Basic Green tea cupcake recipe

A few weeks ago i came across this recipe, shortly after i had purchased my first ever bag of green tea powder a.k.a matcha powder. I had been invited to a birthday so thought two dozen pretty cupcakes would be a nice gift :)

The lovely Stella helped out, and it was her idea to dust these babies with cocoa powder & icing sugar to give them a little bit of prettiness. Personally, i think the icing sugar dusted ones looked a lot cuter!

Earlier this week, my workmate's Daughter was turning 4, so another excuse to bake :) Still having alot of matcha powder left (this recipe only uses two teaspoons), i decided to make some larger sized cupcakes, and to use my newly bought wilton paste colours, and also to use up some dessicated coconut i had in the pantry.

I highly recommend using wiltons colour pastes, i only needed a tiny dab of paste to get this lovely pastel looking purple, and because it is a paste, unlike the bottles of food colouring (that can thin out your icing), a small jar will surely last you quite a while. I bought a whole lot off ebay, but you can get them individually at certain stores like.. essential ingredient @ Rozelle?

Recipe for green tea cupcakes

(makes 24 babycakes, or 12 standard cupcakes)

90g butter at room temp

75g sugar

2 eggs

125g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

50g ground almonds

50ml milk

2 tsp matcha powder

Preheat oven to 180'C.

Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until creamy. Add the eggs and continue to beat. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, then the almonds.

Heat the milk in a saucepan, remove from the stove and add the matcha tea powder. Leave to soak for 3 minutes, then beat it all to remove any remaining clots. Add the matcha milk to the dough and incorporate well (do not over mix or your cupcake will be tough)

Distribute the mix between a 12 muffin tray or a 24 babycake tray.

Bake 13 minutes (for babycakes) or 18 minutes (for cupcakes).

- For raspberry topped cakes just pop one (or a couple raspberries on top before placing the trays in the oven. After baking, and once completely cooled, dust with icing sugar or cocoa powder (or even with vanilla bean dust if you have that!)

Recipe for pastel purple rosewater flavored frosting

135g butter

1.5 cups icing sugar

3 tsp milk

2 tsp rosewater essence

Beat the butter until fluffy and light in colour. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat until sugar has dissolved and mixture is frosting-like texture. Add more milk if too dry, or more icing sugar if too wet.

I dusted the tops with desiccated coconut and shook off any excess, but you can decorate with anything that you have (or leave plain). Because of the strong coconut flavor, you couldn't really tell the rosewater flavoring, so you can use vanilla essence instead.