Matcha Cupcake

b's mini cupcakes
photo courtesy of Andrew Soetiono

In all honesty, I'm not really a cupcake kind of girl. I don't deny that they are cute and pretty, but I just don't enjoy making them as much as I do making cakes. I don't mind trying recipes because I know my friends will be more than happy to devour them for me. There's another thing to be thankful for. Without them, I wouldn't be able to experiment as much. Thank you dear friends for volunteering to be my guinea pigs. XOXO

Green tea has sparked my curiosity. I'm a big fan of a cup of green tea, so I would like to be able to make green-tea flavoured desserts. Not everyone will like it, because I think the taste of green tea is an acquired taste. You need to get used to it before you can enjoy eating green-tea flavoured desserts. There are few more that I want to try making.

I recently bought Matcha (powdered Japanese green tea) and this is my first trial at making Matcha Cupcake. I love it! :) My friends also loved it. Even Julie, who doesn't like green tea-flavoured dessert (except for Il Dolce Fredo's green tea gelato), loved it much and said she can eat a million more.

Ria said, "It taste.....UTTERLY FANTASTIC & UNBELIVEABLY GOOD ! ! ! The green tea topping at the top compliments the green tea cupcake in the bottom & vice versa... You can eat them separately, but combining both elements will give you a COMPLETE satisfactory...It's T H E B E S T Matcha Cupcakes I have ever tasted ! ! ! ! :))"

It is my personal favourite so far because the cake is very fluffy and moist. I feel that this is how cupcakes should be. The combination of the icing and the cake is just perfect, delicate, right level of sweetness, and not overpowering. It passed the quality control, and has been added to my bakingbee menu.

Matcha is powdered Japanese green t made from shade-grown tea leaves also used to make gyokuro, unlike other forms of powdered tea, such as powdered sencha.

The preparation of matcha starts several weeks before harvest, when the tea bushes are covered to prevent direct sunlight. This slows down growth, turns the leaves a darker shade of green and causes the production of amino acids that make the resulting tea sweeter.

Only the finest tea buds are hand picked. After harvesting, if the leaves are rolled out before drying as usual, the result will be gyokuro (jewel dew) tea. However, if the leaves are laid out flat to dry, they will crumble somewhat and become known as tencha (碾茶). Tencha can then be de-veined, de-stemmed, and stone ground to the fine, bright green, talc-like powder known as matcha. It can take up to one hour to grind 30 grams of matcha.

Note that only ground tencha qualifies as matcha, and other powdered teas are known as konacha (粉茶, lit. "powder tea").

The flavour of matcha is dominated by its amino acids. The highest grades of matcha have more intense sweetness and deeper flavour than the standard or coarser grades of tea harvested later in the year (Wikipedia).

Matcha Cupcakes

Awesome weekend getaway with special friends, successful recipe trials, and pretty photographs of my babies make me one very happy girl! :)

Stick around for more updates from my kitchen!

Cupcake Craving

I am very encouraged that my friends do come to me and ask, "Bebe, if you have time, can I please have some more of this or that??" It is always my pleasure to cook/bake for them. I love the feeling of watching them eat, I love to see their smiles and satisfaction that they get from eating what I make for them. It is just very very rewarding.

A month ago, Andrew messaged me and said that he wanted some more Cookies and Cream cupcakes. I gave him some samples when I first made it. And you can guess the rest, it was love at the first BITE! ;) So yeah, i made him some more "Triple C Goodness" (that's how i call my cookies and cream cupcakes, in case you are wondering ;)....) This time around, he got to share it with his cell group friends and guess what? they all loved it too!! Andrew told me , "Rio ate so many of it and mind you, he's actually not a big fan of desserts..but in his words, (or somewhere along his words), Bebe made him like desserts!" AWWW.... *teary eyes*

Triple C Goodness

I love the icing. It tastes like Connoisseur's cookies and cream ice-cream. My fave ice cream!
The cupcakes itself still needs improvement. It's not as fluffy as how it should be, but I think I've found out how to make them fluffier. Whee... ^^v

2 more sleeps!

