If you’ve not tried baking with matcha yet, these matcha cupcakes with white chocolate are a good place to start. The flavour is intriguing, but delicious. The green tea notes are nicely offset by the white chocolate.
Something green for We Should Cocoa, Chele stated! Err, well, OK. After last month’s testing challenge, why not have another one? Only when I thought about it, it wasn’t that difficult after all.
It’s been a while since I last used matcha (powdered Japanese green tea) in a cake and here I was presented with the perfect opportunity to use it again. In fact I had a whole load of cakes to make and wanted different colours, textures, flavours and sizes, so matcha cupcakes would be perfect – or so I hoped! A bit of a left of field choice perhaps, but I thought they were worth the risk.
More on why I needed so many cakes in this post: Cakes for a Book Swap.
The cakes were based on some green tea and white chocolate cupcakes that I made a couple of years ago – see photo above. I made them for CT’s birthday as green tea brings back happy memories of his time in Japan. Sadly, I had no matcha powder. So I ground up some Japanese green tea leaves instead.
Although the cupcakes tasted good, they didn’t look particularly lovely. In other words they weren’t green. The sponge was light and moist with a good crumb structure. The cakes had a subtle hint of tea that lingered on the palate and the flavour was echoed nicely by the ganache topping. Combined with the richness of the white chocolate, it was first class according to CT, who snaffled a pre-birthday taster.
White Chocolate Matcha Cupcakes
This time I used matcha green tea powder rather than trying to grind my own tea leaves. As you can see, it worked much better and the icing was something altogether different.
Well, I don’t want to crow, but these proved to be a sensation. The cakes were soft, moist and delicious and the white chocolate buttercream was to die for. The white chocolate proved the perfect foil for matcha’s grassy notes. Along with the Coffee & Walnut cake, these proved to be the most popular item. I did have to do a fair amount of explaining what this matcha thing was all about though!
Other Recipes for Green Cakes You Might Like
Just in case your stuck for green ideas, how about a spinach cake? Here is a slice of Turkish spinach cake I tried at Truro market last year.
- Chocolate & matcha battenberg
- Kale apple cake
- Matcha blondies
- Matcha madeleines
- Nettle cupcakes
- Spinach cake with lemon
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these matcha cupcakes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips or favourite flavour combinations? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
White Chocolate Matcha Cupcakes. PIN IT.
Matcha Cupcakes – The Recipe
Matcha & White Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 50 g white chocolate
- 80 g unsalted butter - softened
- 125 g golden caster sugar (I used homemade vanilla sugar)
- 1 large egg (I used a duck egg)
- 125 g flour (half wholemeal, half plain)
- 1 scant tsp baking powder
- ⅛ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp matcha powder
- 3 tbsp sour cream or crème fraîche
Matcha Buttercream Icing
- 50 g white chocolate
- 80 g unsalted butter - softened
- 160 g golden icing sugar
- 2 tsp matcha powder
- 2 tbsp double cream
Instructions
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot, but not boiling water. Keep the bowl as it will be needed again.
- Meanwhile, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the chocolate, followed by the egg.
- Sift in the dry ingredients, discarding any large pieces of bran left in the sieve and mix.
- Stir in the sour cream.
- Spoon the mixture into 12 cupcake moulds lined with cases and bake at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 20 minutes when the cakes should be well risen and golden.
Matcha Buttercream Icing
- Melt the chocolate, in the same bowl used previously, over a pan of hot water and leave to cool a little.
- Cream the butter and icing sugar until very soft.
- Add the matcha powder and cream some more.
- Beat in the chocolate, followed by the cream.
- Spoon onto the cupcakes and top each one with a white chocolate button.
Love the real green colour – not bright and artificial.
I’ve never used matcha powder – they look fantastic though and great way of getting the green colour.
Thanks MCB – I was rather taken with the colour 🙂
Lovely to see you, however late. Although I didn’t get a picture, the cake is also a lovely shade of green!
Sorry-bit late in dropping in here. Have to say-natural green topping-fantastic-very clever indeed Choclette!!
Matcha rules! These are a brilliant idea for this month’s WSC challenge, which sadly I have not done yet!
