Monthly Archives

October 2015

Matcha

Matcha Halloween Zombie Cake Pops Recipe

27th October 2015

I wanted to make something horrific for halloween and I decided cake pops would be perfect. You can eat them yourselves, make them with your family or even give them to trick or treaters!

I made white chocolate chip vanilla cake and covered them in matcha white chocolate, matcha is a fantastic natural alternative to green food colouring and tastes divine. I use Kiss Me Organics Culinary Grade Matcha, as it has a great taste and is also really green and it gives the brightest green colouring I’ve found, it’s also cheap for over 100g!

You’ll also need a cake pop mould, I used this  Sweetly Does It mould.

Originally the plan was to use orange food colouring to make orange chocolate and decorate them as jack o lanterns but the food colouring I bought was awful and wouldn’t make the white chocolate anywhere near the orange I wanted.

I also decided I wanted to get some matcha involved somehow and while watching the Walking Dead premiere I decided that the perfect combo would be matcha green cake pops with zombie jack o lanterns! I had one white chocolate cake pop that I made before adding the matcha, so I had an idea to have the white chocolate one as a human. The finished result is the display of the women running from the zombies. It might not be that good (I’d never written with icing before) but they tastes fantastic which is the main thing! 🙂

So here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

 

120g unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs, room temperature

150g unrefined caster sugar

4 tbsp of milk, also room temperature

180g of self raising flower

1 bag of white chocolate chips

Culinary grade matcha, to taste

 

Method:

1. First thing you’ll want to do is cream the sugar and butter in a bowl

2. Add the eggs one at a time and beat gently with an electric whisk and add the vanilla extract

3. Sieve the flour and baking powder in to a bowl and combine

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix thoroughly

5. Add the milk and stir until the batter mixture is smooth and your desired amount of white chocolate chips.

6. Grease your cake pops mould thoroughly in all the holes and spoon the mixture in to the holes, add the lid of the mould. You can use a cocktail stick to prod the cake pops through the hole in the mould, to check if they’re cooked.

7. Place the mould on a tray to stabilise the cake pops while they cook and cook for 15-20 mins

8. Remove the cake pops when they’re ready and leave on a wire rack to cool. Take the top of the mould off and you should have perfect cake pops!

9. Last step is to melt some white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water, add the amount of matcha you like. Dip the cake pop sticks in the white chocolate and leave them to set slightly, this will help to secure the cake pop in place on the stick (you can see my fallen cake pops as zombie heads in the background lol).

10. Stab your first cake pop with the stick and dip the cake pop in to the white chocolate, I used a fork to help lift the cake pop out, which greatly reduced the amount of cake pops falling off their stick. Put the cake pop in the holder and allow to set before decorating, repeat this for the rest of the cake pops and you’re done! 😀

Close Up

 

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you have a fantastic Halloween! 😀

If you try these I’d love to hear how you get on 🙂

xXx

Matcha Recipes

Matcha Halloween Zombie, Sugar Skull & Pumpkin Chocolates & Lollies

17th October 2015

With Halloween approaching I decided I’d do some Halloween themed cooking with matcha. Matcha makes the perfect green colour when added to white chocolate which is convenient for zombies and it’s much healthier than food colouring!

I love sugar skulls and zombies, ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ & the return of ‘The Walking Dead’ has made me even more zombie obsessed recently which inspired these chocolates.

There’s not really much of a recipe to be honest, basically just melt some white chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan full of water and then add matcha until the chocolate is the right colour and taste. I’m actually really quite pleased with the results, only downside is some of the matcha chocolate is dotty, not sure why :/

Here’s the finished matcha chocolates and lollies:

Matcha chocolate & lollies

 

The two colour chocolates were made by pouring the matcha chocolate in first and leaving it to firm up (but not totally set) and then pouring the milk chocolate on top.

