Sencha Cakes with Cardamom Frosting.

Sencha is a kind of Japanese Green Tea. It has a very delicate and fragrant flavour, and is full of anti oxidants (so you could even claim these cakes are healthy... ...err if you ate only celery for the rest of the day). They are not very sweet compared to most european cakes, but I find this balanced well with a sweet Cardamom Cream Cheese frosting. Note: The frosting recipe makes enough to pipe swirls on 12 cupcakes.

The Cakes

3 large eggs
130g - 2/3 cup caster sugar
80ml - 1/3 cup boiled water
2 tbsp sencha green tea leaves + 1 tsp
80ml - 1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola oil)
160g - 1 1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
(A little mint green food colouring - optional)

Preheat oven in 360F / 180C

Brew 2 tbsps of sencha green tea in 1/3 cup of freshly boiled water. Cool the green tea then strain. Add the food colouring to the brewed tea if it is being used.

Whisk eggs in a bowl or your mixer.

Add sugar to the bowl. Then sift in the flour, baking powder, and 1 tsp of green tea leaves into the mixer and mix quickly.

Whilst mixing add the oil and green tea and mix the batter well.

Divide between 12 cupcake cases in a muffin tray.

Bake the cake for 25-35 minutes in the oven. Until they are risen, the tops are firm and a skewer will come out cleanly.

The Cream Cheese Cardamom Frosting

57g - 1/4 cup of butter

28g - 1/8 cup of vegetable shortening (Trex)
114g - 4oz cream cheese
400g - 14 oz Icing sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Beat all the ingredients together until smooth.

Blueberry and Lime Torte

I must thank my friend Ellen Carrington, who first
introduced me to this cake. I worked out the recipe after tasting hers when she brought it into school one day. I have, I confess, tweaked the concept slightly to make it into a torte rather than a cake. I hope you enjoy this, I certainly did.

6oz (170g) Butter
6oz (170g) sugar

Cream them together until light and fluffy. Then add

6oz (170g) well sifted Self Raising Flour
3 large eggs
1tsp Vanilla extract

Mix until smooth and well combined.
Grease and flour 2 round 6-7 in sandwich tins
Divide the cake batter between them and bake at 170 degrees in the middle of the oven, with an ovenproof bowl of water placed on the shelf below. Bake until a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back when pressed lightly (30-45 mins)

Turn out and allow to cool, then trim each half level using a bread knife, and then cut each half in half horizontally to make the pieces for the four layers.

1/4 (57g) cup of butter
1/8 (28g) cup of vegetable shortening (Trex)
4oz (114g) cream cheese
14 oz (400g) Icing sugar
Tiny pinch of salt
Zest of 2 limes
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 tsp of Lemon or Lime extract.

Cream all the ingredients together until smooth and fluffy.

Sandwich the layers of the cake with this filling, then coat the cake with the remainder of this filling. Go steady, the quanities above give you just enough. Once covered chill the cake.

Take a punnet of blueberries (200g) and wash thoroughly and alow to drain dry. Take 1/4 (50g) of the blueberries and place them in a small saucepan with 25g of caster sugar. Heat them gently until they become jammy and syrupy. Allow to cool.

Press the fresh blueberries into the top of the chilled cake. Now pour over the cooled blueberry syrup.

Serve with a nice cup of tea.