YAY!! 2 more sleeps til the end of my final exams.

after that... it's baking time!!
Along with the special Christmas Project I mentioned in my previous post, I have a few other things I want to try making. Oh, and some cake orders too!
Stay tuned!

Oh oh! I'm very very very happy today! I got a surprise gift from a dear friend. It's a 10 pieces Gum Paste tool set! Awww *teary eyes*... She did tell me that she wanted to get the things for me and I said the 5 pc will do. But today when she passed it to me, it was the 10 pc!! I didn't know that it will be this soon. And I didn't expect it to be the 10 pc!! awwww...*more teary eyes*
Thank you so much Jo!!! xoxo. I opened it already, but I promised I won't play with them until after 24th. ;) XOXO

B is out for some serious studying.
ciao!

bakingbee on facebook

bakingbee has set up a fan page on facebook.
Here's the link.
Do visit and be a fan. :)

What B has been up to lately...

studying hard!!!

B has been studying hard for her FINAL final exams. Yep, that's right! FINAL final exams! After 5 long years of sweat, blood, and tears (OK, I'm a bit exaggerating here, but you get the point.) I finally come to the end of my uni life. I actually still have one more paper to do next Tuesday, but at the mean time, I'm giving the sponge inside my head a rest.

Thinking about life after uni can be scary sometimes. You need to go out there and get a job, you need to be an adult who is fully responsible for your own life. To make matter even scarier, people have been telling me that it's a tough world out there. They tell me to enjoy my uni days as best as I can for before I know it, I will start to miss my uni days again.

Well, in a way, I did enjoy my 5 years of uni. Not all the time, because there were subjects that I just hated and dread, there were long-hours lab and mountains of scientific journals to read, essays, report and mini thesis to write. But hey, I survived! In all honesty, I am very thankful for these 5 long years. It is through these years that I found myself and my passion. I found friends worth keeping for eternity, I found love. I laugh and cry, rejoice and mourn.

So here I am, almost at the end of my uni days, ready to take myself to next phase in life. I'm scared of what lies ahead, of going back for good to Indonesia, and that shortly, I will not be able to physically be around my beloved friends. But one thing I know for sure, the Lord will not abandon me. And knowing that He holds my tomorrow somehow gives me assurance and peace to close my chapters in Melbourne.

PS. I have prepared a very special Christmas Project. Stay tuned! *giggles with excitement !! can't wait for it!*

ichigo. fragola. fraise

It's summer time! it's strawberry time! I love strawberry because it is such a pretty fruit and it smells so fragrant. One thing I don't really like about strawberries is that sometimes, they are sour! >.<" But but...when they are big, and red, and sweet, they are oh-so-heavenly! The sweetness and the strawberry-fragrance can leave a delightful sensation on your palate that will leave you happy for the rest of your day. There you go, another thing to be thankful for. Big juicy red strawberries!

something to be thankful for!

Another thing to be thankful for, CJ'! This strawberry cheesecake would never come to existence had it not been for him following my blog. How is that so ???

B received an sms from Yu Ying on Monday, saying that she found my blog and likes the cake and asked if it's ok if she ordered a cake from me. After the nitty gritty bit was settled, I braced myself to ask her where she found my blog from. Well, I guess by now you would've known the answer, eh? Yep! It's from CJ's blog. :) Oh how I love online social network!!

She doesn't want chocolate cake! So this is what I came up with...

Strawberry Cheese Cake

This is a prettier version of the Indonesian Cheesecake. Victoria sponge cake layered with fresh strawberries and cream, topped with shredded cheese. This time around, I managed to temper the chocolate a bit more properly. It was glossy, and it snaps! :)
Hope they enjoyed the cake.

B's out! Getting some study done while waiting for Yu Ying's feedback.

*update from Yu Ying*
"... Everyone loved the cake. It was really pretty & good. It tastes just nice and very fresh. So don't worry. Thanks very much for the great cake. Hugs :)... "

Hugs back too!! ^^v