Matcha chiffon cake

Matcha or green tea is one of my favourite flavours. It is an ingredient that I like using in my baking repertoire.

As I usually bug my family and friends to buy matcha powder for me during their travels to Japan, I have since amassed quite a couple of packets. You would probably find a lot more upcoming matcha blog posts from me. Even as I’m writing, I’m thinking of matcha macarons with a matcha flavoured ganache.

I’ve been trying to perfect this matcha chiffon cake for some time. I have been tweaking my recipe to find the perfect balance of moistness, lightness and sweetness. After countless attempts, I think I’m finally happy enough to share with you this recipe.

This chiffon cake is the perfect cake for tea. It serves well, standing nice and tall; it has the flavour of green tea without being overpowering; the moistness, lightness and fluffiness that you seek in a chiffon cake; at the same time, it isn’t too rich or sweet to have on a daily basis. You can have it with tea, of course, either a Japanese style green tea (to accentuate the flavours), a Ceylon black tea or coffee would be perfect.

If you are new to baking chiffon cakes, fret not, I’ll be doing up a detailed post on the tips and tricks to making the perfect one. In the meantime, if you can’t wait, you can hop over to check out the recipe and tips on my perfect pandan chiffon cake.

Happy baking!

Recipe: Matcha(green tea) chiffon cake
Makes 23cm (9.5″)  chiffon cake

This makes a moist and light matcha chiffon cake. It’s even lighter than its pandan cake (click here for its recipe)counterpart because it does not have the richness of the coconut milk.

Ingredients:

Group A:
5 large egg yolks, room temperature
150g granulated sugar
85ml neutral flavoured oil, like grapeseed or canola
35ml full cream milk
40ml water
160g cake flour
3/4 tsp double acting baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
25g matcha (green tea) powder

Group B:
5 large egg whites, room temperature
pinch of cream of tar tar (optional)
100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Have your chiffon cake tin mould ready. Do not grease it!

2. Whisk yolks with sugar until pale and light. ( I do this with my hand whisk.) Add in the oil and whisk until incorporated.

3. Add in the milk and water then whisk in sifted dry ingredients. Whisk well until there are no lumps.

4. Prepare a meringue: Use group B ingredients to whisk a meringue to glossy, firm, just under stiff peaks. If you have cream of tar tar, you can add in a pinch of it to the egg whites as you begin to whisk it.

5. Whisk your egg whites on your mixer on high speed until soft peaks. When it reaches a soft peak stage, you can start to pour in your caster sugar, in a few additions, while the mixer is still running. Whisk till glossy and firm, just ever so slightly short of stiff peaks. Do not over-whisk; it is better to slightly under-whisk then to over-whisk it.

6. Add in 1/4 of the meringue to the mixture A (egg yolk mixture). Whisk lightly to combine.

7. Add in 1/2 of the remaining meringue to the mixture A (yolk mixture). Fold gently to incorporate before folding in the rest of the meringue. Make sure that the whites are folded into the mixture thoroughly.

8. Gently pour the chiffon cake batter into the chiffon tin. Using a spatula, level and smooth out the top of the cake batter and gently tap the chiffon cake tin against the kitchen counter twice to remove any large air bubbles.

9. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for about 1 hr 5 minutes. The top of the cake should be lightly browned and springs back to touch when it is done. At about 25 minutes into the baking, check on your chiffon cake. If the top starts to get too brown or starts cracking too much, cover the chiffon cake with a sheet of aluminium foil before you continue with the baking. You can turn down the temperature slightly as well to about 170-175 degrees celcius.

10. Remove the ready cake from the oven, place a funnel into the center hole of the tin and invert the cake to cool on a cooling rack. Only attempt to unmould the chiffon cake from its tin when it is cooled fully.

*Storage tip: Keep it in a air-tight container in room temperature and finish it within a few days.