green tea cupcakes with black sesame icing

I don't usually bake because I almost always make a huge mess with the flour and all but when I got my hands on some matcha powder, I spent day and night on Pinterest looking for some ideas on how to use my precious matcha powder. In the end, I settled for some simple green tea cupcakes with black sesame icing.

I love anything green tea or black sesame - ice cream, drinks, cakes, mousse, mochi - you name it. I just love the subtle bitterness of the green tea flavour in the cupcakes combined with the distinct nuttiness of the black sesame.

Instead of baking at my usual 180 degrees, I used 150 degrees.

I used a base recipe for both the cupcakes and icing and simply added enough powder and black sesame until I thought the colour or consistency was right.

The cupcakes ended up tasting really good for my first attempt - they were light, airy and moist. My parents who aren't into sweets ended up enjoying the cakes without the icing so you can omit that if you like.

Recipie: Green Tea Cupcakes with Black Sesame Icing (Makes 12)

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

• 50 grams of butter
• 4 1/2 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 130g (about 7/8 cup) of self raising flour
• 1 small egg
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/4 teaspoon  of vanilla essence
• 1 packed tablespoon of green tea powder.  

For the icing:

• 30 grams of softened unsalted butter
• 60 grams of icing sugar 
• 1 heaped tablespoons of black sesame powder
• 1 teaspoon of milk

What to do: 

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat your oven to 150 °C. Optional: Place a heatproof dish of water at the bottom of the oven to make the cakes more moist.
2. Melt the butter and thoroughly mix in the sugar. 
3. Add vanilla essence 
4. When the melted butter mixture is no longer warm add the egg.
5. Sift the self raising flour behind adding it into the mixture.
6. Add the milk and green tea powder.
7. Combine all the ingredients
8. Line a cupcake pan and fill 2/3 of each cupcake case with the batter.
9. Bake the cupcakes  for 14-20 minutes.

For the icing:

1. Mix the butter, black sesame and sifted icing sugar together. Add the milk and beat until smooth.