Matcha Cake with Red Bean Icing

Japanese dinner means Japanese dessert. 
Great opportunity to try my hand at green tea (matcha) cake. The original recipe called for green tea icing as well, but I thought that'd be OD-ing on green tea. So I improvised and created my own red bean icing instead.

Whoever thought of pairing green tea with red beans is a genius! The 2 flavours complement each other so well, it's amazing. I couldn't find adzuki beans, so I got the normal local red beans. Still tasted good, but I bet adzuki would really be awesome!

For a small 6" square cake:
40g plain flour
45g cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp green tea (matcha) powder
60g sugar
80ml oil
80ml plain yoghurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

1 - Sift all powdered ingredients. Mix well. Set aside.
2 - Beat sugar, oil and egg until smooth. Add vanilla extract.
3 - Gradually beat in flour, alternating with yoghurt. Mix well.
4 - Bake at 170 degC for about 30-35 min till done. Cool completely before icing.

Red Bean Icing:
100g dried red beans
water
About 6 tbs icing sugar

1 - Boil red beans with enough water to cover all  beans.
2 - Stop cooking when beans are soft. Set aside to cool. Then mash beans up with a blender till you get a fine paste. Add water by teaspoonfuls if required to get a smooth but thick consistency.
3 - When cooled completely, transfer to mixer and beat together with icing sugar. Adjust amount according to desired sweetness and texture.
4 - Chill for about half hour before spreading on cake.

In my mind, I had the vision of a moist crumbly cake (somewhat like a pound cake) with stiff icing. How nice that would be!

But it didn't quite turn out that way. (Fortunately the taste was ok.) I figured it had to be the cake method used for this recipe. By mixing the oil, sugar and egg first, it resulted in a texture similar to steamed sponge cakes. Next time, I'm trying this again with a pound or butter cake, or even a genoise sponge, method.

Stay tuned...

P.S.  A much better recipe of green tea (matcha) cake can be found on my Green Tea Swiss Roll post.