Matcha Layer Cake with Black Sesame Cream Cheese
After one helluva year, cramming in last minute shoots for clients, and Christmas looming, I had no idea what to make for a show stopping dessert this Christmas with the family. I celebrate twice, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve had the bigger crowd, and when I found this gorgeous cake on Pinterest, I knew my Christmas dreams had been answered. I don’t know why the green from matcha didn’t even cross my mind before seeing it. Amy from Constellation Inspiration has a totally gorgeous blog, and the copious amount of pictures of this cake had me sold in no time.
My family are a tough crowd to please, so I was worried the cake would be dry, that they would have preferred a pavlova smothered in cream and fruit instead, and that it would be only dessert and it would be awful. LUCKILY, THEY LOVED IT!
My mum even had two slices OMG, and my aunty loved it so much, she even got on instagram (which she never does) just to remind me how good it was! It was moist and fluffy. The crazy amount of matcha did manage to keep my mum up all night though, but it was worth it 😉 The black sesame frosting is a great compliment to the cake as well. One to definitely make again, and again and again!
Matcha Layer Cake with Black Sesame Cream Cheese
Print RecipeIngredients
Matcha Cake
- 440 g granulated sugar
- 450 g butter at room temperature
- 450 g plain flour
- 4.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp of salt
- 8 eggs
- 4 heaping tbsp of matcha powder
- 4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
Black sesame cream cheese filling
- 1 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 250 g cream cheese
- 225 g white sugar
- 1/2 cup ground black sesame
Meringue Kisses
- 2 egg whites
- 125 g caster sugar
Instructions
The Cake Base
- Pre-heat your oven to 180°C. Line two 23cm cake pans with parchment paper.
- With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until it becomes pale yellow in colour. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until eggs are well incorporated. Add the vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift matcha powder over the flour - you do not want large clumps of matcha in your cake! Add in the baking powder and salt. Mix well.
- Add the bowl of dry ingredients to the bowl of the wet ingredients. Slowly add in the half cup of milk (adjust the amount of milk based on the consistency of the batter). Equally divide the batter between the pans and bake cake for 40 - 45 minutes, checking the doneness of the cake at around 35 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before removing/cutting it.
- Once the cakes have completely cooled, cut each equally into half to form four layers in total.
- To assemble, place a layer of cake down and smother on a generous portion of the cream cheesing filling. Alternate between the cake layer and cream cheese layers until you have a cake with desired cake and cream cheese layers.
- Decorate the cake however you like. I used a combination of matcha meringues, berries and flowers. Before I topped the cake with berries and flowers, I dusted a thin coat of matcha sugar on the top layer of the cake - I thought this made the cake look more presentable. To make the matcha sugar, just sift matcha powder over icing sugar and the amount of matcha depends on what colour you want the matcha sugar to be. You can skip this step if your top layer is a cream cheese layer (versus a naked cake layer).
Black sesame cream cheese
- In a bowl, beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, and ground black sesame. Beat until smooth, then gently fold in whipped cream with a spatula.
- (I found beating with the electric whisk for another couple of minutes necessary as it was too runny).
Meringue Kisses
- Preheat the oven to 130C and line a baking sheet with baking paper.
- In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer. Add the sugar one spoon at a time. When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a pastry bag. Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1.5 hours, turn off oven, and let meringues sit in the oven overnight if possible. Meringues should be dry to the touch and can be easily removed from baking sheet.
Notes
Shihoko
This is the most beautiful matcha cake I have ever seen seriously. I have just baked a strawberry short cake but I am not going to post it after I see this. I have got a lot to learn and improve. I am thinking to attend one of your workshop may be next year<3, so in love with your all work. Just stunning and look delicious.
Iron Chef Shellie
awww thank you Shihoko 🙂 I’m sure your shortcake was lovely and delicious! Hope to see you on one our of workshops next year 🙂
Amy
AHHHH IM SO IN LOVE!!!! I’m so glad it turned out so well for you! …And your photos?! Beyond amazing!
Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
What a gorgeous cake and you are super cute in that outfit too! So good to see you the other day and thank you for the delicious cupcakes. They were heavenly!
Sarah
Hi Shellie I’m making the recipe right now! The ingredients list calls for 1 cup of milk but in the recipe method you said “add the half cup of milk”. So is it half or 1 cup of milk for the recipe? 🙂
Iron Chef Shellie
Hi Sarah,
You add in half a cup, if you feel you need extra milk, you add more. I copied the recipe from the site I got it off 🙂
Cristina
You put in your recipe list “plain flour”. I’m not sure what that means. What flour did you use?
Iron Chef Shellie
I used “plain flour”. You may find that “All purpose flour” is the same thing. 🙂 Else, try googling it!
Jess Jo
My favourite combo!! Can I use black sesame paste instead of grounding them from scratch?