Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes – or Maccha. As you were.

Welcome to the May Sweet Adventures Blog Hop, our theme this month – ‘What’s your cup of Tea?‘ – meant that I got to create a recipe using one of my favourite things – Tea. It was only logical that my creation included another of my favourite things – Cake!

Can you believe that we’ve been at this #SABH thing for 7 months now? Wow. And thanks in advance for joining us for this most recent adventure – I’m honoured to be hosting again and we have a special surprise this month too…

The first time I ever saw macha was in the movie Karate Kid – remember the tea ceremony? Yep, that was macha, although back then I had no idea what it was. If you don’t remember the original Karate Kid, well, you probably never had a walkman or made mixed tapes either… and I don’t want to talk about it.

The first time I experienced Macha was in Japan, it was served with most meals and even came in packets in the hotel room. Being a huge green tea drinker I welcomed it with open arms – bright green colour and all – and it was the first thing that came to mind for this hop. The fact that it was just about the only green tea not in my cupboard was a mere detail…

Now down to the business of cake. One thing about being the person who makes the cakes is that when it comes to your own birthday, well, if you want cake it generally means you make your own… not that I’m complaining, we all know how much I love to bake cake – and besides, it means I get exactly what I want – ha! Plus RJ has been known to come home with a treat and a candle every now and then – he’s a keeper.

As the timing of this hop coincided perfectly with my birthday on Saturday I decided that cupcakes were in order – how very convenient. These took a couple of goes to get them just right, so for all of last week we were taste testing, tough gig hey? Third time is a charm and I’m so happy with how the cakes ended up.

Not too light and spongy that they are like eating air, not too heavy that they are more like a scone than a cake. A little bit sweet but the macha still shines through. And topped perfectly with what I am calling Vegan Chai Buttercream.

They are conveniently healthy enough to eat for breakfast, not that I did that [yeah right, totally did that] and delicious enough to serve as proper cake. Everybody wins.

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea and a Giveaway!

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea is an annual fundraising event held by the Cancer Council on May 24 – just a few days from now. On this day, or any time in May or June, you can register to have a morning tea at work, school or home and help raise money to continue the Cancer Council’s vital work in cancer research, prevention and support. You can even hold a Virtual Morning Tea.

The SABH Tea theme occurring at the same time as Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea was a fortuitous coincidence but as a result we have a surprise for our #SABH participants this month! The Cancer Council and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea have offered to donate a prize pack for a giveaway – exclusively for those who link up with SABH.

• The prize pack includes an Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea apron, tea towel, mug and oven mitt, plus Gwyneth Paltrow’s amazing cookbook, Notes from my Kitchen Table. Gwyneth, along with a number of Australian celebrities and chefs, is an ambassador for the event.

To enter the giveaway simply link-up your Sweet Adventures Blog Hop ‘What’s your cup of Tea’ post during the week of the hop – that’s it! The winner will be chosen on 29 May by random draw, perhaps from a teacup – heehee. While we love our international adventure participants you will need to have an Australian mailing address to win.

You can find out more about Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea at www.biggestmorningtea.com.au and www.facebook.com/australiasbiggestmorningtea. Register to hold a tea, find one to participate in, donate or enter their competitions and support the Cancer Council.

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Macha Green Tea Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 3 Tbsp rice syrup
• 1 1/2 Tbsp honey
• 1 1/2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted

• 1/4 c + 2 Tbsp almond meal*
• 3/4 c organic unbleached white flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• heaped 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 1/2 tsp macha green tea powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 170C [340F]. Fill a roasting pan with a few centimeters of hot water to warm the pan. Line a 6-hole cupcake pan with papers. Bring a pot of water to the boil.

Combine dry ingredients and sift twice. Set aside.

In a large bowl beat the room-temp eggs with an electric beater for 5 minutes. Begin to drizzle in the rice syrup and honey, beating for a further 3 minutes. Drizzle in coconut oil and beat in.

Sift dry ingredients over egg mixture and gently fold in – making sure to combine well. Divide mixture evenly across the 6 lined cupcake holes – they should be quite full but still below the edge.

Empty the hot water out of the roasting pan and replace with approx 2 cm / 1 inch of boiling water. Place cupcake tin in the roasting pan and cover tightly with foil. Place carefully in the preheated oven.

Bake for 15 minutes, remove from oven and uncover. Gently tip cakes out of tin and cool on a wire rack. Frost with Vegan Chai Buttercream.

Makes 6 cupcakes. Try not to eat them all for breakfast…

*Notes

• Most of the time I use almond meal from whole almonds, it includes the skins and is a bit more coarsely ground. For this however I used regular almond meal from blanched almonds – no bits of skin and much finer.

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Sweet Adventures Blog Hop – Tea! – Link-up Instructions

The SABH is brought to you by Delicieux, The Hungry Australian, Dining With a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, and myself, 84th & 3rd. This blog hop is open to all food bloggers.

The hop is open from 9am 21 May – 11:59pm 28 May 2012 [Sydney time] Please only link-up new posts published on or after this link went live.

IMPORTANT – The instructions below explain how to link up and how to get the hop to appear on your post. If you aren’t sure of something leave a comment or send me an email and I will help where I can.

1. Add a link to this post from your post by grabbing the SABH Tea badge above, or creating a text link
   * To grab the badge, right click on the image, ‘save as’, upload to your site and add it to your Tea post
   * Linking the badge or a line of text to the hostess post [that’s this page here] means others can view the instructions on and join in!
2. Click here for the Thumbnail List code – Copy the code and add it to the bottom of your Tea post, you will need to do this in HTML view.
   * Adding the code will create the thumbnail link list on your post so people can hop from one entry to the next!
   * REMEMBER – if you are on wordpress.com [not self hosted] the list will not show on your blog. A text link back to this post means others can hop through the entries!
3. Click here to Enter the Hop – This is the really important bit! The badge and thumbnail list are on your post, make sure to enter the hop so you appear in the list too.
   * On the entry screen, please add the link to your Tea Post [not your homepage].
   * When asked for ‘your name’ please enter your blog name, not your name.
   * Your entry will be submitted when you click ‘crop’ on your photo.

PLEASE NOTE – your linked post WILL NOT appear straight away in the blog hop thumbnail list. To combat spam this is a moderated hop. Your post will be visible in the list after approved. Entries are approved in the order they are submitted during waking hours in Sydney. A girl needs to get her beauty sleep.

If you are on Twitter use the #SABH to tell the world about your Festive Faves post and follow us @SweetAdvBlogHop for new hop announcements and general deliciousness. Thanks for joining!

Remember – by linking-up this month you are entered to win a prize pack compliments of Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea and the Cancer Council!

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Thank you to the Cancer Council and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea for the prize pack giveaway. We are proud to be able to support the cause.

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