This traybake sponge cake has a very subtle Green Tea flavour and lovely natural green colour. Well worth the expense of buying good quality Matcha Green Tea powder. There's some great textures too from the crushed Pistachio Nuts, white chocolate frosting and fresh strawberries.
Adding more Green Tea powder will enhance the colour and tea flavour. With this recipe, I found 1 tablespoon to be just enough.
I’ll make a very cheeky request here that you try to find some home grown strawberries as some, out of season fruits, can be as hard as anything, with no flavour what so ever. This is my personal opinion.
Is there a difference between Matcha Green Tea and Matcha Green Tea powder?
Matcha Green Tea and Green Tea powder is derived from the same plant called Camellia Sinensis. The Green tea comes in the form of leaves in tea bags, while matcha powder, such as this one, is 100% green tea in powder form.
How to adapt this recipe:
- You could use different nuts. Crushed or whole.
- Use other fresh fruits when in season. Try to complement these with different kinds of nuts.
- You could omit some of the topping and just have the white chocolate frosting.
- If you're not a lover of white chocolate, leave the frosting out and top with fresh fruits and nuts. Along with the fruit preserve glaze.
- You could keep it very simple by forgoing the topping and dust with icing sugar.
More delicious traybake recipes that you might like to try:
- Lemon Drizzle Traybake with Lemon zest and fresh lemon juice
- Chocolate Tray Bake with easy to slice hard chocolate topping.
- Lemon, Almond and Poppy Seed Squares
Matcha Green Tea cake with a white chocolate frosting, topped with strawberries and Pistachio nuts
INGREDIENTS
For the cake
- 200 grams butter softened
- 200 grams white caster sugar avoid using brown sugar as this may effect the green colour from the matcha tea powder
- 4 medium eggs lightly beaten
- 200 grams self raising flour
- 1 tbs Matcha Green Tea Powder
Frosting and topping
- 150 grams White chocolate roughly chopped
- 95 grams butter
- 4 tbs double cream or whole milk
- grated zest of one large Lemon
- 250 grams icing sugar sieved
- 2 tbs fruit preserve this is for an optional glaze
- 800 grams fresh strawberries halved
- 30 grams Pistachio nuts roughly chopped
Instructions
Make the cake
- Preheat the oven to 180deg conventional or 160deg fan assisted. Grease and line the base of a shallow 29cm x 19 cm oblong tin or similar. At least 2cm/1" deep.
- Using an electric hand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs and a little of the flour. This will help prevent too much curdling.
- Mix until well combined.Add the remaining flour and the Matcha Green Tea Powder. Mix together until well combined.
- Pour the cake mixture evenly into the prepared tin. Bake for 20-25 mins or until baked. Testing the centre of the cake, in different areas, with a skewer until it comes out clean.
- Leave in the tin to cool for about 10 mins, before turning out onto a wire wrack to cool completely.
Lemon White Chocolate frosting and topping
- Melt the chocolate, butter and cream in heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water.Take the bowl off the heat. Add the Lemon Zest and the icing sugar. Mix until you have a nice smooth spreading consistency. Leave to one side to set a little. Popping it in the fridge helps it to set.
- When your cake has cooled completely, spread the white chocolate frosting over your cake. Pouring the frosting into a piping bag with about a half ins/1cm opening, will make this a lot easier.
- If using, heat the fruit preserve to soften it a little. Sieve and leave to cool. Decorate the cake with the sliced strawberries, then glaze the strawberries with the fruit preserve.Scatter the whole cake with the pistachio nuts.
Notes
- This cake is best served immediately but will keep in the fridge for a day or so. But the strawberries will start to soften and discolour after a few hours.Bring back to room temperature before serving.
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