green tea tofu cake

Ever since I tasted the green tea tofu cake that a colleague's gf brought to our house during a dinner session, which she bought from a downtown Japanese bakery, I have always wondered whether that can be made at home easily.

Last week, after searching for a few nights online, I concluded that either there aren't many fans of this cake in the English language websites or the cake is really hard to make bcoz I only manage to come across 1 recipe. I decided to try to make it last Saturday, since my brother and his gf were coming over to spend the weekend at our place.

Green Tea Tofu Cake (adapted from Green Tea Today)

Ingredients:

2 1/2tsp green tea powder

1 cup tofu (soft)

1 egg

3 tbsp butter, melted

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup pancake mix

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Sift together pancake mix and green tea powder. Set aside.

3. Drain water from the tofu package.

4. In a bowl, whip tofu until smooth with a blender or food processor.

5. Beat in egg, butter and sugar.

6. Add the flour mixture (pancake mix and green tea powder), mix thoroughly.

7. Pour batter into a loaf pan, and bake about 30min.

For the tofu, I used normal silken tofu (for steaming) available at local supermarket. The cake tasted moist, supple and quite fragrant but the texture was slightly on the dense side and more pancake-like (which is understandable since pancake mixture was used). The bakery bought version was much lighter and more fluffy. So while the 4 of us finished the whole cake, I still prefer the lighter and fluffier version.

So that night, I tried searching on Chinese language websites instead and found a couple of different versions. Maybe I will give them a try in future.

experimenting with various flavours

Having successfully tried out the easy chocolate cake recipe and falling in love with the taste and texture, early this month, I decided to be more adventurous and experimented with various flavours using the same recipe.

To make the process easier, I used muffin tray again instead of cake pan even though the recipe is meant for cake. I omitted the cocoa powder and in place of it, tried adding raisins to a quarter of the mixture, one whole tea bag of green tea leave (from a Japanese brand) to another quarter, one whole package of instant coffee granules to another and finally some blueberries (I happened to have just enough left in the fridge) to the last quarter.

To my utmost surprise, maybe I had too many failures previously, all 4 flavours turned out yummy. The blueberry ones were most delicious, followed by raisins (though not exciting), coffee and green tea. I think the green tea leaves were not meant for baking and therefore the taste was weaker but it was still quite delectable. It was a happy day for me.