Green Tea and Red Bean Layer Cake

A while back I made some green tea ice cream using a stash of matcha I got from a recent trip to Hong Kong (which I'm yet to blog about!). I was looking for some other matcha dessert recipes and found this one here and here. Don't be fooled by it's appearance... green tea and red bean is a great combination in desserts!

Anyway, I'm not great at baking (I think I'm too careless in terms of measuring things), so the cake turned out a little messy, but overall the recipe worked great!

Here's the recipe, although it basically comes straight from Sugar & Everything Nice:

Ingredients:
2 eggs 60 g icing sugar 60 g almond meal 1 1/2 tsp matcha 30 g all purpose flour 30 g melted unsalted butter	2 egg whites 1/8 tsp cream of tartar 30 g caster sugar 1 cup whipping cream 1/4 cup sweetened canned red bean

Procedure:
1) Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. Line a half sheet pan (about 30 x 40 cm) with a sheet of baking paper.

2) Combine the 2 whole eggs with the icing sugar and almond meal and whip until light and about double in volume.

3) Add in the matcha powder and combine.

4) Sift the flour over the egg mixture.

5) Whip the egg whites in a different bowl until they start to froth. Then add the cream of tartar and whip until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar and whip to incorporate.

6) Scoop about 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg mixture and fold in gently with a spatula. Add the remaining egg whites and fold in until uniformly mixed. Pour the melted butter over the batter and fold in to incorporate.

7) Pour the batter into the pan and distribute it evenly, making the layer as level and smooth as possible. Tap the bottom of the pan to get rid of some of the air bubbles.

8) Bake in the oven for about 6 to 8 minutes, until the cake is just firm and lightly brown but not completely brown. (I found it seemed to need longer to dry out properly - maybe my cake slices were too thick?)

9) Remove from the oven and run a knife around the edges of the cake to loosen it from the parchment. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

10) Flip the cake over, then carefully peel the parchment paper from the back of the cake. Then flip the cake back on it's right side over a clean piece of parchment.

To Assemble:
1) Trim off the edges and slice the cake in along the short side into 4 equal-sized pieces

2) Whip the cream to soft peaks. Leave aside 1/4 of the cream for the topping. For the remaining cream, fold in the red beans gently until evenly distributed.

3) Taking one layer of the cake, cover the top with 1/4 of the red bean cream. Then lay the 2nd layer on top and continue with the rest until the last layer is in place. Try to keep the layer even.

4) Top the last layer with the 1/4 plain cream.

5) Cover the cake and refrigerate overnight.

6) When you are ready to serve, trim off the sides of the cake to make them nice and even. Dust the top with some matcha powder.