Green Tea Tiramisu (Hubby's Birthday!)

 

This year I made a green tea tiramisu for hubby's birthday. His favourite cake is tiramisu so I thought why not spice it up a bit and make a green tea version.

This green tea tiramisu is so yummy. It's also special because it is not a cake which you can get from the bakery. Again, this is a recipe from Y3K Delicious Cake recipe book. The recipe uses Mascarpone cheese but I substituted it with regular cream cheese.
 
I altered the original recipe and so that it makes a tall cake in a 7" cake pan.

Green Tea Tiramisu

Green tea, well-known for its health benefits, is widely used to create desserts with a flavour of Japan. The combination of green tea chiffon cake, sweet azuki beans and light whipping cream is a distinctly different Far East variation of the classic Italian tiramisu.

Preparation time: 40 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes (40 minutes to cook red beans in pressure cooker, 40 minutes to bake cake and 20 minutes to cook filling)
Utensils needed: 7” round cake pan, icing spatula and a large closed star decorating tip

Serves 10 

Level of difficulty: **

Ingredients 

Chiffon cake:
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
40g corn oil
3 tsp green tea powder dissolved in a little hot water 
2 tsp milk
a pinch of salt  ~whisk together all ingredients highlighted in pink~
50 g SR Flour
1/2 tsp baking powder 
1/4 tsp baking soda  ~sift together all ingredients highlighted in yellow~
3 egg whites
75g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar ~whisk together all ingredients highlighted in blue ~

Cream cheese filling: 
2 egg yolks
40g sugar
250g cream cheese
200g whipping cream (whisk until stiff)

Decoration:
75g red beans (cooked till soft and add 2 tbsp of sugar)
225g whipping Cream
some Japanese egg biscuits (Tamago Boro)

Method
1.  Whisk egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar until stiff.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks, egg, green tea mixture, corn oil, milk and salt until creamy and thick.

3. Fold in sifted flour mixture to egg yolk mixture followed by egg white mixture and mix well.

4. Preheat oven to 160C. Pour batter equally into 7" round cake pan lined with baking paper. Tap pan to release air bubbles. Bake for 40 minutes.

5. In a bowl over simmering water, stir egg yolks and sugar and cook until sugar dissolves and mixture thickens. Add vanilla extract and mix well. Allow to cool.

6. Add in cream cheese and whisk until well-combined.

7. In a separate bowl, whisk whipping cream till stiff. Add whipping cream to cream cheese mixture and mix well. 

9. Whisk whipping cream until stiff. Set aside.

10. Place cream cheese filling on a layer of cake. Spread red bean paste followed by some whipping cream. Repeat steps ending with cake on top.

11. Frost the whole cake with whipping cream and sift green tea powder on top of cake. Pipe 8 rosettes and garnish with Japanese egg biscuits.

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This is the first year I'm baking a birthday cake for hubby since I only started getting back into baking in June. I'm happy that we get to celebrate with a cake I baked which made the occasion somewhat more special and sentimental rather than with one bought from the bakery.

I would suggest using a good green tea powder for the cake as it makes a lot of difference. The green tea powder I used is a high quality green tea powder from Japan and the cake turned out super delicious. Hubby said the cake is good.

I used Tamago Boro (Japanese egg biscuits) to decorate the cake. The biscuits were for the center of the flowers. My nephew said they look like daisies.So elated that the cake turned out so good.

Happy baking! xx