Warning: these cupcakes are well LUSH!

Going over the top? It did occur to me that that might happen, but I wanted to recreate the Japanese dorayaki. Sweet flat pancakes with a sweet paste filling, ranging from red bean to green tea to peanut, these pancakes were the love of my life in high school. Easy to take around with you, to sneak into lecture halls (having not a strong smell that wifts around in the air and completely gives you away) and might I say, a great fashion accessory whilst shopping in town. Rather than attempting to make authentic dorayaki in case I screwed that up, I thought of bringing the dorayaki through a cupcake. More or less its essence - that is, through the flavours you can commonly find in such a pancake. Peanut butter, sugar, ground almonds and crushed biscuits is my way of making a sweet peanut paste. I hate it when it’s too crunchy, hence the ground almonds instead of roughly chopped peanuts but to prevent it from getting too fine and texture-less, sugar and crushed Digestives are the answer to all my troubles. Top that off with some peanut butter, and you’re well on your way to peanut heaven. At least, that’s my own opinion. I’ve created this almond-peanut filling which I think eradicates any peanut dilemma and because it is quite solid rather than paste-like or creamy, it’s perfect to mould into balls or little shapes you fancy.

The Purist boys are very difficult to cook for, as you might have already picked up on from the previous posts. The chocolate cupcakes from before with the naked buttercream scored a quick goal with James, however. I’d packed Anna and James one each for their trip to Portugal and was gladly surprised to receive a text from him soon after saying it was awesome. The girls are back in town. Most of them are, that is. So I now find myself in a more relaxed position when trying out recipes and I know these will be well-received. Keep an open mind, guys, open minds. Or rather, screw ‘em Purists. I have more important matters to be baking for this time - scroll down for more details.

Peanut, chocolate and green tea is quite a nostalgic combo and I think is a favourite for a lot of the Japanese. I’m so pleased with these babies I’m definitely going to make this again and again for friends. I love the touch of matcha as well not only because I’m a big big big - bordering on psychopathic - fan of tea (and wonder why the hell I wasn’t born in a different period, decked out in pretty dresses with luxurious fabric and alot of sleeves and mastering the true art of tea ceremony, etc. - my fantasy can play on) but because my eyes get so drawn in by the green.

The better quality your matcha, the greener it will be. For really green, powerful matcha, you can often use koicha instead of the cheaper, more astringent thin matcha or usucha. Anyway, this green frosting comes at the right time, welcoming spring. Plus, it’s a big in-your-face reminder to BE GREEN. Celebrate Earth Day and support the green movement with these guys; also check out LOKO if you’d like to be a green foodie.

*P/S: If you’re a tea fan, or a health-conscious dude/dudette and would like to know more about green tea and matcha, stay tuned to this blog. I’ll be posting up very soon a “Survey of Matcha”, lol. No it won’t be that formal but it’ll include my opinions about green tea, what I like about it, in what have I had green tea and a few info-bites of Japanese tea ceremony. Watch this space.

LIGHTS OUT, KNIVES OUT
Because I think this is for a good cause and it’s fun to participate in something, I’ve submitted this recipe for LOKO which is hosted by Celine of Black.Salt! I might have cheated just slightly because this was made during the day so there wasn’t any need for switching the lights on, I’d like to say (in support of myself) that the only electricity-consuming equipment that were used were: 1)the oven, 2)laptop for this post, 3)camera operating on rechargeable batteries for the foodshots. The softening of butter for the cupcakes or the frosting didn’t involve a microwave. Butter for the frosting merely used a little of the hot air from the hot oven - left the oven door slightly ajar to cool after the cupcakes were baked. I’d switched the heating of the house off as well (big sacrifice here because if you know my house, you’ll know it’s always bloody freezing!) so the kitchen was heated just by the hot air from an oven already switched off! Thought that was pretty genius of me. All beating of ingredients, mixing and all that jazz - the whole process, has been done lovingly by hand or arm, if you like, with an old wooden spoon. As a student, I’ve lost both my electric mixers and I think that’s a sign from the Big Guy up above. Also, all the washing up - yep, done by hand. No dishwasher here for me as well which eats up a heck load of electricity and water. So, to conclude, this has been one pleasant baking day. Have loads of cupcakes to share with the boys down the road and will be taking these goodies, along with some of yesterday’s Marmorkuchen round to Alex’s for a little tea chat. Cheers to Celine for organising LOKO and hope this aids in the spread of the awareness of the need to be green.

Chocolate Cupcake recipe (yields 24 regular cupcakes)
Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tbs coffee granules
1 1/2 cup milk (I used semi-skimmed)
2 tsp vanilla extract

This recipe was used in an earlier post Best Moist Chocolate Cupcakes inspired by Chockylit. I’ve used the recipe exactly as it is except for the sugar content - altering it to 1 1/2 cup white sugar as opposed to a combination of dark brown and white sugar. Click here for directions. It’s baked at 175d Celsius for 25min.

Almond-Peanut & Biscuit Filling (yields about 24 candy-sized cubes)
Ingredients

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup caster sugar
3 tsp whole milk
1/4 cup + 3 tbs ground almonds
4-5 digestive biscuits, crushed into nearly fine powder with some larger crumbly bits

Using a wooden spoon, beat the peanut butter in a bowl till nice and soft. Add the caster sugar and 2 tsp of milk, beat till creamy. Add the digestive biscuits, then last tsp of milk. This will starting getting quite sticky. Finally finish by adding the ground almonds. You can now roll them into balls or shape them into candy cubes which you can make before working on the cupcake batter.

Fill cups with a tablespoon of chocolate batter and then press a cube of filling into the it. Cover with 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoon of batter, this will bring the cups up to 2/3 full which is just right.

Matcha Frosting (recipe adapted from Chockylit)
Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter
8 oz cream cheese
3 cups icing sugar
2 tbs matcha powder (I have used a good quality cooking matcha, it doesn’t need to be a high quality matcha as the taste could get too strong for just a frosting)

Leave butter to soften. Beat till creamy. Add cream cheese and beat till even creamier. Add 3 cups of icing sugar and 1 tbs of matcha. Taste. Now you can add the next tbs if you think you need it. If you don’t want to ruin the taste by making it too bitter with an additional tbs, increase the sugar. I also recommend using matcha cooking sprinkles. You can easily find this from Japanese grocery shops or Oriental foodstores. They’re almost like crushed leaves, but they don’t have that intense a flavour. Nonetheless, they have a mild matcha flavour and give a great green colour.

I haven’t followed this frosting recipe exactly. Because I haven’t gotten round to getting a piping tip I wasn’t going to make this frosting a stiff one to pipe. I reduced the butter and somehow it became a really drippy frosting, which I thought was slightly odd. Tasted great still. The cream cheese really gave the matcha a whole new dimension. It wouldn’t have been the same without it. Also, because of the drippiness, these were even easier to ice. ‘Dripped’ about a tbs of matcha frosting on each cupcake and I was set. Not to worry though, when left out, such an icing will usually firm up. A winner.