker...

Wow! You know what, I have been neglecting my blog for months now, haven't I? My bad and yes, I know I promised Green Tea (Matcha) Sponge Cake before I left and I did bake it, in fact I baked 2 with different method. The short way then the long way. Both were YUM but personally, I prefer the texture of the 1st one, the quicker one than the second one which requires half an hour of hand-whisking. Anyway, besides Match Sponge Cake, I have baked lots of other stuff within these months away too.

I went back to Malaysia for 3 weeks and made some really nice classics with my mom. Beautiful. We made Spiral Curry Puffs, Steamed Taro Cake, Parmesan Chiffon Cake, Old Fashioned Orange Butter Cake... They all turned out wonderful. Out of all of them, I fancy the butter cake the most! The whole house was filled with the buttery aroma, literally. And everyone was happy, I shared some with the neighbours and even a 2 year-old praised me for it. It's always good to make people happy with your food, it's the kinda inner joy which words can't really express.

Since I last updated my blog mentioning that my life was upside down and I wasn't very happy about this new place as well as how everything is around here. Well, nothing has changed much but there's no need to whine further. I'm about to sort them out soon, REAL soon. For now, why not we share some recipes here, shall we?

In fact I adopted my 1st Green Tea Sponge Cake (Kasutera) recipe from this site. This is the 1st I baked and thought the colour and outlook weren't quite what I expected, the taste was great though. I would encourage anyone to try this first and if you're not so particular about the look of it, then it's good. It's a keeper. Since I have linked this post to the website I'm not gonna repeat the recipe as it was my first Kasutera and I didn't change a thing, except maybe a bit more green tea/ Matcha powder ;)

As you can see, it turned out alright but it wasn't tall as it should. Since I did not have the exact pan size, I went ahead with a bigger one as I wanted to bake this soooOOOooo much I couldn't wait. FYI, I bake this at midnight and wasn't satisfied with the look so I baked another one right away. Here's the second one baked. The look, is more like it and I so badly wanted to achieve that "poreless" texture I was pretty happy with this one (hey, hand whisked for 30mins over warm water, it has to be good). But, to be honest, taste wise, the first one is better and with better texture too. I love the light green tea fragrance with a hint of sweetness from honey. This cake is so "zen", I really thought so. As for the second Matcha Kasutera, I included the recipe below and please do try bake both as they are not exactly the same. Do find out which is your Kasutera, for me, I think the second one will be what I'm gonna serve to my guests, the first one will be what I bake for my family and myself. Fair enough? ;) I hope you like them.

Matcha Kasutera (Japanese Green Tea Sponge Cake)

Ingredients:

• 8 large eggs
• 270g raw sugar
• 200g AP flour
• 100ml milk
• 4T honey

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C and line a rectangular cake pan with cooking paper at the bottom and sides.
2. Fill a large pot with water, bring to boil then remove from heat.
3. Disolve honey in milk (you may wanna heat up the milk a little in the microwave to make it easier to work with).
4. Double sieve your flour and set aside for later.
5. Break all the eggs into the mixing bowl and whisk with a ballon whisk. Add the sugar. Start whisking this while holding the bowl over the pan of hot water. As soon as the mixture feels lukewarm to the touch, take it off the water and continue whisking. If it cools down again, put it back on the hot water pan to warm it up. (This stage might seem forever if you're whisking it with hand like I did but it is worth the hard work. Of course, you can always try with electric mixer at lowest setting).
6. When you are done the batter will be thick enough to form soft peaks when you draw up your whisk.
7. Now stir in the milk and honey mixture. Mix the flour in with your hand whisk a tablespoon at a time until there are no pockets of flour.
8. Pour the batter into the pan up to the top. Put in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean. (At this point, you can mix some water with honey for the glaze but I will not recommend that as I did it with mine but it was too moist it destroyed the top of the cake and the cake is delicious without glaze, and you might risk sticking the top layer of the cake while you remove the wrap later - explain later)
9. Here comes to the crucial part, once cake is baked and cooled down to a little over room temperature, remove from pan and papers. Wrap the cake tightly with plastic wrap or plastic bag can do too. Then store the cake in the fridge for several hours or overnight. DO NOT WAIT TILL THE CAKE IS COMPLETELY COOL to wrap, this will give you a DRY cake. So remember to wrap your hard work while it is still warm, you wouldn't wanna screw up at this stage after all those hard whisking.
10. Slice cake with sharp, clean knife before serving (you can see that my knife wasn't that sharp ;p but it didn't spoil the taste. And look at how "poreless" it is, yes, thanks to the looOOOooong whisking process). Here you go, brew some tea, sit back and enjoy ;)