Roopa
Let me preface this with saying these are not flavours I’m used to working with, nor are they flavours I particularly like. My friend Tim’s birthday was this past weekend, and I wanted to bake him something special. In fact, I am pretty sure I still also owe him a cheesecake.
Anyways, Tim REALLY likes his oriental flavours. We went to a 200 flavour ice cream shop with every chocolate variant imaginable, and he got red bean and green tea. I mocked him endlessly.
I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he said red bean cupcakes. I think my exact words were “if I ever see you with a red bean cupcake, I will rip it from your hand and throw it on the ground!” I’m such a nice friend. Anyways, I’ve been such an ass about red bean that I felt confident he wouldn’t suspect that I made these.
The final conclusion was that the red bean was not overly red bean like – I don’t really know if it was because I used paste, because of the type of paste I used, or because I iddin’t use enough paste. The matcha came through quite nicely in the cupcakes though. It’s hard for me to give a critical opinion of these since I don’t like either of these flavours, but I think they turned out alright.
MATCHA CUPCAKES (adapted from Sprinklebakes) – makes ~ 8 cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
- 78 g (¾ cup) cake flour
- 1 tbsp. matcha powder
- ¼ tsp. baking powder
- 3 eggs
- 100 g (1 cup) granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 28 g (2 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350F and line cupcake pan
- Sift together flour, matcha powder, and baking powder. Set aside.
- Whisk eggs and sugar together over a double boiler, ensuring that the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Once the mixture is foamy and warm to the touch (~5 minutes) remove from heat.
- Pour the egg mixture into a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat on high (~5-7 minutes) until the mixture has tripled in volume and is cool to the touch.
- Fold in flour mixture with a spatula. Avoid deflating the mixture.
- Fold in melted butter.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
Green!
…I’m pretty sure it’s matcha?
Oooh! English! This one is definitely matcha!
RED BEAN ICING
INGREDIENTS
- 114 g unsalted butter, softened
- 3 tbsp. red bean paste
- pinch of salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tbsp. whipping cream
- 1.5 cups icing sugar
DIRECTIONS
- Cream butter at medium speed.
- Add in red bean paste, salt, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly.
- Add whipping cream and icing sugar and mix well. Add more or less cream/icing sugar to get the desired consistency.
I live in a pretty multicultural city so the matcha and red bean paste was quite easy to obtain. I went to T&T supermarket, but there is probably an ethnic market of some sort every kilometer.
Chateau Gateau 