Thanks Karen – there’s still time 🙂
I have never used match powder. Yours look pretty and inviting.
Lovely to hear from you MaryMoh – it’s not only pretty but works really well in baking too.
I love baking with matcha but have not done so for a long time so this would be a good recipe to remedy that. Love the green colour and I can just imagine the taste – please send some over! Can’t wait to hear why you need so many cakes!
ps if you wanted to multi task, these would be a good “M” entry to AlphaBakes 🙂
Hehe Ros. I may well be multi-tasking on another post, but not this one. I was quite tempted though 😉
I love green tea in baking and this looks (and sounds) like a brilliant recipe. Yummy 🙂
Thank you Jaime. I feel a green tea baking book is needed 😉
Did the cake taste very chocolate-y? And was it green?? They look utterly gorgeous, and I love the pale green of the icing, I’m not surprised they went down a storm!
Not really chocolatey C, but it sort of melted in the mouth and had a certain richness to it that I think came from the chocolate. And yes the cakes were green. It’s a shame I didn’t take a picture of the inside – I did manage to try one!
Ooh I like matcha! These cupcakes look amazing – great combination with the white chocolate as well. Yum!
Thanks Clare – glad to find another matcha fan 🙂
I’ve never baked with matcha either but these look absolutely delicious. I’m a sucker for white chocolate anyway, and I bet the green tea cuts through beautifully. Yum.
Yes, it is a great combination. I find white chocolate on it’s own too much for me these days, but I do like it in baking, especially with fruit and um, well, matcha!
I agree that it wasn’t as hard as at first green seemed – I had quite a few ideas but not so much time – love the sound of these – I found that when I cooked with matcha it had a slighty bitter edge that would go well with white chocolate – is that right?
Yes, Johanna, it is a bit bitter and I think that’s why it works so well with white chocolate. I’m in my usual state of not keeping up, but will be over to see what you’ve been getting up to recently soon.
What I love about reading food blogs is learning something new. I’d never heard of macha before and now I do and am interested in how I can use it in a recipe. Thanks and the cakes look great.
It’s great isn’t it. I’ve done so many new things since I started blogging.
Finally someone on my wavelength – green isn’t that tough a challenge teehee. Lovely cuppies and a pretty genius interpretation of the challenge this month too ;0)
Thanks Chele – I guess we have to keep these folks on their toes 😉
I just know I would love these cakes. What a good choice using white chocolate with green tea powder to make the prettiest green icing but with bags of good flavour too. Bet you must have been pleased with the reaction you got for baking these! x
Thanks Laura. I was thrilled with people’s reactions and I’m glad you thought the colour was pretty too.
all the explaining… every month… ‘why green?’ … ‘why savoury?’… ‘why is there chocolate in everything?’…. its exhausting!… but quite, quite fun!… these do look sensational Choclette… I actually want to taste one now!… please…?
Oh Dom, you are sounding weary – it must be having to deal with all that fame. It can be tough being at the top 😉 Perhaps one of these would revive you.
Wow, that icing looks awesome – and I love that you achieved this color without any food dye! Very creative and love this…
Thanks JW. I prefer not to use food dyes, but love it when I can use ingredients that give a good colour.
Great minds think alike ! This is really a wonderful combination! I like the lovely color frosting of these delicious cupcakes! LOVELY! 🙂
Thanks Kit. I’m thinking we ought to form a matcha fan club 😉
These look very tasty indeed, notwithstanding the green, or even maybe because of it. I must try matcha. x
Kath, I think you’d like matcha.
Green is always a mystery! They look very cute and tasty though.
Hazel, matcha is delicious in cakes, even if you’re not a green tea lover – it just seems to work. AND it is fun to have unusual colours.
They sound so interesting and look so tasty, I can quite see why they were so popular. I love opportunities to share my baking, don’t you? Jude x
Jude, sharing is definitely the fun bit about baking – as long as I get good feedback anyway 😉
Thank you Kate. It was great fun introducing people to something they’ve never had before and it’s not nearly the acquired taste one might think.
I’ve yet to bake with matcha Choclette, but these very teasingly tempting cupcakes remind me why I really ought to! Really pleased they were a huge hit!