Green Tea Love

I just came back from my Bali trip two days ago and boy was it a feast-ful trip! Sadly I got sick halfway through the trip and came home with two friends - flu and cough. After all that food I just needed some cleaner food. I think all the clean eating and meal prep has conditioned my body and mind to opt for cleaner and healthier options. Even in Bali, one of my friend said, I didn't even cheat much! I am still eating healthy. Haha... (Good) Habits die hard!

This was the first meal I cooked for myself after Bali: Organic spinach ramen with mixed vegetables and tofu with an egg on the side.

Well that was for lunch, dinner I had made some vege soup with chicken breasts. I was itching to make something at night since mommy brought back 3 boxes of the baking utensils from Port Dickson! I decided to bake something to do with green tea seeing that I just bought green tea powder and I wanted to om-nom something green tea. So for all you green tea lovers, if you wish to make your own green tea cake, this is a very simple and fast recipe. Worry not for the recipe was tweaked to suit a less sinful version.

Baking in the oven earlier were Green Tea Chocolate Cakes. This recipe is really simple and straightforward which was why I decided to bake it at night, after dinner at about  8:30pm and had a one piece for myself! Who doesn't love fresh oven baked cakes?

Like my love for Cinnamon Rolls, I love all things Green Tea too. Green tea has its benefits, many I would say but I will save the educational health benefits for Google and reliable sources for you to find out yourself. I noticed that there are alot of recipes that incorporates green tea with red bean. This mixture is like peanut butter and jelly, you cannot go wrong with it. Plus it is generally the standard mix in food and beverage outlets as well. I am not a fan of red beans so I discarded the idea of including red beans into my recipe entirely and opt for cocoa powder instead.

Green Tea Chocolate Cake

yields: 8-9 cups approximately                       prep time: 15 minutes                    cook time: 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 cup high protein flour (or all purpose flour)

1/4 cup coconut oil (or butter)

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup skim milk (or full cream/low-fat milk)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsps green tea powder

1 tbsps cocoa powder

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 160 degree Celcius. Grease muffin pan well or line with parchment paper.
2.  Cream together coconut oil and sugar using an electric mixer
3. Mix in milk and eggs, beat until well combined.
4. Add flour, baking powder and salt into the liquid mixture, mix well until it forms a smooth batter.
5. Divide batter into two bowls.
6. Stir in one tbsps green tea powder into one mixture and one tbsps cocoa powder into the other mixture. Whisk respective batter until powder dissolves and has a smooth consistency.
7. Pour approximately two tbsps of chocolate batter into each muffin pan.
8. Pour approximately two tbsps of green tea batter on top of the chocolate batter.
9. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the outside is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Sugar and coconut oil in a bowl.

Mix in milk and eggs into sugar and oil mixture.

Add in flour, salt and baking powder into liquid mixture and mix well. Divide batter.

Add in cocoa powder to form chocolate mixture.

Add in green tea powder to form green tea mixture.

Scoop approximately 2 tbsps of chocolate batter into muffin pan, and 2 tbsps of green tea batter on top of them.

Bake for approximately 45-50 minutes.

Loosen the sides of the cake and carefully scoop it out.

The cakes came out soft but lacked the green tea and chocolate-y taste. It does have a light scent of it but taste wise it needed more. I was contemplating whether to add in an extra tablespoon for the green tea and cocoa powder respectively when I was making the respective mixture but I thought it was sufficient. Should have doubled the amount for the the powder! If you dislike the idea of chocolate with your green tea cake, you can just skip the dividing batter part and mix in the green tea together with the flour mixture. On the other hand, if you love chocolate, you can try adding melted chocolate into your chocolate batter for the extra chocolate-y goodness.

I took one cake and split it open. I noticed that the insides were quite moist as well. The cake texture turned out soft and light, with very lightly crisps sides and moist insides. It wasn't oily nor was the mixture too heavy on the butter-ish texture because of the coconut oil which I noticed as with the cinnamon rolls. All I can say is that I am starting to love using coconut oil in my baking! 

Ch-ch-check out my perfectly manicured nails from Bali *sidetrack* XD

I om-nom it with warm milk, perfect for after a cool rainy day to end my night. I spread some butter on to the cake and it tasted good. Might just try it with jam later (it's 1:20am now)! :D doubt that these will last till tomorrow. Haha...