Matcha (Green Tea) Cake with Taro Buttercream

I really love this combo and the cake was so delicious and moist. Definitely my favorite matcha cake recipe so far and I've been experimenting with them a lot in order to find the one I like the most.

Matcha cake (makes about 6-8 inch cake. If you do a 6, you'll probably have some batter left for cupcakes)!


3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tbs of matcha powder (or just kind of dump a nice amount in if you're like me and really love it)!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray your cake pan with baking spray or grease with butter.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, matcha, and salt. Stir the milk and vanilla together. Add the flour and the milk alternately to the butter mixture, starting and ending with the flour and beating on low speed. Put in the cake pan and bake at 350F for about 40 min to an hour. Check with a toothpick and this may vary depending on your oven so I recommend checking after 30 min and then so on.

Taro Buttercream (aka euphoria for the taste buds)

2 sticks of butter
4 cups of confectioner's sugar
1 tbs taro powder
2 tbs milk or heavy cream (more or less depending on warmth, your desire for consistency, etc)

Mix all together on low speed until well combined (you may want to mix taro and milk together first though to avoid any possible grainy texture)
Spread onto cake or in layers of the cake and enjoy!!

Ube Cake

UBE CAKE RECIPE - Besides macarons, the most highly requested!


I have a few different ways I made ube cake and I'll give you a couple. The first is the completely homemade way. The second is a super easy way great for those who are new to baking or in a hurry or just lazy and need a quick fix (sometimes that is me too)!

Ube cake (makes 12 cupcakes or a 6 inch cake)

*1/2 cup (one stick) butter
*3/4 cup sugar
*2 eggs
*2 tsp ube extract
*1 1/2 cups flour
*1/2 tsp baking powder
*1/4 tsp salt
*2/3 c cold milk

Preheat oven to 350 F
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time. Stir in ube. Add dry ingredients. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean

Easier ube cake

*Just get a box of white cake mix and add a teaspoon or two of ube extract. Bake as directed according to the box. *This quick, easy recipe is courtesy of my baker friend, Trish who can be found on IG @sosweetbites. It's really tasty and fluffy!


Coconut Buttercream

*2 cups of confectioner's sugar
*1 stick of butter
*1 tbs milk
*1 tsp coconut extract

*Cream butter and extract, slowly add confectioner's sugar on low speed, and add milk (more or less depending on what consistency you want).

Taro Donuts

I really love taro and decided I wanted to try homemade donuts again...with taro! I found this amazing recipe online and wanted to share it. I simply just changed it to add the taro, so instead of matcha powder, it was taro for me. Everything else remained the same! It was cake like and delicious. Here's a picture of my donut and a link below to where I found the recipe. Enjoy!

Recipe here! ----> http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/green-tea-donuts/

Lavender Honey Cake

Lavender Honey Ombre Cake



*I used four 6-inch wilton cake pans to create the ombre layers of purple. Pictured here:




Lavender Honey Cake Recipe:
*yield 12 cupcakes or a 4 layer, six inch cake

*1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
*1 tsp baking powder
*1/2 tsp salt
*8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
*1 cup sugar
*3 large eggs
*1 1/2 tsp of lavender extract (optional depending on how much lavender taste you want)
*3/4 cup milk
*1/2 cup honey


1. Mix together salt, flour, and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside
2. Cream together butter and sugar until well combined, then add the honey and lavender extract
3. Add milk and flour mixture, alternating between the two. Make sure it's on low speed as you add these
4. Separate mixture into four bowls and add food coloring to each to create the ombre effect
5. Pour mix into the four pans and bake for about 17-20 minutes at 325F. Check it with a toothpick to make sure it's ready
6. Remove from oven and let cool. Stack the cakes on top of each other placing frosting in between each layer


Lavender Buttercream
*1 tsp culinary dried lavender
*2 tbs milk
*1 stick butter
*2 cups confectioner's sugar

**If you don't want to go through the process of this or don't have culinary lavender, you can use 1 tsp lavender extract

1. Put dried lavender and milk in a small bowl and refrigerate for about two hours
2. Cream together butter and confectioner's sugar
3. Strain the lavender milk mixture and add to the buttercream. Add more milk if needed

OR if you don't do this, just add 1 tsp lav. extract and 1 tbs milk

Baking Measurement Conversions

Handy to have at your disposal! (found online; click to enlarge)

"Lofthouse" style cookies

I LOVE Lofthouse cookies or any cookies like them. You may have had them from Walmart or your local grocery store. They are cake like and have buttercream (usually colorful and with sprinkles) on top. Here is a recipe for them! It's not 100% exactly like them, but it's very close and very delicious ^^

Cookie:

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

*In a bowl, combine butter, sour cream, sugar, eggs, and vanilla and mix well.
*In a second bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and powder, and salt).
*Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix well.
*With a tablespoon, scoop out cookie dough and form into even balls. Slightly flatten the balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
*Bake at 350F until a light gold brown which will be about ten minutes. It will seem undercooked but it is not.
*Let cool before frosting with buttercream.


Buttercream frosting (standard recipe):

1 stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 tbs of milk (may need more or less; just test it out)
Gel food coloring, if desired

*Mix all ingredients well (starting with butter, then vanilla, slowly add sugar and finally, milk and coloring)
*Frost your cookies!

Ube Cheesecake

I love ube and cheesecake so naturally, I thought a combo of the two would be amazing and it was! :)

I used a basic cheesecake recipe for this and simply added ube. It turned out very delicious, but next time, I will use MORE UBE! It was
very subdued so I think maybe 2 tablespoons would work better ;) Ube is also naturally purple so you will get a beautiful color when you make it.

Crust
an 11 oz box of Nilla wafers (crush in a food processor)
1/3 cup of melted butter

Mix wafers and butter and spread onto an 8 inch springform pan


Cheesecake filling

4 packages of full fat and softened cream cheese
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp ube extract (I will increase to 2 tbs next time because 2 tsp wasn't enough for my ube obsession)!
4 eggs

Beat cream cheese, sugar on low speed. Add eggs one at a time, still on low speed. Finally, add ube extract.

Pour the mixture onto the crust. Bake for 55 minutes at 300F if using a nonstick or dark pan; 325F for all others. Refrigerate and it will be ready to serve in about 3 hours.


Ube buttercream frosting

1/2 stick of butter
1 cup of confectioner's sugar
1 tsp ube extract
1 tbs milk