 

I also made some normal white chocolates and orange white chocolate, in a selection of more child friendly shapes:

Orange & White Chocolate

Pumpkin Chocolate Lolly

Anyway that’s the first of my Halloween creations, I have matcha cake pops and doughnuts coming up, both with a Halloween twist! 😉

I used Kiss Me Organics Culinary Grade Matcha which I highly recommend for taste and also to produce vivid green colours in your cooking. We used Dr. Oetker food colouring gel for the pumpkins which was worthless, we used an entire tube in the chocolate for two lollies and it was nowhere near the colour we wanted 🙁

The moulds used are these Sugar Skulls and these Zombie moulds. You can get the lolly sticks from loads of places but I recently found these Halloween Coloured Lolly Sticks which I kinda wish I found before I made these!

Thanks so much for reading, I’d love to hear from anyone who makes these and if you have any questions just hit me up!

 

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Matcha Recipes

Carrot Cake With Matcha Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

3rd October 2015

Bluebird Tea Co. recently launched Matcha Honey, what could be better than the combination of Bluebird’s matcha and local Brighton honey?! 😀

They sent me a jar to experiment with and it’s a really fantastic product, the honey is incredible and the sweetness of it blends perfectly with the matcha. It’s great on toast, crumpets or added to tea but it’s also great in frosting! 😉

I thought this cream cheese frosting would be paired perfectly with the subtle spiciness of moist carrot cake and this recipe was born!

After some taste testing I struck the perfect balance, which is roughly 3 teaspoons of matcha honey. It depends largely on how strong you want the matcha flavour to be, I wanted it to be definitely matcha flavoured but without bitterness and without the honey flavour becoming sickly but feel free to alter the quantity to your taste. I also wanted to keep the traditional colouring of carrot cake, with beautiful cream frosting! 😀

Cinammon Close Up

Cake Ingredients

3 eggs

300g soft light brown sugar

300g plain flour

300ml sunflower oil

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (plus extra to decorate)

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

300g grated carrots

 

Matcha Honey Cream Cheese Ingredients

2 1/2 – 3 teaspoons Bluebird Tea Co. Matcha Honey

300g icing sugar

125g cream cheese, refrigerated

50g unsalted butter, room temperature

 

I used 3 x 7″ cake tins but you can vary this a bit depending if you want thicker or thinner layers 🙂

 

Method

Cake:

Beat sugar, eggs and oil with a handheld electric whisk or mixer until well incorporated.

Sugar, Eggs and Oil

Slowly add bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, flour, salt and vanilla, continue to beat until mixed.

Stir in the carrot and transfer the mixture to 3 cake tins, with greaseproof paper on the base. Smooth the mixture over with a palette knife or by tapping the trays on the work surface.

Mixture In Tray

 

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let the trays cool a little bit and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

 

 

Frosting:

Beat butter and icing sugar together with an electric whisk on a slow speed until combined. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat gently until incorporated. Turn the mixer up to a high speed and continue beating until light and fluffy, approximately 3 -4 minutes. Be careful not to overdo it to avoid the frosting becoming too sloppy. Finally add the matcha honey and whisk in on a slow speed, your best bet is to add it gradually and keep tasting it to get the flavour to your desired strength.

Frosting

Pick the layer with the most even dome to be the top of your cake, then use a bread knife to slowly take a layer off the top of the other two layers to flatten them out. This will make frosting easier, make the cake more stable and also look better when the cake is cut.

All you have to do now is spread frosting on the bottom layer, add the middle layer and do the same to add the top. Then spread remaining frosting on top of the cake and work it down the sides. You can either try for a flat smooth look with an offset spatula or keep it rough and fluffy like mine.

That’s it! You have the best carrot cake in the world 😉

Front

Slice

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe, I adored making it and I was thrilled with the results. It’s the perfect cake to share, I divided mine up and gave some to my mum and my boyfriend’s parents and they loved it!

Definitely check out the matcha honey from Bluebird Tea Co., it’s such an easy way to get more matcha in to your diet and tastes amazing!

Bye for now! xXx