Green Tea Honey Cake

January is well underway, and I'd like to give myself a little pat on the back. I haven't moved any mountains, but I'm still on the slow and steady path to checking things off of my todo list. I've wrapped up a handful of craft projects (and only started one new one), I'm still slowly making my way through the house cleaning/organizing as I go, and I've been good about adding tasks to my todo list as I find new things that need doing. How are you guys doing so far?



This past weekend I decided to tackle, or at least start to tackle, my pile of magazines, saved recipe pages, and stacks of binders full of recipes. I got as far as going through the binders and cleaning out all the recipes I'd tried and not been crazy about as well as some that I have no idea why I saved them in the first place. But as I was flipping the pages and moving things around I ran into a recipe I had saved almost a decade ago for a Green Tea Honey Cake. The recipe was from Cooking Light and was submitted by Ling Fong, then a culinary student, and it looked perfect. It had more eggs then I'm normally comfortable with, but there was no other fat and they say eggs are good for you, right? So I stopped sorting, stepped into the kitchen and made it. It came out great. I was light and fluffy, not too sweet and with a nice matcha flavor that showed through. Perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee.



Green Tea Honey Cake
by Ling Fong via Cooking Light, Mar '02
I added some process notes that might help you. I did a quick search and learned that quite a few people had problems with this recipe, but since it turned out for me I wanted to include the extra little things I noticed as I went.
 
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1/3 cup milk (fat-free is fine)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoons matcha powder or 2 Tbsp ground up green tea

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Coat a 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray; line bottom of pan with wax paper. Coat wax paper with cooking spray; set aside.
3. Place sugar, eggs, and yolks in a large bowl and whip with a mixer at medium speed until thick and pale (about 6 minutes). Don't skimp on this, if the batter isn't beaten properly the cake will turn out flat.
4. Whip milk and honey into the egg mixture, beating for a few seconds to fully incorporate.
5. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a small mixing bowl; add tea, stirring well with a whisk. Fold flour mixture into egg mixture, making sure to dig all the way to the bottom and incorporate the flour evenly, but don't beat out all the air that you spent all that time whipping in. Pour batter into prepared pan. It will fill the pan almost completely, but that's okay since there are no leavening agents and it won't rise too much.
6. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. The original time stated 30 minutes, but it took a full 10 minutes extra for me, and my oven normally runs a bit hot so check your cake at 30 min and don't worry if it takes longer. You will see quite a bit of color on top, but don't worry, that'll turn out delicious as long as it's cooked all the way through inside. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pan and cool completely. Enjoy!