Sweet Decadenze

I cannot emphasize more on how much I love green tea.  And I don’t like to prepare my green tea with tea leaves; I like to make them from matcha, which is effectively green tea powder used during Japanese tea ceremony.  The quality ones don’t come cheap, and it was my good fortune that I had the opportunity to stock up during my recent trip to Japan (and need I mention that I had at least 1 cone of green tea ice-cream there everyday?).

Green Tea Cupcakes - definitely not something new in the market.  But using matcha infused butter in a cupcake recipe?  Should be something new.

Joycelyn’s Cupcake Workshop Level II taught us how to use Earl Gray Tea infused butter, Chai Spice infused butter, Lavender infused butter and Lemon infused butter to bake the cupcake bases.  A rather comprehensive and varied range there, and definitely a good template for me to use my brain juices to create flavours I like.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I settled on matcha.

Next, I had to look for an interesting frosting to complement my green tea cupcake.  All thanks to Chockylit, I found the perfect frosting.  Green Tea Cupcakes with Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting!

Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 - 3/4 pack cream cheese, room temp.
1 cup butter, room temp.
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tbsp matcha
1/2 tsp vanilla

• Beat the cream cheese and butter in a mixer at medium speed, until creamy.
• Add in 1 cup of icing sugar, matcha and vanilla into the mixture and mix until combined.
• Gradually add in the remaining icing sugar until the frosting attains the consistency and sweetness as desired.

Yield : frosting for 24 mini cupcakes

I’ve tried to be a little light-handed when adding in the matcha because I don’t want the cupcakes to turn out with this overwhelming green tea taste.  If you ask me, I thought this cupcake didn’t turn out too bad at all.  As a matter of fact, I think more matcha is required!