That sounds so cool, but actually it just means Green Tea + Red Bean.
Last Friday day was my friend, future-kpop-star's birthday. Being the awesome 누나 (older sister) that I am, I decided to make him an epic elaborate homemade birthday cake to celebrate the end of his teenage years. I have also been dying to bake again after a season of fasting with my church, and have been staying up at night thinking about possible cake+filling+icing combinations... oh well, minor details.
At first I was going for make a mango and cream-cheese mousse kinda cake, but I wasn't sure if the birthday boy is a mango-mousse type of guy. In the end I settled on green tea and red bean as the main ingredients, since green tea+red bean shouts Japan and my friend is from Korea... which is not Japan... but he speaks Japanese... ok it made sense in my head when I was falling asleep.
So my Ujinkintoki Cake consists of Matcha flavored sponge cake, red bean cream cheese filling, red bean paste, stablized Matcha whipped cream, topped with fresh korean strawberries. The sponge cake and stablized whipped cream recipes were adopted from La Fuji Mama's Japanese Strawberry Shortcake recipe. Love her blog, btw.
I made the filling with cream cheese because I wanted to see if the tartness of the cream cheese would off-set the sweetness of the canned red bean paste, which is usually too sweet for my taste. I'll let you know how it turned out in a moment.
I started off with LFM's recipe (*5/4, since I was using a 9-inch cake pan), and whisked a teaspoon of matcha powder into the milk before adding that into the batter.
Look!! The light green color is so preeetty.
I like sifting my flour little by little in between each fold to make sure it incorporates well.
Iphone4 under tungsten light. =( And I'm too lazy to photoshop it.
Again, you can't really see the true colors of the filling here but it is light purple. Preeetty.
At first I only used 2oz of red bean paste in the filling but it came out quite tart. Instead of adding more red bean paste into the filling, I spread it on top of the cream cheese filling to get 2 layers of color. And so I can say that there are 2 layers of filling in this cake. yay.
Next up is the stabilized whipped cream.
Add a little gelatin melted in water into your heavy cream before whipping, and it will prevent your whipped cream from bleeding and allow it to hold its shape better! Restaurant secrets ftw.
Notice how I used my scale as a turn table. My lazy susan is back in Virginia, along with my silpats, spatula and mixing bowls, and I miss them dearly. My arms are sore from mixing in a 10lb glass cocktail bowl and scraping batter off with an inflexible hard plastic spatula.
Look how nicely the whipped cream held it shape even the next day! (hehe our korean food in the background)
I found Korean Strawberries on sale because they were about to expire, I think. They taste really good though.
Please excuse my amateur piping skills.
Verdict: I absolutely loved loved loveddd the matcha whipped cream. When first I tasted it from the bowl my mind was filled with nothing but thankfulness. Green tea just gives me so much joy. The green tea cake was also light and spongy, with just the right amount of sweetness. I didn't have "real" red beans with me yesterday, but if I did I would have done the filling differently. Probably just steam/boil the red bean till soft, mash it into the sweet red bean paste, and used it as a filling. The strawberries went incredibly well with the green tea flavors though, so if there's no red bean paste laying around I wouldn't mind making this cake with a simple whipped cream filling with slices of strawberries. This is officially my favorite cake I've ever made. =D
Recipe is here!!
Ujikintoki Cake
Using a 9inch spring-form pan
Matcha sponge cake: 5 large eggs, white and yolks separated 150grams granulated sugar, sifted once
3.75 tablespoons whole milk, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Green Tea Powder
150grams cake flour, sifted 3 times 27.5grams butter, melted
Preheat oven to 165 Degree Celcius.
Whisk together green tea powder, vanilla extract and milk, set aside.
Whisk egg white and sugar until glossy and soft peaks form. Slowly add in yolk and whisk till incorporated. With a spatula, slowly fold in green tea milk mixture. Sift in around ¼of the flour and fold till incorporated, repeat till all flour is mixed into the batter. Be careful not to over mix. Lastly, fold in room temperate melted butter, pour into baking pan, and bake for 30-35 or until inserted toothpick comes out clean and the cake slowly springs back when you press it lightly.
165C35 minsprings back
For the stabilized whipped cream frosting: 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
4 teaspoons cold water
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon of green tea powder
Let gelatin soak in cold water for around 5 minutes, than nuke it for 10-15seconds or until gelatin dissolves. Cool to room temperature. Mix heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and green tea powder together until green tea powder dissolves. Using a hand mixer, start mixing, slowly adding in the liquid gelatin. Continue whipping till stiff.
Fillings:
4 oz Cream cheese
4 oz Canned red bean paste
1/8 cup heavy cream
Powdered sugar
Mix cream cheese, heavy cream and powdered sugar with a hand mixer. Mix till light and fluffy. Gently fold in red bean paste. Keep refrigerated until use.
